cubanbread

I'm not as up to speed as you guys so you may have already known this but while reading about the possible extension into Lakeland I also saw an interview with someone from FDOT where he spoke about how they have a tentative plan to expand to Daytona as well. The interview was only from 2021. https://www.news-journalonline.com/videos/business/travel/2021/10/15/watch-fdot-official-talks-possibly-extending-sunrail-line-daytona-airport/8467803002/ If Duval and St. Johns pull off their proposed commuter line and Sunrail gets to Daytona, the chances of a Daytona to Jacksonville extension increase substantially. Also, Sunrail to Lakeland is going to start more serious conversations on extensions to Plant City, Brandon, and Tampa. If you've never been, Plant City has great bones. It could easily be another DeLand . Brandon sucks and will always suck but its a prominent suburb and it would be nearly impossible that it wouldn't get a stop.

St. Pete has 2 Publix's downtown but only one is urban format, the other was built in the traditional suburban plaza style but I don't really blame them for this, they built that location long before St. Pete became cool. St. Pete also just started running the SunRunner which is legit BRT (at least the portion outside of St. Pete Beach) it started off free and has been incredibly popular thus far.. they were even going to extend the time frame that it was going to remain free but politicians in St. Pete Beach claimed that it was attracting homeless people and now the service is paid via a tap system. I think the officials in St. Pete beach are lying to be honest because they have a history of trying to kill or cripple the Sunrunner, but setting that context aside, I am sympathetic to the requirement that transit needs to be clean and safe to attract more average riders, I think this is a big factor in Brightline's success actually, people are willing to pay $15 for a Brightline ticket compared to $5 on Tri-Rail and I think a lot of that has to do with cleanliness and perceived safety.

Orlando is going to be fine man. It's not the only city in the US with a homeless problem trust me. I live in St. Pete which is seeing major growth and we've unfortunately had a bad homeless problem for many years, in fact, some have set up camp right outside of my apartment. This is a US problem. You live in Orlando, I get to view it from an outside perspective. For whatever problems DTORL is experiencing right now, you guys still have one of the best urban fabrics of any FL city. Not to mention Orlando has the best surburbs of any FL city. Winter Park, Winter Garden, Sanford, Deland and even Kissimmee all have great starts to smaller urban cores and you have a rail service that services almost all of these places.. yes, the service sucks now... BUT YOU HAVE SERVICE and it's more likely that it's going to get better over time than something catastrophic like it being discontinued. Tampa Bay is made up of several cities and NONE of them are connected by rail...there are only like 6 buses a day between Tampa and St. Pete and the ferry is only seasonal. You guys are complaining about the airport not having Sunrail yet and we have like 2 buses that serve TPA which while not the size of Orlando or Miami is still a very busy airport. The Sunshine Corridor is going to happen, Orlando is going to continue to grow and Tampa Bay will eventually get Brightline and a local rail network... but I'm with you... it's taking too long.

Great article. Florida has been doing pretty well lately when it comes to TOD. SunRail's frequency is trash but there was an article that came out last year that stated the system attracted 72 TOD projects around its stations totaling about 2 billion in construction value. (https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2022/03/24/sunrail-transit-oriented-development.html) Even a class A suburb like DeBary is getting in on the action. Tampa doesn't have heavy rail yet, but the development along the Streetcar line is jaw-dropping and it's only the start of 2 massive mixed-use projects currently under construction. 2017 - 2023 I'm really curious to see how the west side of Downtown West Palm Beach develops in the coming years. Brightline and Tri-Rail both sit on the under developed side of US1 and are about .6 miles apart which fits perfectly in that TOD range. They also sit blocks away from Clematis St. which is like their Orange Ave. Seems like a perfect storm for that city.

Interesting. I've watched about 3 or 4 videos and they all showed them arriving on time.

