High Speed Rail

[Kristin Marie Featherman]

Tampa, Orlando, Miami

Rush hour on I-4 has never been pleasant. Most would avoid it if at all possible. It is a strange mix of vacationers and commuters who are both frustrated at the conditions because they have recently left work to have "time off". Many of us have suffered the painfully long wait for the construction of the widening of I-4 to start and when it did, we wished it hadn't. One less lane is a huge disadvantage to traffic and a driver's mental state. For years there has been behind the scenes planning addressing this torturous segment of highway. It will address the issues of congestion, fuel prices, jobs, and cost. The thought is to have something that will have a positive impact on these issues. Why not have a high speed railway?

The high speed rail is set to start construction as soon as the collaborated forces of Fluor Corp.* and Bombardier Transportation**, who have been selected to build and operate the system, receives government funding. The competition for the funds has been strong. The high speed rail that is to connect Tampa to Orlando is the only rail that is "shovel ready". On the issue of cost, Connect Us, a coalition of business, labor and environmental groups from across the state , says, "The Orlando-Tampa construction cost is low, with an estimated cost of $2.5 billion. This equates to about $25 million per mile. Our cost is low because our planning has been strong, our right-of-way available, and our terrain flat, with no mountains or hills to carve up or bore through. I-4 has been rebuilt from Orlando to downtown Tampa with wide medians and wider and taller overpasses, all to accommodate speeding trains and all at a cost of more than a billion dollars. By comparison, the California system is projected to cost at least $50 million per mile and by some estimates, as much as $100 million per mile. (wikepedia). Light rail costs can be over $50 million per mile and urban interstate expansion can cost well over $100 million per mile, so the Orlando-Tampa compares very favorably by these measures." It has been assured that it will be safe. It will ride on its own system above ground level, saving its passengers from collisions with cows and stalled vehicles or a slow train ahead. The system would be only for high speed rail cars. On congestion and fuel prices, it is hoping that commuters and vacationers will use this as a means of accessing Orlando; therefore, there will be less cars on the road and a cheaper ride. Connect Us estimates that some 10,000 jobs will open in order to run the system.

There are many people who are concerned with the idea of adding a railway to a city that may not have room for another means of transportation. They are asking, where the rail will sit, what happens to existing buildings- do they get torn down to make room? Who is this really benefitting- the developers? Some say that it is not worth the remodeling of existing conditions. Others say that the ends justify the means.

Connect Us has a FaceBook page. If you would like to be kept up to date on this issue, go to:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/ConnectusHSR?ref=nf

Share your thoughts and see what others are saying at:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/venture/2009/08/tampa-bay-needs-to-make-some-big-decisions-about-whether-to-start-supporting-ornota-light-rail-system-of-trolleys-and-impro.html

For more info go to:

http://www.fastrailconnectus.com/journal_florida_hs_rail.php?action=view_comments&journal_id=103&type=

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.imakenews.com/myregion/myregion_e_a000134089.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.enewsbuilder.net/myregion/e_article000134089.cfm&usg=__nt3-jj2ocjt0bmeJQtXghH_Q3E8=&h=150&w=150&sz=11&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=vZ96H9sPfqpjJM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3DI-4%2Btraffic%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1

I-4 W during rush hour

JetTrain***


From Wikipedia:

*Fluor Corporation is a publicly owned engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance services organization. Fluor is headquartered in the Las Colinas area of Irving, Texas. The company employs more than 41,000 international employees and maintains offices in over 25 countries. Fluor is a Fortune 500 company.

**Bombardier Transportation is the rail equipment division of the Bombardier Inc.. Bombardier Transportation is the world’s largest company in the rail equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. Its headquarters is in Berlin, Germany. Their wide range of products includes passenger rail vehicles, locomotives, bogies, propulsion, and controls. They also provide rail control solutions and build total transit systems. André Navarri is the current President of Bombardier Transportation. In January 2008 the company had 31,500 employees, 23,800 of them in Europe.

***The JetTrain is an experimental high-speed passenger train built by Bombardier Transportation in an attempt to make European-style high-speed service more financially appealing to passenger railways in North America. It uses the same LRC-derived tilting carriages as the Acela Express trains that Bombardier sold to Amtrak in the 1990s and a similar locomotive, but instead of being powered by overhead lines as is the Acela and most other high-speed trains, it is powered by a combination of small diesel engine for low speed and turboshaft engines for high speeds.

[Kristin Marie Featherman]

That is a very valid concern and it something that they are considering. I know that they are planning this as a commuter train; so, hopefully it will be inexpensive or some sort of year or monthly pass will be available, as well as, daily tickets.

[Francine Messano]

The problem I see with rail transportation will be the high cost of the ticket.