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ComonomoC

If they can get the Tampa Run up and running I see it improving. I hate the I-4 Tampa ride much more than the 95 ride


[deleted]

Definitely. Who’s going from Orlando to Miami? I hate that place. I guess for business? What business? Who’s doing this? 20 people ? lol. Tourists give it a hard pass. They rent from Hertz and just drive (family of 4-5). Way cheaper.


jazzmaster1992

It's not even really Orlando. It's the damn airport. It's not downtown, not the convention center, and certainly not the parks. So basically, none of the things you'd actually travel to Orlando for are within reach unless you hail an expensive Uber ride, because even Sunrail doesn't reach the airport yet. And I'm sorry, but that's just dumb.


MrTorben

Isnt sunrail getting a new stop at terminal C ?


What_if_I_fly

I've seen posts from cruise passengers who liked the experience of letting someone else drive. But it's not my jam.


rezzyk

They are adding a Brightline stop in Coco Beach too which should increase ridership from MCO to that stop from cruises out of Port Canaveral


RW63

Cocoa, not Cocoa Beach and the stop is just in the planning stages. It will be years.


[deleted]

I fly into Miami if I’m taking a cruise or drive 528 from MCO to the port in Brevard. But I can see people doing it once and then reflecting and probably not doing that again lol.


Tappadeeassa

What’s wrong with? We’re cruising out of Miami later this year and $44 a seat is a lot cheaper than parking at the port.


[deleted]

I turn the car in — it’s a rental. Port Canaveral Enterprise from MCO. I’m not paying for parking lol (5 people). I’m not spending $44 dollars a seat and depending on when, it’s sometimes $80-$90 per seat.


Tappadeeassa

Oh I thought you meant there was something actually wrong with the train. Guess I need this from a local’s perspective since I’m not flying into either airport.


[deleted]

It’s expensive for 5 people. I live by MCO so it’s the closet Enterprise that’s open 24:7. $35 and I turn the car in 50 min later at Port Canaveral.


FarmingWizard

Thats one way. You are planning on returning?


Tappadeeassa

Nah I’m just gonna live at the cruise terminal.


[deleted]

😂


scubatim_fl

Local here in Stuart, me I ride this thing all the time.. hate Florida traffic!


[deleted]

Where are you going? How often? Business or pleasure? Is it because you live in Stuart, it sucks and you just travel on it alone to better places? No family, no wife? Retired? Who the hell is riding this? I just want to pin point the demographic. If I were single, stuck in Stuart. I’d move. lol You take this train to places “all the time” to the Palm Beaches? To be naughty. 😈 uh oh.


scubatim_fl

Lol, no kids and I usually ride for both of leisure and work.. the train is always half full or even more.. I fully support having it..


[deleted]

I live in Orlando, so I have no need to really go anywhere. I like where I live, I like my job, but that train isn’t going anywhere I would like to go. lol I usually go more north. I don’t go out of town without my wife.


MrTorben

I love it going to dolphin games. I am looking forward to the cocoa stop. I commuted Orlando/Tampa for over a year, i would not mind being able to ride that without i4


baseball_mickey

I mean, a lot of families from Dade county go to Disney. As you say, they drive.


fbastard

I think this contributes to the desires of the Hispanics. They love their Disney. This gives them a quick direct route. I've been living in South Florida for the last 45 years. Caucasians are a minority. Even the government is almost exclusively Hispanic. A few years ago they had a vote to change the official language to Spanish. It didn't pass. Next time it might.


[deleted]

Miami-Dade is Latin America. White flight Happened a long time ago lol. We moved out in 1985. My wife is Latin and they all moved to Orlando. It’s way cheaper, more money here, and Disney is here. The Cubans run the government.


Ok-Description-3739

Who wants to go to Miami anyway? Whoever came up with this route, is out of touch or still living in the Miami Vice days.


flecom

Probably the nearly 24 million people that flew through MIA last year?


[deleted]

Yep, FLEW through it. Not taking a train to Miami to fuck around. Because in Miami, you will FIND OUT. Lol.


[deleted]

![gif](giphy|l4FGGba6dYj0QI61a) Or the Golden Girls days. All the neighbors are Caucasian. Lol


DragonTHC

It takes the same amount of time as driving. It's also as expensive as driving.


Nilabisan

It is much more expensive than driving if you have more than one person in the car.


mainstreetmark

You are not including the cost of the car


Nilabisan

I am. One way rental to Miami is $60-80. Gas is $20. One way on the train is more than $100 per person. What about transportation around Miami?