I think there will be 2 more stops added between Miami and Orlando. One will be somewhere in Brevard and the other will be on the Treasure Coast in either Martin or St. Lucie.. The funny thing is, the Treasure coast stop was the requirement of a lawsuit filed against Brightline that was eventually settled with an organization called Citizens Against Rail Expansion in Florida...they literally tried to stop Brightline from expanding to Orlando only to settle and require that they add a stop in their area. Almost certainly, these stops will be served with the same frequency as the Boca and Aventura stations to keep the majority of the trains running from MIA to MCO at that 3hour or so time frame. The Treasure coast stop has to be in service within 5 years as part of the settlement.

There are as many people that want a stop in the Treasure coast as there are people that don't. Stuart was supposedly the town that was the most against Brightline but when the train took its inaugural trip to Orlando more people showed up to railfan in Stuart than any other town along the way.

Brightline and SunRail are getting funding from the federal government. 7 mill will go to SunRail to make safety improvements at the crossing along the line and just under 2 million will go to Brightline to help create an AI powered system that helps collect data on where people illegally trespass along its tracks. The rest will go to various projects in the Panhandle, SWFLA, and SFLA to help upgrade bridges and tracks. A portion will also workforce development for the rail industry. A drop in the bucket but a step in the right direction none the less. https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2023/09/26/florida-brightline-sunrail-federal-funds-infrastru.html

Congrats Orlando friends, I just watched some of the footage of the first train rolling into Orlando. This is massive not only for Orlando but the whole Florida Peninsula Megaregion.

I took a trip to Ireland last year out of MCO, the round trip ticket was under $460. If I would have flown out of Tampa it would have been closer to $700 and I would have had to layover in Atlanta or Dallas. I imagine one-way tickets from Tampa to Orlando wouldn't exceed $50 so an extra $100 to the overall ticket price would still be cheaper, plus no layover or worrying about parking. I'd be flying out of MCO all the time. That being said, TPA is a fantastic airport, Its consistently ranked as one of the best big airports in the country, it's not going to stop growing or adding new international flights so my guess is that it would be more of a symbiotic relationship. For example, the existence of TPA hasn't stopped the growth of PIE in Pinellas County which is literally right on the other side of Old Tampa Bay, and the existence of TPA and PIE hasn't stopped the growth of SRQ in Sarasota which is less than an hour south of TPA and PIE. It would just be another option.

Getting through Orlando is the trickiest part. I don't think a station at Disney Springs specifically is necessary for the extension to Tampa to be successful. Brightline will offer the first/last-mile connection to Disney. The theme parks are only one part of the line; you'll still have people from Tampa, like myself, who will be using Brightline to go to MCO for direct flights to destinations that TPA doesn't fly direct to. You'll also have everyone from Tampa who will be going to SFLA, which, if you've ever looked at weekend Amtrak capacity from TPA to MIA, is consistently at 90% full or sold out. A lot needs to happen, and a lot can happen both negatively and positively. But who would have guessed back in the early 2000s or shortly after the HSR line between Tampa and Orlando was canceled in 2010 that we'd have a line running from Miami to Orlando? Or that SunRail would be expanding to DeLand? SunRail is imperfect, but the line is running, it's expanding, and it's drawing development. Polk County wants SunRail to reach them; Brevard is likely going to get a Brightline station. These are conservative counties that in the past would have shunned the idea of passenger rail reaching their borders. Even up in NE Florida, a serious proposal for a commuter line from Jacksonville to St. Augustine has been announced. It would run on the FEC line, which I think makes a Brightline expansion to Jacksonville far more likely. Every single Florida city is rapidly densifying. Tampa went from having fewer than 3,000 people living downtown in 2007 to a current downtown population of over 15,000, and that's without Water Street, GasWorx, Ybor Harbor, and the various other proposed projects downtown being fully built out. Downtown Tampa could realistically have a population of 45,000 or more in the next 15 years. That's just Tampa; I know it's happening in Orlando, Jacksonville, FTL, West Palm, and Miami too. Connecting Orlando to Tampa's biggest obstacle is funding, from what I can tell, but there are multiple organizations working on this. Brightline has already worked with the state to get the rights to run down the median of I-4. We're in better shape than we ever have been, is basically what I'm saying. And Brightline is looking for government help; personally, I don't care how the line gets funded, I just want it to happen.

