illliterate02
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Posts posted by illliterate02
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Who mentioned HSR? You can say that he didn't back the commuter rail in Central Florida, but he did. Moving CSX traffic so that commuter trains could use the tracks during peak hours is the only way that it could be done with the amount of funds being allocated at this time. This area is also a post-car era growth city and is not fond nor used to the idea of using trains. Even though this is going to cost a lot of money, you have to look at this first stretch of commuter rail as a test for us. When Bush first attacked the HSR which the voters asked for, I felt like this was one of the worst things that could happen in Florida's future growth. Then, after thinking about this, I also started to see that we are not quite ready for HSR in Florida. If Orlando is to be the hub of this great rail network, which I believe wholeheartedly that it should, there must be a way of transporting passengers to business and tourist destinations once here. This also holds true of other areas of the state that the HSR would stop. The only place you can get around once you have arrived is Miami. Tampa is talking about commuter rail in their area. Miami is expanding theirs even further. Orlando is just getting started. Jacksonville needs to continue their efforts. Once these areas have ways to get around other than hailing a taxi, which isn't something you can readily do on any street in downtown Orlando other than Friday night at Church Street, then we will be ready for HSR in Florida. I would love to see all of this happen all at once, but tax is a curse word in Florida and without additional tax revenue, this won't happen yet. YET.
I think the criticism comes from the fact that they have waited to build things after the relevance of them has passed. If we have built the HSR 10 years ago... well it would still be underconstruiction, but we would have growth that was trying to accomidate that. We would also have more local oppurtunities to expand our transporational methods. Now, we are going to use a Commuter Rail (which really wont serve a lot of people) in a place that has just been reinforced by car culture forever. The Commuter Rail is not really going to aleviate the problem, its just a symbol to say "we did something." I love it, but I am totally sure that it is going to be a failure. It runs through suburban america and their SUV's, to downtown (where I am sure most people that work there are not going to ride the train) to south orlando where people work in the theme parks anyways. I am really critical of this because it doesnt seem like a real alternative or even that the government of Florida wants a real alternative. If we did push HSR and we did push light rail, those seem like alternatives and if the government made the initiative, then it could have worked. The lack of progression in Florida is totally killing me. We have the oppurtunity to grow smartly and preserve our beautiful state, yet no one cares... as long as they get a house with a yard and 5 yrs later they move back to NY because they miss the city lifestyle.... and the train. If you build it they will come, dont just switch "it" for the step son of the original intention. Commuter rail should have been operational 20 years ago.
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"Voila!" is right... but it's a matter of getting the tourists downtown or on the train to the attractions area. Hmm. It's not a bad observation. Plus, if they did build a hotel in Center Place it would be a great stop from the airport for business people heading downtown.
There is a lot of new development out this way as well.... I think that it could materialize in a few more years... definatley after 2013 because the main line from Downtown to Poinciana wont even be completed yet.
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I feel like the second phase of the line is almost pointless unless it opens with some other form of rail connecting the Sand Lake station to the airport and the I-Drive attractions area.
there is a lot of people that live down there.... it would be as pointless as the northern section.
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Some of those locations in the previous post were also proposed for the high speed rail to connect between OIA, tourist corridor, and then on to Lakeland and Tampa. That got killed, too. I think that may have a better chance of happening once we have more rail in place waiting for it in Orlando. Tampa has some rail in Ybor and I believe more coming in their downtown. Miami has more rail than us already and that is the proposed 2nd leg of the HSR. Maybe in some of our lifetimes our entire state will have rail in the major metro areas and interconnected by high speed rail. That would be real tight. And I think this can only start happening faster as the price of gas continues to rise.
With gas reaching 3$ a gallon it wouldnt be to difficult to get funding for that... I dont believe... We need something going east to west though... and something from the airport to the attractions.... I think we can get something happening in a few years... Orlando is starting to develop a sense of community.
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What the heck is a Puerto Rican league, and why would a place not in Puerto Rico have a Peurto Rican team. Let's start a Russian Ice Skating League even though America has the NHL.