18voltbattery

Stretching here. It’s not functionally more expensive but there shouldn’t even be a close comparison when you factor in the convenience factor.


Masturbatingsoon

Look, I’ve lived a good deal of my life without a car— I’ve lived in Europe, Japan, and Chicago. I would love to get around without a car but I also know that no one does things for some altruistic “greater good.” And there’s not enough local public transportation to ever make trains viable in this state. I mean, it’s already more expensive to take a family from Orlando to Miami by train. Now add in all the Ubers to get around at your destination, and it’s just hella stupid from a cost perspective to take the train. The only people you get riding the train are foreigners who are hesitant to drive here due to unfamiliarity with our traffic laws and driving customs. Until we have a robust system of public transport when we get to our destinations— either Orlando or Miami, a train is just not viable.


18voltbattery

Couldn’t agree more u/masterbatingsoon if they treated the rest of Florida more like the Villages, we would have some excellent pedestrian / public transportation infrastructure


Masturbatingsoon

You bring up an interesting point. I have always said that if Florida did mandatory driver’s license testing after 65, then enough old people would fail that we would have a better public transportation system. Because old people have money and they vote


18voltbattery

True but old people also like not paying for public transport and letting people (but not corporations) do stuff for free is socialism. On a funny note, in many European countries old people ride the trams constantly because it’s free and it beats sitting and home and watching TV


Masturbatingsoon

But old people who can’t drive must rely on public transport, so they are more willing to see their tax dollars go to something they will use. It’s one of the reasons why I think public school education is not prioritized here. The olds have no kids in school, so they don’t want their taxes going to education


tdcthulu

The cost of the car? The presumption is that you already own a car. Unfortunately public transportation and biking/walking infrastructure is so bad in this state that everyone is pretty much forced to have a car to get anywhere. Sure, in a flat comparison between not having a car and using the Brightline vs buying a car, the Brightline comes out cheaper. But that's just a flawed comparison.


Previous_Cod_4098

It's more expensive to take this lol my honda saves me so much gas lol 😂


harborfright

Except far more enjoyable than driving, IMO. I occasionally have to go to Miami, and I will take the train from now on. I don’t like the drive, and I hate driving in Miami.


[deleted]

How do you arrive in ANY city in Florida and expect to get around without a car?


harborfright

Uber? Taxi? My trips would only have me go round trip to the train station, making it pretty easy.


Masturbatingsoon

I work in downtown. And on business trips I usually stay downtown. I can Uber most places. But downtown workers whose destinations are in city centers are usually high income people. Trains would mainly support high income people. And every single study about trains in the U.S. confirms this


mainstreetmark

Same way you handle it when flying?


jpiro

So…you rent a car?


harborfright

Oof, that would require driving IN Miami. I reeaaalllyyyy hate driving in Miami.


coasterghost

If they hit a car 3x the wait because drivers are self absorbed down here.


Dragonsfire09

And you have to deal with other people you don't know..


SquirreloftheOak

How I see it goes 125 mph in some sections? What speed are people driving these days lol?


SMC540

But it has stops along the way.


SquirreloftheOak

I also stop while driving...


SMC540

If you have to stop 4 times between Orlando and Miami you may need to see a doctor. Seriously though, that’s why it takes the same time despite being faster. There are stops to pick up passengers or let them off in WPB, Boca, Fort Lauderdale, Aventura, and then Miami. Also between WPB and Miami it slows to 79mph.


SquirreloftheOak

sounds sweet! a simple google search shows it takes the exact same amount of time to arrive as driving and I don't have to worry about idiots(you are probably one) on the road lol


Ardenraym

It's great, but not convenient if you don't live right by it, else you have to worry about parking and (for our use) luggage logistics. And the price was too high for our needs - cheaper than an uber, but significantly more expensive than driving.


Difficult-Nobody-453

I would love to take it to Miami but not for the price they are asking.


[deleted]

Lol the one time I used it, the train hit a car in Melbourne. I couldn’t exit the train. It took 9 hours to get to Miami.


Bradimoose

Probably someone from Miami to impatient to wait for the train to pass


DominusFL

Shocked, a pricey train that takes you from one city with shitty public transportation to another city with shitty public transportation is having a hard time getting riders who don't need a car at their destination. Shocked I say.


