Did Florida get something right? High Speed rail service thriving

[samhexum]

Is Florida’s Brightline the train of the future?

The $6.2 billion  rail system is set to finally connect Miami with Orlando sometime in the coming weeks.

Sometime this fall, a first-of-its-kind train will depart Southern Florida for a “magical” destination 236 miles north.

Known as the Brightline, this privately-built, for-profit rail company will soon cut the ribbon on a 170-mile extension connecting the likes of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach with Orlando International Airport.

Just beyond are many of America’s best-known theme parks, including Universal Studios Florida and Walt Disney World.

Nearly nine years after construction began — and just four years after work on the higher-speed section to Orlando got underway — the $6.2 billion project has the potential to not just transform transportation in Florida, but in heavily-trafficked inter-urban corridors nationwide. 

At top speeds of 125 miles per hour, Brightline passengers departing Orlando will reach downtown Miami in just under three hours. It’s a faster and far more comfortable upgrade to existing transport options: A drive along the oft-congested highways between the two cities, or the five- to eight-hour trip riding Amtrak.

And certainly more stylish: Brightline’s sleek black, white, and bright yellow trains are equipped with SpaceX Starlink Internet and leather seats; there’s even a business class-style lounge for passengers who purchase a “premium” ticket.

Brightline plans to operate 16 daily round trips between Orlando and Miami, with one-way rides starting at $79, comparable to prices on Amtrak or Spirit Airlines. 

Built by Sacramento-based Siemens Mobility, the lower-emission diesel-electric locomotives have already run between Miami and West Palm Beach for several years. 

But this second-phase extension northward to Orlando will be the real test of Brightline’s change-making capacity when it opens in the coming weeks. 

Once that happens, Florida leaders expect Brightline — which already carried close to 1 million passengers during the first half of this year in South Florida — to serve 4.3 million annual “long-distance” riders between Orlando and Miami, while injecting more than $6 billion into the state’s economy as it more closely links the Magic Kingdom with South Beach. 

Brightline is the first privately-owned intercity rail system in the US. And its development, says CEO Mike Reininger, demonstrates the impact similar major infrastructure developments could achieve nationwide.

“Seeing is believing,” says Reininger, who notes that multiple other cities have already reached out to Brightline for potential service lines. 

In many ways, Brightline offers the first evidence that train travel in America might someday resemble the ease and efficiency of railways in Europe and Asia. 

To be clear, Brightline isn’t done.

The company plans to build on its service to Orlando with a future extension to Tampa 85 miles further west.

Plus, company leaders tell The Post they’ll have shovels in the ground by year’s end on an entirely new Brightline West high-speed rail system connecting Southern California with Las Vegas.

And that may just be the beginning.

In an interview with The Post, Reininger teased the possibility of future, similar systems, noting the company has identified “a dozen or so” places elsewhere in the country that might be a fit.

“We really do think, for certain parts of . . . the country, we have now developed a blueprint and a theory about a way to get it done in a meaningful time frame and in a way that is economic,” he said. Exactly what is that blueprint?

For starters, Brightline’s Florida system sits in a densely populated, fast-growing state in perhaps the nation’s highest-demand tourism region.

Last year saw 72 million visitors descend upon Orlando and over 50 million to Miami.

These two cities are emblematic of the self-described “sweet spot” for rail: too close to fly, but far enough to make travelers think twice about driving; roughly 200 to 300 miles apart.

Perhaps more important, though, was Brightline’s ability to skirt the red tape and court battles that typically accompany mega transport projects by using or building tracks in strategic locations; company executives studied past, failed rail projects and found getting track space (known as a “right of way”) is often the biggest hurdle.

Brightline relied on existing tracks for large portions of its Florida line — tracks it has access to since its parent company, private equity-giant Fortress Investment Group, also owned the tracks’ original user: Florida East Coast Railway.

In other places, Brightline’s tracks run down the median of interstate highways, which were completed decades ago.

“This relieved [Brightline] of a lot of initial real-estate costs,” said rail expert Christopher P.L. Barkan, a professor who leads the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Rail Transportation and Engineering Center.

Using existing track also allowed Brightline to dramatically ease its battle for construction permitting, company executives tell The Post.

Brighltline avoided knocking down forests or going through the legal maneuvers required to build new tracks through private property.

Unsurprisingly, Brightline is taking a similar development approach out west, where it plans to run its trains along the Interstate-15 corridor that connects Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

To sum it up in a football metaphor, Brightline started in a good field position.