Maybe because there is a population of 200.000+ Puerto Ricans in the metro area and growing, which would be a sizeable city in PR. They figure they can take advantage of the recognition of their people and their athletes... seeing as how Puerto Ricans are really proud of their people and their achievements.
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That's flat out wrong. The NFL went to LA to try to get an expansion team started and no one in LA was interested in getting a new stadium built, so the NFL went to Houston instead.
No one wants to fork over the cash to do it.... If you ever pay attention to the news in the NFL you will still see today that there is immense interest in getting a team there. Its a metro of 14 million people without a team, I am absolutly sure now that you have said it that there is no interest in having a team there... Yet they always have specials on ESPN about how the NFL is trying to get LA a team. But I guess they dont know what they are talking about on ESPN, I wouldnt expect a sports news channel to know anything about the NFL... they have been conning me for years.... I just wonder about some people on these boards...
To keep this related to the topic....
I think the Perfrorming Arts Center is the most important piece of this vision. The Arena is second... But we should start planning for a future baseball or football team here. It is going to happen someday...
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Los Angeles doesn't want an NFL team. I don't know if Tampa Bay wants one either, but they have one now, and there's really no where they can go. I don't think MLB is going to fold the team.
That is ludacris... LA has been on the NFL's huevos since the 90's for a team! MLB will force a move like they are going to in Miami. Read up on the events...
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Here's my point.....where would they go?? What market is big enough & has a stadium ready for a baseball team to move into? A few years ago they placed a team in San Juan, PR because there was no viable market in the US. The Marlins are talking about claiming San Antonio & that's a smaller market than Tampa.
Tampa is a good size market, and if the Devil Rays are the local team for Orlando it's a huge market. The reason people don't go to the games isn't because of location & the stadium, or because the market is oversaturated it's because this team has never finished out of the basement. You have to blame ownership for that.
There is no NFL team in Los Angeles, yet they have a huge market with a lot more money than Central Florida. Size of market really isnt an issue, but they did choose Tampa over Orlando based on that... and they also realized it was a wrong choice.
The team will move if the commisioner doesnt agree with the owner on their stlye and requests to move the team. If no one goes to the games you can bet that the team will be leaving. The Marlins will leave Miami, and they are already speculating the departure of the Devil Rays, not that it will happen, there is just an extreme likelyhood of it. And I doubt the Devil Rays would ever be the team of Orlando.... We love the Yankees and Red Sox and Mets.... We are all from up north or Puerto Rico....
Oh and about PR, it was never a viable market... there is no money there.... well legal money.
I think that this "City" should grow up and start thinking big... the growth is constant... these small minded individuals need to go to the country if they dont want to experience this lifestyle instead of impeading on the future of the rest of us.
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The Devils Rays aren't going anywhere.
Good evidence, I can see your point...
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In addition, Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and more popular with Latinos than baseball ever has been.
Well that would be true if most of the latinos in the Orlando area were from Central or South America, but since most are Caribbean, where Baseball is by far the most popular sport, this actually doesn't mean anything for the Orlando area.
And dealing with baseball, the Expos were planning to move to San Juan, PR a few years ago, a metro of 1.4 million where the average income is 1/3 less than that of Orlando. If there wouldnt have been such a large open market in Washington then they would have moved to PR. (Not a good move in my book). I think that they should plan for the future and start designing sports complexes for all sports, especially MLB. I am sure that the Devil Rays will be gone in a few seasons and Orlando would be prime area for a new team. Sure there are a lot of transplants, and a lot of Red Sox, Cubs, Yankees, Mets fans that would love to watch their teams play against the Orlando So-n-so's in their own back yard. Plus all you need is a few seasons of success to change peoples minds... Sure they might always like the Red Sox, but they can grow to adopt another team especially if they are in separate leagues. My two pennies...
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Last time I looked the outfield was not considered good seats. The cheapest non outfield non upper deck seat in St. Pete is $21.00, an average seat costs $37.00, and the best seats are $125.00, not exactly cheap. The same approximate range applies for San Deigo. Unless you don't care about being able to see the game you can expect to pay about $37.00 for an average ticket to a MLB game. I went to a spring training game for the Washington Nationals in Brevard County too. I believe they charged $16.00 for their seats and two bucks to park. Disney was free to park if you can believe that, so it's not just Disney. Miami has not drawn the crowds either and they have just a few more Hispanics than Orlando, by about a million or so...
