Sunrail ridership Up, Looks like an Epic Success!! (Southchase: how much, construction)

[Anna Moose]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

Ridership counts are based on one way ticket sales in most commuter rail systems so the 3,674 (or so) a day that was the average the first year, winds up being just over 1800 passengers a day over 31 miles of track with 12 stations and an initial investment of just over 1 Billion dollars, which if my math is right is just over 550K per passenger utilizing it. Incredible...

Yup, just like when you buy a $400,000 house, and spend $10,000 on utilities, taxes, maintenance etc, per year, you really could have rented a place for $34,000/month and came out ahead based on your logic!

Fact is the billion dollar investment will still have that value next year. And considering almost half of it was land purchase, its likely to go up in value, not down.

I-4 is receiving a $2.3 billion dollar makeover for 21 miles. Thats $110 million per mile. And thats without land costs and the previous construction costs. Removing Sunrail's land costs, they spent about $10 million per mile to build it.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by Anna Moose

Yup, just like when you buy a $400,000 house, and spend $10,000 on utilities, taxes, maintenance etc, per year, you really could have rented a place for $34,000/month and came out ahead based on your logic!

Fact is the billion dollar investment will still have that value next year. And considering almost half of it was land purchase, its likely to go up in value, not down.

I-4 is receiving a $2.3 billion dollar makeover for 21 miles. Thats $110 million per mile. And thats without land costs and the previous construction costs. Removing Sunrail's land costs, they spent about $10 million per mile to build it.

Interestingly warped logic, were you part of the planning commission per chance?

[WithDisp]

Originally Posted by Anna Moose

Yup, just like when you buy a $400,000 house, and spend $10,000 on utilities, taxes, maintenance etc, per year, you really could have rented a place for $34,000/month and came out ahead based on your logic!

Fact is the billion dollar investment will still have that value next year. And considering almost half of it was land purchase, its likely to go up in value, not down.

I-4 is receiving a $2.3 billion dollar makeover for 21 miles. Thats $110 million per mile. And thats without land costs and the previous construction costs. Removing Sunrail's land costs, they spent about $10 million per mile to build it.

So, you're stating SunRail's cost to operate was 1/11th that of I-4 makeover.

Well, I-4 has 130,000 cars a day in Orlando, which likely averages 160,000 or so passengers a day... Given an avg of 1.25 passengers per car. vs 4,000 passengers on SunRail.

That's a 40 to 1 ratio.
Seems like the Interstate is still a better investment.

SunRail's numbers are just TOO LOW.
Anyone not seeing this is delusional.
2000 R/T passengers a day is ABSURDLY low.

Over 150,000 ride the MONORAIL at Disney Daily.
Maybe that should be up for federal funds for an expansion... at least it's used.

[0nyxStation]

Originally Posted by Anna Moose

Yup, just like when you buy a $400,000 house, and spend $10,000 on utilities, taxes, maintenance etc, per year, you really could have rented a place for $34,000/month and came out ahead based on your logic!

Fact is the billion dollar investment will still have that value next year. And considering almost half of it was land purchase, its likely to go up in value, not down.

I-4 is receiving a $2.3 billion dollar makeover for 21 miles. Thats $110 million per mile. And thats without land costs and the previous construction costs. Removing Sunrail's land costs, they spent about $10 million per mile to build it.

when Orlando starts running out of urban core land the land near and even the air over core transit stations will have a lot of value.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by BlackPeach2

when Orlando starts running out of urban core land the land near and even the air over core transit stations will have a lot of value.

Yeah, some of the anti-rail comments here sound like pre-approved Tea Party talking points, almost parroted word for word.

Orlando was very forward thinking to do this, and I'm glad ridership is up. I knew it would be, though.

Once the I-4 reconstruction is in full swing, SunRail will be a huge Godsend for many within the core areas. This will definitely re-shape growth for decades to come, and despite the wishes of several it isn't going away.

I would like to give the majority of credit to Mica, for being far-sighted in helping to plan for the future and assist in securing the Federal funding.

[WithDisp]

Originally Posted by JMatl

Yeah, some of the anti-rail comments here sound like pre-approved Tea Party talking points, almost parroted word for word.

Orlando was very forward thinking to do this, and I'm glad ridership is up. I knew it would be, though.

Except, ridership is not up.
It is below target.... and very much down from it's inception.

I'd rather the train be free and have 10,000 rides a day, than cost $2 at 3,000 rides a day.
Either or the money coming in from the fares is almost irrelevant to the total operating cost.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by JMatl

Yeah, some of the anti-rail comments here sound like pre-approved Tea Party talking points, almost parroted word for word.

Orlando was very forward thinking to do this, and I'm glad ridership is up. I knew it would be, though.

Once the I-4 reconstruction is in full swing, SunRail will be a huge Godsend for many within the core areas. This will definitely re-shape growth for decades to come, and despite the wishes of several it isn't going away.

I would like to give the majority of credit to Mica, for being far-sighted in helping to plan for the future and assist in securing the Federal funding.

Anything but Tea Party as I for one am very much for well-planned public transit which this system is not. It's designed for a traditional metro area where a majority of the population commutes from concentric suburbs to an inner ring commercial/jobs center which very much IS NOT the case here with roughly 10% of the metro population working in the area SunRail is designed to ferry passengers to/from....rather than fully assess the greater flexibility benefits involved with BRT (Bus Rapid Transit). Just because funding was offered up for an ill-suited project and it was accepted does not make for "forward-thing" or heroics from a local politician, rather the opposite as this flop unfolds.

[Not4longNY]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

Being federally subsidized and all, it's a given they would receive some federal assistance....and that "whopping" 1.45 Billion the entire Amtrak national system received is slightly more than the start-up cost of Orlando's SunRail which covers just 30 miles on existing freight tracks. So yeah, that rascally GOP...

So you love subsidies I guess?

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by Not4longNY

So you love subsidies I guess?

I don't love them, but they're a necessity as public transit is considered infrastructure like highways. Are you under the impression infrastructure projects like transit, highways and bridges should operate as revenue centers with a return on investment? It's an either/or situation....

[evilcart]

Originally Posted by OrlFlaUsa

This thread is about the news that SunRail finished year one with a ridership boom. I'm not sure why you're commenting here about its non-existent failure when there is already a thread with outdated information for that.

And I too love the Disney transit system, but it was built into a golden situation and they built the parks to compliment the system and vice versa. SunRail was built with the knowledge that it would be swimming upstream, attempting to fundamentally transform not only how Orlando commutes but also affect future growth patterns in this city.

NOPE. going from zero to 5k is nothing. I would expect commuter transit to handle that in an hour at the very least. 5k a day is nothing.