Its leaders acknowledge this. “Those starting characteristics are why we’ve been able to do what we’ve been able to do,” Reininger said of the company’s development strategies.

That success, however, hasn’t been without setbacks — some sizable. 

Last year, boaters protested in Stuart, Fla.,  to demand more time to pass through the St. Lucie River Railway Bridge.

Far more worrisome is Brightline’s already alarming fatality rate: Since its initial debut in 2017, some 30 motorists and pediatricians have been killed by Brightline trains.  Could somebody please explain to me why kiddie docs are so vulnerable?

The majority have been people struck by trains while walking on tracks; Brightline has repeatedly acknowledged the situation and announced a $45 million safety plan featuring “at least 33 miles of pedestrian safety measures”…along with “crucial safety improvements” at 156 railroad crossings.”

For all Brightline’s successes, the unique circumstances around its private money/private rail development means it may not be a fit everywhere, experts caution.

“Brightline has a lot of built-in advantages that not every project . . . is going to have,” Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, pointed out. “There are places in this country where that model can — and will — work. But there’s also plenty of places where it can’t.” Potential rail projects, he explains, should be tailored to a region’s specific circumstances rather than conform to a set corporate “blueprint.”

For that reason, Mathews cautions against viewing Brightline’s rising prominence as a rebuke of Amtrak, even as the federally-funded rail system has drawn ire from lawmakers and passengers for its budget and service. Despite nearly $50 billion in federal subsidies in as many years, “Amtrak has never made a profit,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) remarked during a June Congressional hearing with Amtrak executives. 

Such is the reality, Mathews says, for a rail company, like Amtrak, that’s required to deliver crucial service to even less profitable, hard-to-reach parts of the country on tracks that, outside its critical Northeast Corridor, are predominantly owned by (and therefore shared with) freight railroads.

“Amtrak can’t be Brightline anymore than Brightline can be like Amtrak,” he said.

Clearly, though, Brightline’s appearance on both coasts has demonstrated an appetite for alternative intercity passenger rail options, including those built with private funding.

Brightline also arrives on the precipice of even larger change for trains in America, with the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law having allocated tens of billions of dollars for rail projects nationwide.

This includes more money for Amtrak than it had previously received in its entire existence, along with a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

Even private companies like Brightline hope to benefit from the massive Federal money pot — the Nevada Department of Transportation has partnered with the company in applying for a reported $3.75 billion to support construction on Brightline’s western line.

“I think we’re going to end up seeing a mix of both private and public sector operations of passenger railroad in the future,” said Barkan, whose research team has previously studied high-speed rail service between Chicago and St. Louis.

Some of his former students have gone on to take jobs at Brightline.

Of course, despite Brightline’s success, investors eyeing future rail projects will likely consider the fate of California’s long-delayed Bullet Train that’s planned between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Since California voters first authorized a $9 billion down payment in 2008, project costs have ballooned to as high as $100 billion, but the system currently has only 119 miles of rail under construction.

It’s blunders like the Bullet Train that help put into perspective the significance of Brightline. “There’s been a lot of cooperation in terms of enabling them to get here,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told The Post, acknowledging the joint efforts between Brightline and public officials required to prevent potential regulatory derailments along the way.

“That is something that has curtailed efforts in some other parts of the country — getting tied up in litigation and not having your financing in place,” Dyer added (Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has been equally supportive of Brightline). 

In Orlando’s case, city officials helped smooth out Brightline’s acquisition of land controlled by the Central Florida Expressway and the Orlando Airport. Dyer hopes Brightline will get the green light to operate its Orlando extension by Sept. 24, when the city’s MLS team hosts Intercity Miami and its new superstar Lionel Messi. 

Brightline, meanwhile, has its eyes on another far larger sporting event: the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. 

By then, it hopes to have its Western system complete.

If achieved, it could make the global event one that could simultaneously showcase the prowess of American athletes and an improving US rail system.

“The main thing is to get Americans to recognize the value of getting out of their car and getting onto their train,” Mathews said. “And increasingly, they do.”

Yes, but as @nycman and @mike carey might say, it's still in Florida!

 

 

https://nypost.com/2023/08/12/is-floridas-brightline-the-train-of-the-future/

Edited August 12, 2023 by samhexum
for absolutely NO @%!*ING reason at all!

[+ azdr0710]

 

[samhexum]

3 minutes ago, samhexum said:

Far more worrisome is Brightline’s already alarming fatality rate: Since its initial debut in 2017, some 30 motorists and pediatricians have been killed by Brightline trains.  Could somebody please explain to me why kiddie docs are so vulnerable?