If that is true then no one would pay to see the Devil Rays. And considereing that I used to live down the street from PetCo Park I can tell you that a on the left field fence was 20 dollars last season... I will scan you my stub of the last one I went to if you like. According to the devil rays web site for a single regular season game tickets run 8-90$ with majority of the tickets running less that 37.00$, Not to mention most teams have the same exact set of pricing. I would only think about 2 or 3 teams (Boston, NYY and Cubs) would have different prices, and games circulating record breaking events. Oh well, Im done with it...
And those baseball facilities you mentioned Speck are horrendous. Pros would never play there seriously...
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Most football fans are season ticket holders. Most people attending a baseball game are not. That means you need to tap a much larger market.
The $7.00 baseball ticket is not realistic either. That would be for the section called beach seats in St. Pete. Spring training tickets at Disney are $18.00 to $22.00, $13.00 to sit in the grass. Regular good seats for a MLB game range from around $80.00 to $20.00. That's in St Pete, one of the cheapest markets.
Are you serious? you can get seats for 8 dollars in San Diego in the outfield, you can get lower deck outfield for 16 dollars. brand new park. Those seats you are talking about are like maybe 2000 total in the whole stadium. By the way, Disney can ask that much for tickets because they can... People are still going to go. Season ticket holders in babeball are just unrealistic... no one can go to 81 games, lets be real here. But people can surely dish out 20 dollars or so 3-4 times a season. Not to mention, more people would go to football games if they could fit more in the stadium, most of them sell out. I dont think it is unrealistic to have baseball fans attend 5-10 games a season. I know a lot of people that would love to go to Miami or St. Pete to watch the games, but they just dont have the time to drive that far. And you are still discounting the hispanic population, and the growth... You all dont factor so much into your equations. If Oakland can support a team then Orlando could sin problemas...
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you are dreaming...
anyway....
If the market had to fill 60,000 football seats (480,000 per season) at $50 each (average) the team would have $24million in ticket revenue.....plus football has two things that baseball does not.....revenue sharing and a salary cap.....it is very feasible.
To fill 25,000 seats of baseball (average league attendance last year) they would need to see over 2million tickets annually......so....basically....EVERYBODY in the metro area would have to go to at least 1 game....the market is too small....
considering the fact that most people that go to Baseball games go to multiple games in a season, one person would just need to go to 4 games (30+ for all 4) and that the tickets are tremendously less expensive I dont see this to be too far fetched... but I figured that you would be the one to argue my point first... Gotta make a living...
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Exactly...with baseball, the market has to support 81 home games....with football, only 8 (hockey and basketball are about 41 each)
Orlando could never support baseball.....it is too small of an area....and even if we got a team, it would never have the revenues to be competitive on a consistant basis....
Orlando could support a team... Baseball games are a lot cheaper to attend than football games... you can get the cheap seats for like 7$ a peice... Football games are running like 30$+ ( I might be out of the loop on that one since I havent been for awhile). Not to mention that average attendance to Baseball games is about half to 2/3rds that of Football games. Alsa you forget about the large Caribbean Hispanic population that we have here in Orlando, Babeball is the lifeblood of those countries, not to mention a fair amount of players in the MLB hail from those countries. If they came out to see Arroyo playing off the bench with that much fervor, Imagine a lineup of 4-5 starters that they love? I expect the arguments... Why doesnt it work in Miami? In Miami, they play in a football stadium and kill off all fan support by selling their players away... In fact ESPN has had much to say about that over the last year since they won the Series... about the stadium and the management. Tampa (St. Pete) has one of the most horrendous abominations that one would call a "baseball park." Most Minor league teams get their own facilities, unlike Miami, and they are top notch compared to St. Pete. The market here is growwing and our position as a tourist town can only attract more people. I could plan a vacation around watchin my baseball team play in Puerto Rico (Expo's back in the day) or hypothetically if there was a team in Orlando playing some serious games in San Fran or Seattle (places I would like to visit). Dad can drop the kids off at the theme parks with mom and Aunt Suzie and hit up the Yankee Orlando game with Uncle Tio. We just need a rich Owner like Steinbrenner to buy up talent for us.