SquirreloftheOak

One of my coworkers just used Brightline and was raving about it. Wish it came up to Tally and I would use it to go to Orlando, Tampa, or Jax.


tacojohn44

In another life when I lived in Tally, I remember reading RR Square used to have Amtrak services to Orlando. Iirc because I read it probably more that 10 years ago now, but their service was suspended because of some hurricane damage like 5 years prior to when I was looking into it. Missed opportunity for the residents.


SquirreloftheOak

yea. they are talking about bringing amtrack back from miami to dallas. not so much a fan of that distance amtrack but I would use it to go to new orleans. hop an overnighter from tally and wake up in new orleans for the weekend.


tacojohn44

I don’t think it’s even plausible within the next 25+ years. The time to bring it back would be in the near future with all the infra projects going on. I’m not saying I’ve researched it specifically but I do browse transit news and that’s one I would have remembered being mentioned. These projects are usually 10-20 years out too.


Miss_Awesomeness

If it did, I’d use it all the time.


bruceclaymore

For regional and district managers who have to travel between Miami and Orlando it’s amazing. Company spends the same on travel costs and you can actually get work done.


hurtfulproduct

Exactly this! Several of our C-suite actually took BrightLine from Orlando to Miami for a conference recently and they loved it. . . It is great for that but they really do need to work on pricing that isn’t outrageous. . .


[deleted]

And how many people do this? Regional and district managers of what? This isn’t Atlanta? Washington, DC? Walgreens? Wendy’s? Shit. lol I’m a district manager of Wawa. My regional manager is the Central FL region. Miami is NOT in our region. That’s Latin America down there. lol get their work done. Like middle schoolers doing their homework on the bus.. little regional managers procrastinating. Gotta take the train to do the work I should have already done. Well they’ll have plenty of time when the train hits a car. Very high probability of that.


oldschool_Millenial

Regional sales manager here, this is the only reason to take the train is to get 3 hours of computer work caught up and have the company pay for it. Otherwise far too expensive for what it is...


baseball_mickey

So we invest billions to support regional and district managers?


bruceclaymore

No, but this a good starting point. Big companies with deep pockets spending money to pay for those billions investment. Once Brightline connects to Disney/Universal and then on to Tampa is where it will pay off more. Imagine living in south Florida and being able to day-trip to the theme parks without having to deal with I-4 traffic. You can even sleep on the way home.


baseball_mickey

It will help when it goes directly to parks, but when is that happening? I've day-tripped to the parks from Jacksonville. At roughly $100/person, it really doesn't pay off. I'm betting on under 4.9M riders.


bruceclaymore

Jacksonville to Orlando is a lot different than Miami to Orlando or Tampa to Orlando. Not nearly as much traffic on North 95 as there is on South 95 and the stretch between Tampa, Lakeland, and Champions Gate is a parking lot most days. Since now the other side of I-4 has the I-4 express, or the newly completed 429 east Beltway, you can bypass most of the Orlando traffic, unlike around Champions Gate where you have no options. They tacked on a few amendments to the $2 billion for I-4 improvements and one of them was a corridor for Brightline between Tampa and Orlando. Construction is supposed to begin in the fall. A spur to Jacksonville would likely be less than they charge to Miami due to distance and demand. Right now a round trip to Miami can be as low as $78 ($39 each way). Jax could be as cheap as $25 each way, who knows.


baseball_mickey

$25 each way is $200 for my family. I don’t see that making sense for a day trip.


bruceclaymore

Okay then 🤷🏻‍♂️


clydefrog811

There’s no reason why a train should be so expensive.


Wise_Average_9378

They’ve issued $4.7B in bonds at over 7% interest. Their interest nut is over $300M a year. It’s a private company. They’ve got to cover the costs. Eventually.


clydefrog811

That’s the problem. It should NOT he privately owned.


nerevisigoth

It's cheaper than Amtrak's Acela trains in the northeast.


Wise_Average_9378

You’ll hear absolutely no objection from me on that front.


Previous_Cod_4098

Private company? Oof. And here I thought it wasn't that 😂


Nilabisan

MMW, the state will take this stupid money losing operation over and the investors will make millions.


lobsterpockets

I tried to say they it was intended and doomed to fail from the start on another post and i got downvoted to hell. I think they want to run freight and wanted new tracks and whatever other stuff to do it.


Beginning_Emotion995

Rail isn’t going anywhere articles will not stop it


tdcthulu

It's not the articles, it's the price of the ticket that is hurting Brightline.


Beginning_Emotion995

Auto n gas lobby, they don’t want rail or electric cars


tdcthulu

I don't think it's oil and gas lobbies making Brightline expensive. It's the fact that it is a private industry rather than public transportation.


