Cool Stuff in Other Cities

[dcluley98]

Other factors include grade crossings instead of elevated or tunneled full speed through travel. A lot of the real high speed systems in foreign countries are totally separate systems from ground traffic and can reach truly high speed without having to worry about issues with cars or pedestrians or even livestock.  

 

[elefants]

4 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Other factors include grade crossings instead of elevated or tunneled full speed through travel. A lot of the real high speed systems in foreign countries are totally separate systems from ground traffic and can reach truly high speed without having to worry about issues with cars or pedestrians or even livestock.  

 

Wasn't the at-grade crossing was one of the big problems the city of Stuart had with Brightline?  Couldn't be great for wildlife either.

[aent]

33 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Other factors include grade crossings instead of elevated or tunneled full speed through travel. A lot of the real high speed systems in foreign countries are totally separate systems from ground traffic and can reach truly high speed without having to worry about issues with cars or pedestrians or even livestock.  

 

The example spenser brought up that was REAL high speed rail is limited to 125mph because of at grade crossings, just as Brightline is. Like the US, the UK (and Sweden) allow at grade crossings up to 125mph, which is why that number was picked. I will note that while Brightline does not plan to upgrade any existing at grade crossings to grade separated (although barrier upgrades are required to allow 125mph, which is why South Florida is limited to 80mph), all new crossings that are being built for the extension of service are grade separated.

23 minutes ago, elefants said:

Wasn't the at-grade crossing was one of the big problems the city of Stuart had with Brightline?  Couldn't be great for wildlife either.

What does wildlife have to do with at grade crossings? Most high speed rail lines are not elevated for the entire thing, that would be insanely expensive and unnecessary, and wildlife issues are dealt with generally by fencing, much like is done on highways.

[dcluley98]

My understanding is that Brightline speed is way more limited in areas with at grade crossings to about a top of 110 MPH, but lower speeds in the more populated urban areas with more crossings. 

The only section of 125 MPH  is between the airport and the  528/I95 junction, where the ROW is more defined and rural with less grade crossings and conflicts. 

[aent]

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

Even Brightline acknowledges it’s not true high speed. Of course, the inland route was always preferable for that but the whole exercise was never about the train. Given they haven’t made a single target, they’ll just end up dumping the whole thing on the government anyway, as Fortress and most PEFs are wont to do. But they’ll make sure they get their cash before they dump it.

So let me get your arguments straight, as I'm really having trouble comprehending this:

1) Even though Brightline and Azuma operate at the same exact speed, Brightline allegedly acknowledged its not true high speed, but Azuma hasn't, so Azuma is high speed but Brightline's not, at the exact same speed?

2) Because Brightline hasn't made its passenger count targets, which were developed as part of when all of Orlando to Miami was one phase, before lawsuits and government approval delays split it into multiple phases, that makes it less REAL?

3) There is some sort of scam going on where Brightline is raising cash from private investors, and not tax payers, and using that money to build immovable infrastructure, a rail from Tampa to Orlando to Miami, along with stations, much of it on rented government property, where if they don't pay their rent it goes back to the government (or CFX or airport), so they'll literally retain nothing, as some sort of cash grab? Can you please explain this a little more? How can it possibly make sense to raise money from private investors, then spend all of that money, as a way to get the cash before they just dump literally everything they spent the money on? This literally sounds like the worst, dumbest scam ever.

Or is the scam artist behind this just have the goal of stealing many billions of dollars from very rich people and is planning to redistribute the money to the government by building $4 billion worth of infrastructure and giving it to the government? If its this choice, why are you against this and into protecting the mega rich?

Another idea I have is, since you're against the chosen route, maybe the scam artist was really into this route, perhaps even had some sort of financial interest in this route, but knows just how unprofitable running a train is, so they decided they'd steal at least $4 billion from private investors to build a functional train system, and as soon as its going, shut it down, and hand it over to the government to trap them into operating this train system in this route, instead of letting the government go along the western route and raise taxes on the poor to pay for the construction of what was previously proposed.

Which is it? Or is it something else I haven't thought of? I know the old "its a scam" theories were in relation to obtaining value land in South Florida downtowns and getting approval to build large, expensive buildings on parcels they already owned but there was some sort of fear would be difficult to get approval for. But considering they got those buildings, and launched service in South Florida all before getting approval for the Orlando extension, and Brightline doesn't own any land in Orlando, and seemingly is not acquiring any land in Orlando, especially that would be so difficult to entitle that its worth spending another $4 billion to extend service. If those previous theories were true, the obvious and easy move would have been for Brightline to just say "we can't get approval to build north of Palm Beach, and now that we got our South Florida buildings done, lets shut down service, we got our value already"

I literally cannot comprehend and am genuinely curious what the scam is, who it benefits, and who it hurts. I've tried my best, and I literally cannot comprehend what this scam is that you keep talking about, and how any of Brightline's actions and expenditures make sense towards achieving said scam. So if you could please take a few minutes to make it so a fellow Knight can understand what this scam is, I would really appreciate it.

