How Flaws Undid Obama’s Hope for High-Speed Rail in Florida

Even the New York Times admits a boondoggle: its too expensive, will never attract enough riders to cover the capital and operating costs and at 84 miles, its short to be a true high speed rail route.

FL taxpayers know they will be on the hook for any shortfalls. No one wants this thing. They even repealed a state constitutional amendment requiring high speed rail over the costs involved. The bottom line is no such line will ever be built in this country and its a transportation system that would serve only a tiny fraction of the transportation market.

Willie Green would have to say its a white elephant. Good news FL took a pass on it.

But a state-sponsored ridership study, which was released this week, concluded that the proposed line would actually have been a money-maker from the start.

Nonsense. I can't wait to read and dissect that study.

Consider: So I take the train from Orlando to Tampa. Then what, rent a car? The train shaves a half-hour off the drive the article says. Does that include TSA time? Please arrive 2 hours ahead of departure? Queue up in the already swamped MCO screening lines to take the tram to the departure station? Then add time spent in the queue at the destination trying to rent a car while my car sits in a parking lot at the origin airport costing how much a day? Do the airports (the purported termini) even have enough parking? As it is on busy days you are in satellite parking so add another 20 mins onto the trip time for the shuttle.

Who commutes between TPA and MCO anyway? Oh, so it would mainly serve tourists? Well, Disney does its level best to keep you on Disney property so if you are silly enough to fly into Tampa to shlep a weeks worth of luggage onto a train and then go to Disney, more power to ya.

And speaking of Disney, I am surprised that the Tampa tourism people wouldn't look at this funnel to the Mouse House with horror.

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