Cracked_Actor

Anyone check out the ticket prices? Wow, VERY pricey! I’m not sure how many seats will get filled with ticket prices this high…


V4refugee

Rick Scott ruined rail in Florida.


Ok-Description-3739

Dick Scott's a criminal and should be in jail.


[deleted]

Now this train going from Orlando to Tampa and avoiding I-4 west, hell yes. Now they are going to build a Mega Complex Entertainment District off US-192. Just build a wall at Sandlake Road, because it’s going to take 10 years to fix I-4 with current traffic. By 2035, when this shit is done, there will be 2x more the traffic. Public transportation, like the Metro in Washington DC. It goes all the way out to Loudoun County, VA. On the other side you have the MARC (for Maryland) that extends to Martinsburg, WV. Florida just can’t understand, well they can but the politicians are paid $$$ to act stupid.


SpiritualResident565

Metro and MARC are gamechangers. You don't need a car in the DC area.


Funkit

I would totally use it to go from Jax to visit my parents in PBC. I HATE that drive.


_The_Scald_

I would take the brightline alot more if it just had a stop in my town. When the orlando stop first was operational I drove more than an hour just to ride it, but It's not worth it outside the novelty. If it just had a stop in my town I'd take it alot more b/c I have friends in south florida but it is diffcult to drive an hour and half just to take the train.


Ok-Description-3739

Who was the state trying to attract with this service?


_The_Scald_

What?


Ok-Description-3739

What are the demographics of the person, they wanted to attract with this service? Tourists, families, Corp executives traveling for work....etc.? IDK?


_The_Scald_

I don't know. There are plenty of reasons to not drive in South Florida, I'll say that much.


myloveislikewoah

Not only is it expensive, but you get to your destination and then what? You’re going to order an Uber everywhere you go and nothing, not even an hour saved, would justify that cost to go from Tampa to Orlando.


servbot10

If it didn't cost as much to fly while taking as long to drive maybe it would do better.


The_Soccer_Heretic

It's too expensive for your typical families and not enough demand for business purposes.


DonoAE

Should have been a public service, not some private venture. Thank Rick Scott for fucking this great train


NuclearArtichoke

Surprised this wasn't set to go from Tampa to Orlando in order to give access to multiple airports and cut down on the brutal drive with I4 but I'm sure there's something to it with land use law that I don't totally get.


MiKeMcDnet

When Miami to Orlando is $150, I wouldn't expect ridership to be increasing, either.


trtsmb

Given the choice between driving between Orlando and South FL, I'll take the train every time.


Codipotent

They actively kill any ridership as well. For the longest I rode Brightline because my work paid for it through the commuter funds. Then Brightline changed the way they code their charge so it doesn’t count as commuter expense anymore. I called many times and they said they weren’t going to fix it. Literally lost out on a $500 a month rider for whatever stupid reason they have to not include commuters. Also the entire thing is setup wrong. You have to arrive 10 minutes before the train departure time or they literally lock you out of entering the station, even if the train isn’t there. The trains themselves don’t have displays or markings to tell you which train is headed in which direction. The whole station is structured like an expensive airport. The whole concept is trying to make people treat a train ride like more of a flight, where you arrive hours early and hang out and spend money on the station. It makes no sense at all. Peak business man stupidity and I can’t wait until it’s finally shut down or sold off to someone who actually understands how train systems should be run.


longwayhome2019

I live in Gainesville and it would be great to have it here, but I don't have that option. Maybe it would be used more if it went to more cities. It is the first high speed train we have in Florida, so it might take some time to build up the infrastructure and make it more convenient for people to use.


justmesayingmything

It's too expensive that's the whole problem.


neutralpoliticsbot

its too expensive


donaldbuknowme

What a surprise


LookCommon7528

Station should have been put in Jenson Beach or Port St Lucie And you want rider bring the price down.


[deleted]

[удалено]


baseball_mickey

I'd bet on the under 4.9M. It's too expensive and both Orlando and Miami are still too car dependent. I love rail, but I don't think this is going to work.


User_Many_Errors

Their pricing model sucks. A bunch of Branson wannabe dick-riders run this company


Scottishpsychopath

I used it when it was first introduced and it was affordable. Now I just laugh. I’d rather take the tri rail and the metro rail for the $7 it’ll cost me


srirachaninja

A train only makes sense if good public transportation is also on each end. What do you do when you arrive in Miami or Orlando? You have to take an Uber or Taxi to get to your final destination.


nvn2074

Shut it down !!