[aent]

38 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

My understanding is that Brightline speed is way more limited in areas with at grade crossings to about a top of 110 MPH, but lower speeds in the more populated urban areas with more crossings. 

The only section of 125 MPH  is between the airport and the  528/I95 junction, where the ROW is more defined and rural with less grade crossings and conflicts. 

Brightline has said they intend to upgrade the speed to 125 MPH as much as they can between WPB and Orlando. Initially it will 110 MPH north of Palm Beach, as they need to upgrade all crossings to have an impenetrable barrier and obstacle detection systems to prevent the possibility of accidents, while speeds of 110 MPH do not require such a barrier and only more traditional crossing arms. The example spenser linked to has similar issues  as well though making it no more "REAL".

[dcluley98]

Much of the reason for the chosen route is the real estate around the route. 

They could have gone true high speed with a more rural and inland route, but then it would not be profitable to the private interests. 

That would have been more of a governmental type program for true high speed rail, and funded by taxpayers. 

Both  are truly valid options. I think I would have preferred a true high speed direct route funded by the government and taxpayers, but the will and demand was not there. 

As it is, yes, the developers are packaging things so that they may profit on side-projects associated with the real  estate around the public right of way and  locations they control, but that is not really a bad thing to get things done. I like it much better than not having a system. 

I do not think they will "dump" the rail system onto the government to rescue in the future. I think they are attempting to eventually break even on it and continue to leverage it for more development opportunities. 

I mean, worst case, they could fail, and the government may have to take it over, but it isn't really a bad option  for the general completion of the system and it has been much better than other U.S.  HSR attempts.   

[elefants]

1 hour ago, aent said:

What does wildlife have to do with at grade crossings? Most high speed rail lines are not elevated for the entire thing, that would be insanely expensive and unnecessary, and wildlife issues are dealt with generally by fencing, much like is done on highways.

I worded that poorly since of course at grade crossings don't affect wildlife, but non-elevated rail that goes through wildlife habitats isn't great for the movement of wildlife.  Fenced off (as opposed to elevated) highways that go through wildlife habitats are harmful as well.

Edit:  I'll come back to this once sobered up.

Edited August 22, 2020 by elefants

[spenser1058]

No doubt they’ll be just as effective as Eugene Garfield, who showed the world how profitable a train service would be with Auto Train! Oh wait...

(would you like me to remind you who ended up with Auto Train?)

Or, perhaps you’d prefer to talk about how the US government had no interest in being in the train business, until it was dumped in their lap.

But this time will be different!

(Did I mention if they had upgraded the Amtrak route you’d have service to downtown Orlando? Instead, as always, we’re catering to the tourists instead of the citizens. Welcome to Orlando! Did we also mention we’d already have high-speed rail to Tampa if they had taken the Obama plan instead of doing the usual Tallahassee thing of sweetheart deals with billionaires? It was exactly what they did when a certain political party shot down light rail here and got us a half-assed replacement that made CSX and their Tally cronies wealthy. But this time will be different! Did I mention their tying up with Virgin, which was taken off two major UK train routes for poor behavior? But this time will be different!)

(Oh, one more! Did I mention the country’s first major financial scandal? It was called Credit Mobilier and it involved... yep, the railroads. But this time will be different!)

Edited August 22, 2020 by spenser1058

[dcluley98]

25 minutes ago, elefants said:

I worded that poorly since of course at grade crossings don't affect wildlife, but non-elevated rail that goes through wildlife habitats isn't great for the movement of wildlife.  Fenced off (as opposed to elevated) highways that go through wildlife habitats are harmful as well.

Edit:  I'll come back to this once sobered up.

LOL, no need to sober up. 

You are right that un-interrupted lines of traffic are detrimental to wildlife. 

It isn't so much that wild-life can't avoid the trains, but more habitat fractioning and migratory routes/patterns affected. We have seen this in Florida with the Florida Panther as an extreme case and there have been infrastructure designs implemented to try to mitigate the effects of years of linear barriers created that have affected natural wildlife patterns. 

There are landbridge across I-75 on the Greenway just south of Ocala  and Pellicer Creek on I-95 in rural wildlife areas near Palm Coast. 

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/07/14/floridas-wildlife-crossings-working/103682872/

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2008-01-07-corridorslid-story.html

https://www.staugustine.com/article/20160318/LIFESTYLE/303189896

This also brings up an old subject that has died down recently which is the Interstate extensions/routes that have been proposed for the Big-Bend area of Florida and the middle of the state connector from around Lakeland to Fort Myers. 