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^^ I did catch it as well. I was glad to see it given such prominence. It's gotten to the point where I feel like we have to just shove it down people's throats before they'll get a clue. In fact, I showed the article to a co-worker of mine, who lives in Ocoee. After reading it, she said "Well, that's not really the case. I have everything I could dream of right near my house." She was referring to the endless strip centers and Wal-Marts, etc. along HWY 50. Of course she has to drive to them, lest be killed trying to cross 50. Not to mention, she neglected to consider she drives 15 plus miles to her job in Clermont. The whole exchange just reinforced to me that people just don't get it.
Its really sad that people dont get it, their lives could be so much more convenient if we lived in a clustered format. And I can understand peoples arguments that they want their own private yard and such... and if they want that then they shouldnt move to the suburbs of some city which are bout to be LA-ish in a few decades. I am not talking Tokyo density (though I would welcome that), its just ridiculous to drive everywhere and be so dependent on cars. Especially when the weather outside is beautiful like in Florida... they walk around Portland and Seattle all the time, and it is raining and cold!
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Yea, I agree with Dale. They (govt) need to learn how to budget the money they have, just like everyone else. Not raise taxes everytime an issue comes up. Its ok about your anti-Republican sentiment growing lately, my anti-democrat sentiment has been growing for years and years lol (in a joking manner)
Well, its mainly ideas that republicans have put in place that have led to this misuse of money, especially the federal money that we get for transportation. Catagorical Grants and Block Grants, all ideas proposed by Republicans which gives tax money for anything or for nothing...Basicaly you can use the money for whatever you want in a block grant, and catagorical grants you get money for roads but you have to fit a specific catagory... There is no grey area, typical of republican politics. In turn that just hurts us. I also find it hard to believe that you have anti-Democrat sentiment, because they havent been able to do anything in office for years. I prefer socialism so attack them both at will, it won't affect me any, just try to do it in traffic on your way to the voter booth.
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I've, at some point in time or another, been involved in commutes in 5 of those cities including Orlando. (Atlanta, Houston, D.C., Chicago, Orlando) Add in Philadelphia and that's six major commutes I have taken part in. Orlando is, by far, the best of them all, even with the tolls. We are piss poor for our size, but I don't think we are that bad!!
I think that is how we got up there, because of the size of this city and the situation with the traffic. We should not be having the problems that we are right now. Its too bad that we have had these problems for years. My mother didn't realize that we had such a bad problem here till she moved away. Its just really sad that people care about a half cent here or there in order to improve the quality of life in this city and state. Sure lots of tax money gets wasted on things, but they also help improve the community, and Americans are so anti-taxes it disgusts me. They want to drive on the roads, use the schools, and call the police and fire departments but dont want to give more money to help improve any of them. But they will be the first to whine and complain about how things need to improve. Sorry, my anti-Republican sentiments have been growing inside me for a few weeks... Politics gotta love em..
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Totally concur. Orlando has a disproportionate minimum-wage work force. The last thing we need is another giant minimum-wage industry; attracting job seekers who won't be making a "living wage" and thus burdening the school system, social services, and law enforcement. Also, when the majority of jobs in an area pay $6.00/hour then crime looks very enticing. I'd like for the area to attract higher-paying industries while fading out the minimum-wage industries.
That's just me.
Without casinos Orlando blows Vegas out of the water in terms of crime. The more people here, the more taxes you can make off of them, not to mention the amount of money that would be put into the casinos. I am not talking massive strip full of casinos and such, I am saying some resorts here and there. Kind of like the casino area in Sydney. Gambling doesnt cause as many problems as people think, they just see it as immoral. There is already a problem with illegal gambling here, due to the fact that it is illegal and unprotected by the police. I just think it would make the total package... parks and craps... who wouldnt want that? Screw Vegas... take the kids to Disney and at night we can hit the lobby for some video poker... Not to mention the beaches just an hour away... Maybe I look at it from a purely economic standpoint. Oh well, we are capitalists right?