We're still waiting to hear Brightline announce where the Tampa station is going to be. Over on Skyscraper City we've been able to deduce that the Marion Transit Center in Downtown Tampa is probably the most likely location. There's a developer in Ybor who has had discussions with Brightline but we know Brightline wants to own the land so they can develop around it, so while there's space and Ybor is a great urban location, the Ybor developer, Daryl Shaw, has already started to build out his GasWorx project so it just seems less likely now. The Marion Transit Center location was where the original 2010 station was going to be. As for the Rays, there still needs to be a final vote by county commissioners and the city of St. Pete but it's basically a done deal, all of them were in attendance at the announcement many of them spoke. It's a pretty big deal, a lot of people thought they should have moved to Tampa but St. Pete has moved past playing little brother to Tampa. The new park is going to be part of a massive mixed-use development that's going to take up the entire Tropicana field site, it will be equivalent to The Battery in Atlanta, maybe even a little bigger with the benefit of it being in the urban core and not in the burbs like Atlanta's development. People, rightly so, dislike the fact that any public money is going towards a sports stadium, but The Rays are chipping in over 600 million and again the whole development is just such a big deal that I think it offsets the negative. Right now the land directly around the trop is just a massive parking lot while the rest of St. Pete is booming, so to fill that gap in with a dense, walkable community is a big deal.

I see you guys have contrarians on your board as well. They're always a fun bunch.

If that's true, then I think that explains even further why Brightline doesn't seemed phased. They had a back up plan and now they don't have to adhere to any Disney specs.

Yeah, Ybor is going to be the main terminal (hopefully at or near Union Station), We Tampanians are hoping they add some secondary stops but the true dreamers amongst us are hoping Brightline uses the new transit lane on the expanded Howard Franklin Bridge to go all the way to St. Pete.

Once you start digging a bit further into the news that Disney backed out you start to realize that all they did was weasel themselves out of building the station while simultaneously continuing to benefit from a nearby stop. Maybe this opens the door to a casino stop in Tampa now since Brightline doesn't have to cater to what Disney wants.

The Capitol should be moved from Tallahassee to Orlando but that's a topic for another day.

I'm unfamiliar, has Disney been vocal in blocking casinos in Florida in the past?

The data doesn't really support that. Ridership forecasts predict the Tampa to Orlando route would take up about 11% of the travel market between Tampa and Orlando (it's currently 99% car right now) and 15% of the market between Tampa and Miami (also in the high 90% range for cars right now) Both Tampa to Orlando and Tampa to Miami fall into the sweet spot where taking rail competes with or is an outright better option than driving or flying. That option becomes even better when you factor in how much worse i-4 is going to get in the coming years. I don't know if a Disney route or a Universal route is a better option, either way people from Tampa Bay will be connected the parks. Additionally, MCO will be a draw for a lot of riders. Tampa has one of the best airports in the country but we only have 1 direct to Central America and 2 direct to Europe. A direct shot to MCO opens up a lot of travel options. On the flip side, Brightline will be stationed in Ybor in the middle of the Gasworx project, connected via street car to Water Street, and Tampa Heights...not to mention the CBD....(If you're unfamiliar with Water Street, Gasworx, and Tampa Heights I would suggest looking these developments up.) Additionally, Tampa's stop is a short streetcar ride to the Tampa Bay Convention Center, Port Tampa Bay, and Crossbay Ferry to St. Pete so there are a lot of reasons residents from each city would ride. Not in the works but some things I wouldn't be surprised to be announced eventually would be a stop at the Casino/ Fairgrounds in Tampa since it's right on I-4 and an eventual extension to St. Pete. That last one might seem like a pipe dream but the current Howard Frankland bridge expansion is being built with space to accommodate rail and the 275 median has more than enough space to accommodate rail as well. Considering St. Pete might be one of the hottest markets in the state, you would understand why Brightline would want to get there. The thing people need to take into consideration when talking about Brightline is that they're not just a train service, they're looking to make their money the transit oriented development around their stops. Orlando doesn't really give them that opportunity but expanding to Tampa Bay does. Just a thought.