Haven't heard much about those lately with all the other crap going on. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by dcluley98

[aent]

5 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

Much of the reason for the chosen route is the real estate around the route. 

 

Brightline, at this point, owns no real estate north of West Palm Beach, and the stations in the current route extension will not be owned by Brightline, but rather rented. I understand for South Florida, where they did own real estate, but then why bother extending service from what they got? And why doesn't it make sense to extend the route where real estate is more valuable and more people live so future stations are feasible? Although at least I fully understand your point of view totally and it makes sense to me, even if the opinion is different then mine. 

11 minutes ago, elefants said:

I worded that poorly, but non-elevated rail that goes through wildlife habitats isn't great for the movement of wildlife.  Fenced off (as opposed to elevated) highways that go through wildlife habitats are harmful as well.

Thanks, understood, and agreed. I hope they are taking precautions to minimize that impact and making wildlife crossings.

 

8 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

No doubt they’ll be just as effective as Eugene Garfield, who showed the world how profitable a train service would be with Auto Train! Oh wait...

(would you like me to remind you who ended up with Auto Train?)

Or, perhaps you’d prefer to talk about how the US government had no interest in being in the train business, until it was dumped in their lap.

But this time will be different!

(Did I mention if they had upgraded the Amtrak route you’d have service to downtown Orlando? Instead, as always, we’re catering to the tourists instead of the citizens. Welcome to Orlando! Did we also mention we’d already have high-speed rail to Tampa if they had taken the Obama plan instead of doing the usual Tallahassee thing of sweetheart deals with billionaires? It was exactly what they did when a certain political party shot down light rail here and got us a half-assed replacement that made CSX and their Tally cronies wealthy. But this time will be different! Did I mention their tying up with Virgin, which was taken off two major UK train routes for poor behavior? But this time will be different!)

So I appreciate you giving me something to Google... I read the Wikipedia article on Auto Train/Eugene Garfield... there doesn't seem to any sort of scandal referred to there...  He appears to have created a successful train service that was profitable in early years, but later on made mistakes with a failed route expansion to Kentucky and failed to adapt to airlines and car rentals lowering prices making it tough to compete. Where's the scandal?

I'm not promising Brightline will be a success. Its no doubt a risky venture, and it COULD fail. But how is it a scam designed to enrich PEFs? How does it hurt the people if it fails and gets handed over to the government for a huge loss if it does fail? And are you not aware of the various government rail projects that have failed? Some even failing so badly and stupidly that they're literally running "ghost trains" which seems far worse then anything you've described.

He also was the primary advisor trying to get the taxpayer funded Florida High Speed Rail passed and going after his personal rail failed, which you seem to support.   

Yeah, Virgin may have been a mistake. They also got taken off of Brightline, in case you haven't heard.

So I still don't get it, how is this going to be a scam? Can you explain it in direct, easy to understand terms? I understand there's a possibility of it failing (although that is no doubt the case whether its public or private), but you said they don't intend to make it work, why do you keep saying that?

[dcluley98]

I am not talking about Brightline directly owning real estate local to the route. I am talking about affiliated players  incorporated as seperate development entities owning the real estate around the route. They are packaging it to limit risk on the rail component and maximize profit on any potential development component along the route not affiliated from the main company. 

They will milk  that advantage as long as they can with control of the rail line as long as the profit in real estate around the route is viable or potentially viable. 

They can tolerate a loss leader privately for a long time without having to abandon it. 

Having read all the bond prospectus (Prospectii?  what's the plural of that? hahaha, uncommon usage), I wouldn't expect the developers of  brightline to be altruistic or  opportunistic in either way. 

They are taking many risks and are trying to be compensated for them.   

Edited August 22, 2020 by dcluley98

[aent]

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

(Oh, one more! Did I mention the country’s first major financial scandal? It was called Credit Mobilier and it involved... yep, the railroads. But this time will be different!)

So I saw you edited the previous post to add an actual railroad financial scandal. So I read the wikipedia article on that too. It appears that style of project was much more similiar to the original publicly funded Florida HSR and was only successful because the government as less accountability.

From wikipedia:

Congress paid $94,650,287 to Crédit Mobilier via the Union Pacific project, while Crédit Mobilier incurred operating costs of only $50,720,959.

Thus, the deal generated $43,929,328 in fraudulent profits (equivalent to over $724.9M in 2020) for Crédit Mobilier, counting the Union Pacific shares and bonds that Crédit Mobilier bought and paid itself.^[3] The Crédit Mobilier directors reported this as a cash profit of only $23,366,319.81, a financial misrepresentation since these same directors were the recipients of the undisclosed $20,563,010 Union Pacific share of the total profits

[...]