 

43 minutes ago, azdr0710 said:

 

Perhaps one of the pediatricians was driving that truck.

[mike carey]

Yes, @samhexum, it is still in Florida. I wish this had been open when I was in Florida in April, it would have been a better option than renting a car for the few days so I could drive from Orlando to Melbourne and back. There were quite a few others attending my reunion who trod the same path as me, flying into Melbourne, while possible, was not a realistic option. I noticed the new track along the Central Florida expressway from Orlando to the coast and wondered if it was for Brightline. Luckily I had no problems with traffic. The one thing I might have done differently in my situation as it was then, was take the pickup truck Avis offered me, so I'd fit in. I didn't have the right hat though.

[Bokomaru]

Traffic in Miami is horrendous. In Ft Laud it’s merely bad. Bright line is a great initiative but it does come at a cost. In South Florida those tracks are not conveniently going through an interstate hi-way median. They have utilized tracks that cut through heavy east-west traffic. The trains are very frequent. Brightline has significantly contributed to traffic congestion.  I know this first hand. 

[BuffaloKyle]

They wanna do a high speed rail system to connect Niagara Falls - Buffalo - Rochester - Syracuse - Albany - NYC here in New York state as well. But it's not gonna happen. The report just came out on it. So they spent 14 years doing a study on this which started in 2009. They said it would cost $6 billion dollars and it would only save 30 min from current options for a NF to NYC trip as the max speed would be 90 MPH. Plus it's not in this story but I believe they said on the news it would take around 30 years from the time they would start the project to when it'd be ready to open.

New York’s high-speed rail plan isn’t very high speed

WWW.WGRZ.COM

---

The NYSDOT prefers a plan that would install over 270 miles of new rail lines between Albany and Buffalo that would only have a maximum speed of 90 mph.

 

[EZEtoGRU]

3 hours ago, Bokomaru said:

Traffic in Miami is horrendous. In Ft Laud it’s merely bad. Bright line is a great initiative but it does come at a cost. In South Florida those tracks are not conveniently going through an interstate hi-way median. They have utilized tracks that cut through heavy east-west traffic. The trains are very frequent. Brightline has significantly contributed to traffic congestion.  I know this first hand. 

Yep.  That section between Miami and FTL crosses very busy roads and the train goes quite slow.  I've been on it 2 or 3 times already.  Service was fine and they have shiny new stations in both cities.  Every time I have been on it, the loads were very lite.  I do remember thinking at the time that I would not be surprised if the train (at least on that segment) would likely be involved in quite a few accidents.

To me, it really is not a true high-speed train.  Real high speed trains mostly go under/over road traffic to maximize speed and safety.  That has not been provisioned for on the segment I travelled on.  North of FTL, I have no clue it the train has less interaction with road traffic.  

I'm also curious how profitable an operation it is or will be.  

I wish them well.  I'm all for increasing rail travel in the US when possible and practical.  

[nate_sf]

 

16 hours ago, mike carey said:

The one thing I might have done differently in my situation as it was then, was take the pickup truck Avis offered me, so I'd fit in. I didn't have the right hat though.

Lol I’ve rented pickup trucks on more than one occasion so I’d fit in with the local context. The prices are usually really good, and it feels so butch! 

[+ sync]

I have my doubts that genuine high-speed rail passenger service (200+ mph) in the U.S. will be available anytime soon due to the likely  resistence to it by the domestic air carriers.

[samhexum]

9 hours ago, Bokomaru said:

Traffic in Miami is horrendous.

It took me 75 minutes to drive 28 miles from my apartment in Queens to my sister on Long Island today.  All highway driving, except for 8 blocks of street driving at the start and end.  It is always like that, no matter when you go.  I told her my next car is going to be a helicopter.

Edited August 14, 2023 by samhexum
for absolutely NO @%!*ING reason at all!

[samhexum]

Brightline, the nation’s only privately owned train company, will introduce high-speed service from Miami to Orlando in the coming weeks that will cut the commute in half.

The Brightline Florida link will reach speeds of more than 125 mph in some areas — the fastest train outside of the Acela-service Northeast corridor stretching from Washington, DC, and Boston.

The 170-mile rail link will run 16 daily round trips between downtown Miami and Orlando International Airport beginning later this year. Tickets start at $79 and go up to $149 for first-class seats.