There's more reason to believe that it will be built than it won't. The fact that people are competing to have it come near them, to me, is a good sign. So far, Brightline line has done pretty much everything they said they would. They got a line running through South Florida, they're building the line to Orlando, they're expanding service in South Florida, and they've completed negotiations to build down I-4 to Tampa. In Tampa they're already working with a developer named Daryl Shaw to build a station in Ybor. Granted, we're still several years away from seeing the connection to Tampa and a lot can happen but if we zoom out and look at plans for HSR in Florida over the last several decades...the fact something is now under construction should give anyone hope.

I honestly don't know but I've heard how CSX can be to work with so I'm sure they'll try to pull something like this. I think the county still wants to go with these tracks because the headaches they may get from dealing with CSX are likely going to be less severe than the ones they would encounter trying to build all new lines.

I certainly don't think it was simply because he was a republican that he managed to get it shot down, I think it's because he's an asshole. One of the biggest cheerleaders for density and transit in Tampa Bay, Mark Sharpe, is a republican, he's no longer an elected official which might actually be a good thing but he's been putting in work to re-energize North Tampa. The county commission is pretty pro-transit, 5 out of 7 sit on the board of transportation in the region, but there's one dem on the board that seems a little lost when it comes to mass transit, she tried to get the percent allocated to HART reduced. It's definitely not as clear cut politically as one would think.

What do you think the chances are the tax passes? In 2018 in Hillsborough we had a tax referendum that passed by 16% but a republican commissioner claimed the people didn't know what they were voting for, got it sent to the courts where it was shutdown. The referendum was grassroots and the courts essentially said that only government officials had the right to dictate how tax money was spent. Today the Hillsborough County Commission voted to put a new referendum back on the ballot, it passed 6-1 with the lone no vote being the same commissioner that got the last referendum turned over. The breakdown of the funds allocated are essentially the same as they were in 2018 with 45% going to our transit agency HART. It would expand the bus fleet, extend the street car to Tampa Heights and likely help to buy the CSX tracks north from Downtown to Ybor and USF (eventually Brooksville) and NW connecting it to the Airport and possibly into Pinellas. There's also a line of CSX tracks that run from Union Station through South Tampa hitting some of our densest neighborhoods like Noho, Soho, Hyde Park, Palma Ceia, Port Tampa, and the University of Tampa but I don't know if this line is on the table Because of prior bad luck with these referendums I'm a little pessimistic it will pass again, mostly because I think people will be confused...but I think statistically speaking it's going to be hard to flip a previous 57% back down to 49%. Hillsborough and Orange have very similar electorates so my guess is that you have a good shot at this getting passed. The OBX line is great especially if it eventually gets extended to Lake County as it passes right through a lot of those little lake towns like Mount Dora. Who knows, with a little luck, in 10 years Tampa, Orlando, and Miami will all be connected by Brightline and we'll all have our own beefed up systems to help people get around as well. I'm cautiously optimistic but there's never been a better chance olf this happening in my lifetime.

Gotcha. Though I would still disagree that "potential development" is still a long way away (depending on your definition of "long way") I think it's more likely than not that this area gets development before the train station. It's simply too big of a connecting point between Ybor, Channelside, and Water Street to go undeveloped for much longer especially since it's all connected via the street car which has been a major reason why the south east end of Tampa has exploded in the last 20 years. I'm thinking in terms of the next decade not the next 5 years.

Not true. Brightline is working with a developer named Darryl Shaw. Shaw owns the land that Brightline wants to build the station on he also is the owner of the Tampa Park land and several of the industrial lots around the potential station. Whether or not it happens is besides the point the potential for development is not only there it may be one of the most coveted sections of Tampa's urban core. It will most likely be to Tampa in the 2020's what Tampa Heights was in the 2010's and Channelside was in the 2000's. Anyway, sorry to "derail" the convo. I know this is an Orlando thread I'm just excited about the potential of better service from Tampa to Orlando as I used to take amtrak back and fourth all the time.