The scandal caused widespread public distrust of Congress and the federal government during the Gilded Age.

 

Under the deal that you think should have happened with the previous Florida HSR project. Congress appropriated $2.4 billion to have a private company build the Tampa-Orlando route. It was going to have a private company build it, which seemed to be likely to be a newly formed entity. This is typical for government projects... we're seeing the same type of thing with I-4 Ultimate, where a newly formed company is given a government contract, missing all sorts of deadlines, and getting away with replacing the centerpiece bridge with a cheap standard one. You aren't helping your point.

[prahaboheme]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:26 PM, spenser1058 said:

Sad news for @prahaboheme. The replica of the bar from Ceers at Boston’s Faneuil Hall is the latest victim of COVID.

Fortunately, the Bull & Finch, the neighborhood pub that Cheers was actually created from, will soldier on.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to mourn that the Boston Traders sportswear that Ted Danson often wore while tending bar is gone forever. Thankfully, J. Press is forever!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cheers-faneuil-hall-marketplace-boston-closing/
 

From CBS News

 

Quincy Marketplace in Boston is the original Disney Springs.  I’ve probably been to them both equally in the last decade - twice.

[spenser1058]

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/downtown-tampa-partnership-files-plans-with-the-city-to-reduce-parking-minimums.2281636/
 

The Downtown Tampa Partnership proposes an innovative reduction of parking minimums.

Meanwhile, what do we hear from Buddy’s somnambulant minion Thomas Chatmon over at the Downtown Orlando Partnership? *crickets*

Thanks to SSC

[AmIReal]

2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/downtown-tampa-partnership-files-plans-with-the-city-to-reduce-parking-minimums.2281636/
 

The Downtown Tampa Partnership proposes an innovative reduction of parking minimums.

Meanwhile, what do we hear from Buddy’s somnambulant minion Thomas Chatmon over at the Downtown Orlando Partnership? *crickets*

Thanks to SSC

Orlando already enacted much of this when they rewrote code about 5 years back . "By Right" parking reductions exist for senior living and mixed-use projects within 1/2 mile of a Sunrail station. You can also get reductions in other ways such as joint parking agreements and the residential component of mixed-use. Of course, you can also go the route of variance that factors in alternative transportation options, zoning mix, etc. Numerous projects downtown have had reductions of 25-40%. I'm not certain, but I think 40% is the max allowed reduction.

[JFW657]

10 minutes ago, AmIReal said:

Orlando already enacted much of this when they rewrote code about 5 years back . "By Right" parking reductions exist for senior living and mixed-use projects within 1/2 mile of a Sunrail station. You can also get reductions in other ways such as joint parking agreements and the residential component of mixed-use. Of course, you can also go the route of variance that factors in alternative transportation options, zoning mix, etc. Numerous projects downtown have had reductions of 25-40%. I'm not certain, but I think 40% is the max allowed reduction.

Yeah, but apparently it's more fun to dump on Buddy Dyer all the time.   

[aent]

33 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Yeah, but apparently it's more fun to dump on Buddy Dyer all the time.   

And facts and data really, really don't matter when comparing Orlando to other cities. All that matters is what the party line says on how things should be done.

[JFW657]

1 hour ago, aent said:

And facts and data really, really don't matter when comparing Orlando to other cities. All that matters is what the party line says on how things should be done.

I think it's more of a personal agenda thing. 

[spenser1058]

New Yorkers head to the ‘burbs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/nyregion/nyc-suburbs-housing-demand.html

From The New York Times 

 

[orange87]

28 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

New Yorkers head to the ‘burbs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/nyregion/nyc-suburbs-housing-demand.html

From The New York Times 

 

I would imagine a high percentage of them will be moving to Connecticut which is basically a suburb of NYC.

[spenser1058]

A little treat especially for @prahaboheme :

10 Brutalist buildings in Jacksonville:

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/10-examples-of-brutalist-architecture-in-jacksonville

From The Jaxson 

[jack]

18 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

New Yorkers head to the ‘burbs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/nyregion/nyc-suburbs-housing-demand.html

From The New York Times 

 

NYC will come back, it always does. However, it may be a city of the wealthy and childless residents. 

[prahaboheme]

11 hours ago, jack said:

NYC will come back, it always does. However, it may be a city of the wealthy and childless residents. 

Seems to have been heading in that direction pre-Covid.

[spenser1058]

An adaptive reuse for downtown Jax’s old Federal Reserve building. Another building that sat empty for decades, unlike certain buildings in downtown Orlando that were unused for a few years at most. It seems structures like that most definitely aren’t too far gone to save: It just requires the desire to save a piece of history rather than caving to those without vision out for a quick buck.

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/federal-reserve-bank-adaptive-reuse-renderings
 

From The Jaxson

Edited September 4, 2020 by spenser1058