Amtrak currently offers two daily train trips between Miami and Orlando — ranging in price between $39 and $49 — that usually takes six hours and 19 minutes. A faster Amtrak Silver Service train can make the trip in just over five hours.

Brightline first began operations five years ago, when it launched a 67-mile Miami-to-West Palm Beach route — the first privately funded passenger rail built in the US in more than a century.

Fortress Investment Group, a private equity firm co-founded by billionaire Milwaukee Bucks owner Wes Edens and Randal Nardone, owns the Brightline service.

Edens told The Washington Post that Florida’s intercity expansion will serve as a kind of blueprint for the company’s ambitions to replicate similar rail-building out West.

Rail construction for a rapid train route connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas is scheduled to begin later this year after the federal funding for the $12 billion project, known as Brightline West, was given approval by regulators. The funding was part of the $66 billion allocated for rail in the $1 trillion infrastructure deal signed by Biden in 2021.

The all-electric bullet train will ferry passengers along the 218-mile route at a speeds of almost 200 mph — completing the trip from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in two hours and 10 minutes.

The line, which is scheduled to begin service in late 2027 or early 2028, will include stops at Hesperia, Calif., and Victor Valley, Calif.

“Florida is Version 1.0, and we think it’s a great 1.0,” Edens told The Washington Post.

“Version 2.0, the high-speed rail from Vegas to L.A., we think is the real embodiment of what high-speed rail can and should look like,” Edens said.

“And that’s the system that people will look at and emulate when they look at building systems around the country.”

Brightline’s Florida service has had its share of hiccups.

At least 88 people have died due to collisions with Brightline trains since it started operating in 2017, though none of the deaths were blamed on the company.

Investigators said the deaths could be attributed to either suicides or pedestrians and drivers violating traffic laws by circumventing crossing barriers in an attempt to beat the oncoming train rather than wait for it to pass.

The trains travel up to 79 mph through densely populated urban and suburban areas along 70 miles of track between Miami and West Palm Beach that it shares with the Florida East Coast freight line.

An AP analysis found that Brightline averages about one death for every 35,000 miles its trains travel, three times worse than the next mid-size or major railroad.

In response to the accidents, Brightline has installed infrared detectors to warn engineers if anyone is lurking near the tracks so they can slow down or stop.

The company also has added more fencing and landscaping to make track access more difficult.

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, samhexum said:

...

An AP analysis found that Brightline averages about one death for every 35,000 miles its trains travel, three times worse than the next mid-size or major railroad.

In response to the accidents, Brightline has installed infrared detectors to warn engineers if anyone is lurking near the tracks so they can slow down or stop.

'''

Anyone here know how the statistics compare with those countries which really have high-speed rail, like France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, and China? What are their statistics, and how do they keep people off their tracks?

Edited September 2, 2023 by Unicorn

[+ sniper]

Brightline is not true "high-speed rail," it just goes at the higher end of regular rail speed.

We can't do high speed rail here anywhere you'd really want it because there are tens of  billions of real estate in the path you'd need to lay it. Barring a natiral disaster or world war demolishing all those buildings, it's not going to happen except maybe in stretches of desert. I don't know why people don't get this. China can tell people to leave their homes and pound sand. Europe was devastated and then rebuilt. The U.S. would have to buy homeowners out at market rates. That's a showstopper. 

[+ José Soplanucas]

19 minutes ago, sniper said:

Brightline is not true "high-speed rail," it just goes at the higher end of regular rail speed.

We can't do high speed rail here anywhere you'd really want it because there are tens of  billions of real estate in the path you'd need to lay it. Barring a natiral disaster or world war demolishing all those buildings, it's not going to happen except maybe in stretches of desert. I don't know why people don't get this. China can tell people to leave their homes and pound sand. Europe was devastated and then rebuilt. The U.S. would have to buy homeowners out at market rates. That's a showstopper. 

Or go underground.

[+ tassojunior]

1 hour ago, sniper said:

Brightline is not true "high-speed rail," it just goes at the higher end of regular rail speed.

We can't do high speed rail here anywhere you'd really want it because there are tens of  billions of real estate in the path you'd need to lay it. Barring a natiral disaster or world war demolishing all those buildings, it's not going to happen except maybe in stretches of desert. I don't know why people don't get this. China can tell people to leave their homes and pound sand. Europe was devastated and then rebuilt. The U.S. would have to buy homeowners out at market rates. That's a showstopper. 

 

Elevated high-speed.