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Too many bad things come with gambling. I might not mind one classy casino to provide another option of entertainment. New Orleans was smart in how they brought in Harrah's. It's one large and nice casino near the French Quarter and Riverwalk, but it doesn't overwhelm everything else. Vegas is a one trick pony with the gambling, granted it works well for them, but it might eventually become less of a draw with almost every state starting to allow gambling in one way or another. I'm surprised the Seminoles haven't figured out a way yet to get into the Oralndo market. Even Pittsburgh has a couple plans on the table to build a casino complex. One would help fund a new arena to keep the Pengiuns from moving. HEY, there's an idea...
Bad things come with poverty as well, and when Disney gets old people are not going to have jobs here.
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so in essence we're going to see a parking deck akin to Wachovia's or Florida Hospital's.
This is big. I mean, we've had Gaylord, JW, Ritz, Omni, and now Shingle Creek go up in the last 5 years, but this is so important for the OCCC. It just might influence the construction of the Hyatt and Hilton in that area. THis will really help CVB book future events and help close the gap with Vegas and widen the gap with Chicago.
Orlando would destroy Vegas if we legalized gambling... We could seriously benefit from it.
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Keep Shaq... send us Dwayne Wade!
Shaq and Howard would be the real twin towers... that would be a dream... but D. Wade is the next best secret.... Kobe who?
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I can't speak specifically for the Sentinel but the media in general does a very poor job these days in doing the proper research before they publish news to the public. They instead prefer to concentrate on the sensational, crime and gossip which makes up the bulk of what passes for news these days in the USA.
If you do a search here at UrbanPlanet, there is a a pretty good thread that describes the New Starts program and how it parcels out money. The TTA in Raleigh/Durham has recently found out to its dismay that it most likely will not get its full federal funding letter for its commuter rail line despite 10 years of work and over $100 million in Federal funds already being spent on it. The cost of their system went from $100M to $1B mainly due to costly requriements from the freight lines who wanted to profiteer at the building of the line, and the ridership projections were not enough to justify the cost in the Feds eyes. And the TTA had even gotten to the point of ordering trains. So nothing is certain until the Feds make the decision.
This money if for the FTA... not just commuter train. It is going to fund new roads and I-4 expansion. In the news they made it seem as if the money was already awarded... but might not be rationed out as fast as they hoped.
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According to Emporis, the height limit is 500 feet for San Diego. We could only be so lucky....
I do think, however, that the height limit will be broken in Orlando, by far. But it will be done in the attractions area and not downtown. Ballari or CityMark, if those get built. I-Drive and the Disney area simply don't have any of the constraints that downtown Orlando has.
But I agree, Orlando is huge when it comes to sprawl.
Oooh - an interesting point is that Orlando could overtake the Tampa Bay area in population, at some point. Orlando is at 2 million, Tampa Bay 2.5.
But who's counting? (not me, surely!)
Yeah, the metro will hold the title, but west of i-4 there is no height limit i have heard.
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It's funny. Sometimes we take for granted just how expansive Central Fla. really is. Going to Kissimmee every day makes it seem routine and not that big of a deal. I've told forumers this before... get a map of Atlanta and superimpose it wih Orlando and you will see that the relative distances from the city core to suburbs and satellite cities is similar or greater in Orlando. Not saying whether its good or bad, only that it is.
Yeah, from my appartment in Kissimmee to downtown Orlando is about 22 miles. Most of that is built land... save a few patches of swampy area or cow pasture... But my friend lives in the Suburbs of Charlotte (according to that city's statistics) and I was in BFE. There were like forests and feilds all around him. Not once did I feel like I was in a city there, until I was in downtown. Orlando feels like San Diego, without the mountains and desert, add cowpastures and swampy area. The downtowns are going to be similar also due to height restrictions and we both have Seaworlds.... strange...
(in a joking manner)
SunRail
in Orlando
Posted
Sooner or later they will be paying that on other services... or they will be sitting in traffic and complaining why the situation for the roads isnt better. I cant stand these small minded people