Posted on 07/11/2010 6:09:05 AM PDT by Willie Green
Without a doubt, passenger rail should connect to Tampa International Airport, where parking fees can rival the cost of a flight.
A seamless rail connection would help maintain the airport's reputation as one of the world's best. More importantly, easier airport access would benefit local travelers and businesses.
But whether to put an airport rail station in the first phase of rail construction or later is best left to experts who calculate costs and predict ridership. The first line built should be the one most likely to carry the most people every day, spark the most redevelopment and help create the most jobs.
If the airport-first issue seriously divides rail supporters, it will hurt chances of passage in November of a sales tax increase. If the referendum fails, plans for transit improvements will be stopped in their tracks.
A related debate is heating up over whether to try to extend Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail to the Tampa airport. Existing plans for that federally funded system put the westernmost station in downtown Tampa. Mary Mulhern of the Tampa City Council urges a study be done to see if another high-speed station can be added at the airport.
The idea has appeal, yet the cost per mile through the congested area would be very high, and the train couldn't hope to get up much speed in so short a distance. Any additional stops in West Tampa and West Shore would be out of the question.
A light-rail connection would provide more entry points, arrive more frequently and better serve local residents who come to the airport from all directions. A less expensive and more flexible train would be a more efficient use of tax money.
It irks some Tampa observers that high-speed stops are planned at Orlando's airport and convention center and near the Disney parks. The only other high-speed stop will be in Lakeland.
Orlando appears to be getting more than a fair share. But as Tribune reporter Ted Jackovics recently pointed out, the Orlando-area stops serve much busier venues than Tampa can hope to match.
Without all the Orlando tourist traffic, Florida's rapid-rail proposal would not have won federal support. Making cross-state access fast and easy is good for Tampa and won't much hurt Tampa's close-in airport, which gets many of its passengers from Pinellas.
The main challenge here in Tampa is less how to boost airport travel than how to maximize the unique advantage of having a high-speed downtown station.
That will be a public asset, like the airport, port, and interstate highways, which will help shape the region's future.
Didn’t need to read to know the conclusion.
Newpaper = liberal.
Liberal = Loves public transportation.
More taxes?
Won’t pay for itself?
Nothing to see here, move along, move along.
Liberals love public transportation for you and me but not for them. They consider themselves to be out “betters”.
They believe that they are the masters and we are their slaves. Unfortunately, as the election of obama demonstrated,too many of those who live and vote here said, via their vote,”I wish to be your slave”.
I have visited both Tampa and Orlando many times on vacation, attending state level conventions mainly, and have no reason what so ever to visit both on the same trip.
A high speed rail line will break even if there is a heavy daily demand for two way traffic. With the exception of the New England area this isn't going to happen.
This exception is because of two unrelated issues:
Parking problems at one end of the route (New York City).
Existing rail lines to MODIFY.
This new line will take decades to build (it will take much longer than building I-4) and even more time to change habit patterns.
As a resident of NW Florida I am very %^&* to see my tax dollars, the sole source of ALL federal grants, being thrown down a generational rat hole.
Proof of statement? See Bostons Big Dig interstate effort.
Exactly. The places I want to go to the most are places where trains don’t go, nor should they.
And then how will the airport make up for lost revenue from parking fees?
Figure the costs, raise capital, charge users, pay off investors, keep the difference.
Easy peasy.
Here’s your chance Willie to do rail, and get rich! Good Luck buddy, write from Paris when you get there!
The way I look at it, I pay gas taxes and other automobile related taxes as a form of usage tax and I don’t have any issues with that.
I do have issues with highway funds being stripped and earmarked for all kinds of other projects. To make matters worse, the choo choo marxists want to seize even more of our highway funds to pay for their trains.
The roads into the areas that you and I want to go are among the most underfunded now and will be the first to lose funds to pay for something else. As they lose money, those roads will deteriorate into un-usability, eventually locking us out of those wilderness areas altogether. This is a goal of our marxist president.
I can drive to Orlando in 80 minutes for about $10.
If I take this train I'll have to drive to the station, pay to park, GO THROUGH SECURITY, wait for the train to leave, ride to Orlando, find a way to get to my customers...
Aint no way.
“connect planes and trains”
WITH WHAT?
oh - how about roads!!!
Written by someone who doesn’t understand economics.
Air travelers are considered a captive audience. Massive taxes on rental cars, obscene profits from the parking racket, huge markups for the food sold by the minority vendors.
Lowering the cost of getting to your plane would leave too many pockets only half full.
In Dallas, they built rail lines that may be of some use to the airport employees but which are virtually useless for air travelers at the two airports.
Ah, don’t you just love the “human cattle car” industry?
My husband works for it and we don’t take it.
Gee, I wonder why.
It will end up like Seattle’s light rail that now ‘goes to the airport’.
It’s a 14 mile line from downtown Seattle to Seatac airport, with 13 stops along the way.
And exactly ONE park-and-ride.
And the park-and-ride is the next to last stop, just before the airport.
What happens is local travelers making day-trips (like I often do) will drive to the park-and-ride (since we cannot drive and park in the neighborhoods around the line, because firstly they are low-income/high-crime areas and secondly they have a 4 hour parking limit if you don’t have a resident sticker, so you’ll get a ticket and towed), and then hop the train for the last 2 minute, 1 mile ride.
And I’ll pay $3.50 for the train both ways, instead of $12 (private) to $24 dollars (at the airport) for parking.
It won’t solve any problem at all, other than draining money from the private car parks and the airport.
But we did spend $179 million per mile for the line, so I guess that’s something to be proud of - it’s the most ever spent per mile on a light rail line, anywhere in the US. We’re number one!
Placing trains where people might actually want to ride them is a decision usually only made by a free market system. Private investors have to make a profit, you know. The government, however, can put trains any ole where, based on graft and corruption and pet projects.
"We need to alleviate air traffic congestion by eliminating inefficient short-hop flights with ground-based high-speed rail and Maglev."
And today you post this story. Can you name a successful, profit-making passenger rail service? Passenger trains had a 100-year head start on cars and planes and they blew it.
You must be referring to Paris, TN rather than Paris, France - as France is a socialist hell-hole.
If rail makes financial sense, why do they have to raise the state sales tax?
To pay for the lost parking revenue, of course.
Dallas is going to have rail to the airport in the next five years and if we thought the parking rates were high, now, I'm afraid we haven't seen anything, yet.
In private enterprise, the airports would LOWER parking rates to compete with the trains. Government enterprises NEVER have to lower the rates of anything and the Democrat party knows it. It's one of their founding principles.
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