A Japanese company has been trying to build an elevated Mag-Lev train from DC to Baltimore and eventually NYC for years but the unions and the US "rapid transit" manufacturers fight it tooth and nail. When you have unions and companies that give huge amounts of money to a crooked government little progress happens. 

[+ sniper]

Even elevated has a massive footprint. The supports need ti be fairly close together. The eminent domain issues are enormous in a densely populated area.

[EZEtoGRU]

5 hours ago, sniper said:

We can't do high speed rail here anywhere you'd really want it because there are tens of  billions of real estate in the path you'd need to lay it. Barring a natiral disaster or world war demolishing all those buildings, it's not going to happen except maybe in stretches of desert. I don't know why people don't get this. China can tell people to leave their homes and pound sand. Europe was devastated and then rebuilt. The U.S. would have to buy homeowners out at market rates. That's a showstopper. 

All true.  Plus real high speed rail has little interaction with road traffic.  It goes either above or below the roads to maximize speed and safety.  That would be prohibitively expensive to build in today's world in the US.  

[EZEtoGRU]

3 hours ago, tassojunior said:

 

Elevated high-speed.

A Japanese company has been trying to build an elevated Mag-Lev train from DC to Baltimore and eventually NYC for years but the unions and the US "rapid transit" manufacturers fight it tooth and nail. 

There is already train service between DC and BWI & Baltimore (including Acela).  What is an elevated train service going to do that isn't already achieved with the existing service?

[+ DynamicUno]

19 minutes ago, EZEtoGRU said:

There is already train service between DC and BWI & Baltimore (including Acela).  What is an elevated train service going to do that isn't already achieved with the existing service?

Grade separation eliminating crossings with road traffic, which allows faster speeds and more frequent service.

[EZEtoGRU]

17 minutes ago, DynamicUno said:

Grade separation eliminating crossings with road traffic, which allows faster speeds and more frequent service.

Sure...I get all that.  Even with the current service, it only takes 20-23 minutes to get from DC to BWI on Acela and only about an additional 10 minutes to get to Baltimore city center.  The elevated rail would save what?  10 minutes?  

I seriously doubt there is a compelling & realistic business case to spend how many billions such a route.  

[+ DynamicUno]

42 minutes ago, EZEtoGRU said:

Sure...I get all that.  Even with the current service, it only takes 20-23 minutes to get from DC to BWI on Acela and only about an additional 10 minutes to get to Baltimore city center.  The elevated rail would save what?  10 minutes?  

I seriously doubt there is a compelling & realistic business case to spend how many billions such a route.  

There's also a reduction in liability and certain operating costs from reducing the number of at grade crossings. Those costs, over the service life of the infrastructure, could justify project cost.

The whole corridor doesn't need to be elevated, just those portions with several roads that would otherwise need to be closed.

[marylander1940]

 

 

Calif.'s high-speed rail linking LA, Vegas bucks trend, is on schedule

WWW.SFGATE.COM

---

Brightline, a high-speed railway connecting Southern California to Vegas, is scheduled to break ground soon.

Another great idea a train from LA to Vegas... will they serve alcohol? 

[SouthOfTheBorder]

It’s not high speed compared to European or Japanese bullet trains.  
As others have mentioned, it’s because of the dozens & dozens of roads that cross the existing tracks.  There have been many deaths because of those trains.  It’s better than nothing tho. 

Yes, impossible to build real high-speed rail in the US now - mainly because of over-regulation, litigation & political cronyism.  Just look at the high speed rail project between LA & SF.  Billions spent & nowhere near complete.  

Ive been on Brightline several times between Miami & Ft Lauderdale.  I always wonder how they make money because I’ve never seen it anywhere close to being crowded, weekdays when commuters would be expected.

[samhexum]

High-speed train project to connect Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh plans to shut down

Hyperloop One — endorsed by Elon Musk that nevertheless got sidetracked with project delays and bizarre sex-harassment claims — reportedly plans to shut down.

[pubic_assistance]

12 hours ago, samhexum said:

Hyperloop One — endorsed by Elon Musk that nevertheless got sidetracked with project delays and bizarre sex-harassment claims — reportedly plans to shut down.

The lack of rail service in the United States is becoming a real problem. Airports are completely overwhelmed. Flights are packed-tight like cans of tuna, and check in at most any airport is a humilating experience.

Traveling by rail in Europe is a joyful break from all the misery of US travel that forces you to fly instead of having a rail option..

Edited December 23, 2023 by pubic_assistance
punctuation