US Railways under the Biden Administration

[camflyer]

In response to both comments, what are the transit connections like at the airport?

I can imagine airports being good transit/intercity rail hubs, because people are already used to travelling/parking there when flying, so if you want to go "oh, there's this way that takes like an hour longer, but you don't have to deal with security or baggage claim, so it's actually quicker" then a lot of people will take you up on the offer.

Americans also love investing in their airports, so they probably have the better transit/road connectivity.

It's a similar point to what I make about HS2 stations, most people don't live in city centres/downtowns, so serving them isn't the be all and end all. What's important is that the stations are well connected. This may be easier to achieve downtown, but I won't disregard a project for not making downtown-downtown, especially if it would add significant cost to the project.

"American love investing in their airports" - since when? US airports are consistently the worst in the developed (and much of the developing) world.

 

[edwin_m]

In response to both comments, what are the transit connections like at the airport?

I can imagine airports being good transit/intercity rail hubs, because people are already used to travelling/parking there when flying, so if you want to go "oh, there's this way that takes like an hour longer, but you don't have to deal with security or baggage claim, so it's actually quicker" then a lot of people will take you up on the offer.

Americans also love investing in their airports, so they probably have the better transit/road connectivity.

It's a similar point to what I make about HS2 stations, most people don't live in city centres/downtowns, so serving them isn't the be all and end all. What's important is that the stations are well connected. This may be easier to achieve downtown, but I won't disregard a project for not making downtown-downtown, especially if it would add significant cost to the project.

Part of the issue here is that most airports don't have the throughput to justify fixed transit or even decent bus services to anywhere other than the nearest downtown (and sometimes not even that). So people have to drive to the airport and if the destination station is also an airport must rely on pickup, taxi or car hire for their ultimate destination. With that much hassle, for the sorts of distances where rail is potentially competitive a lot of people will just opt to drive the whole way.

In a European context downtowns tend to be the centres of good public transport networks, which are used by many people travelling to office, shops and entertainment in that district as well as the much smaller numbers interchanging to long-distance journeys. Even in Europe it's probably not viable to set up a whole new local network solely as long-distance feeders, though Midlands Connect is planning to do so for the HS2 Toton station. That's all more difficult in America where most downtowns are built for car access, with much lower density of development and much of it on closer inspection turns out to be parking. Reversing this trend would be tremendously difficult but intercity rail is unlikely to be more than a bit player in most of the USA unless it happens.

 

[takno]

In response to both comments, what are the transit connections like at the airport?

I can imagine airports being good transit/intercity rail hubs, because people are already used to travelling/parking there when flying, so if you want to go "oh, there's this way that takes like an hour longer, but you don't have to deal with security or baggage claim, so it's actually quicker" then a lot of people will take you up on the offer.

Americans also love investing in their airports, so they probably have the better transit/road connectivity.

It's a similar point to what I make about HS2 stations, most people don't live in city centres/downtowns, so serving them isn't the be all and end all. What's important is that the stations are well connected. This may be easier to achieve downtown, but I won't disregard a project for not making downtown-downtown, especially if it would add significant cost to the project.

Oh airport transit at Orlando is terrible. It's not 100% clear what you'd build transit to though, and it's very unlikely it would be to downtown. I would guess that the majority of the traffic overall will be going to one of the theme parks, and even out of season it will be going to diverse places across the metro area and surrounding region. Downtown has very little transit, two freeway junctions on a Freeway that sails through the middle on a viaduct, and not much else.

This is a problem for lots of American cities, but Orlando is the worst I've seen. Even LA has more of a Downtown.

 

[37424]

I don't remember there being anything worth running a rail service to in Downtown Orlando. There's an arena, a couple of hotels, a court, half a dozen restaurants and about a thousand parking lots. It was not, to be blunt, the pinnacle of my business travel experience.

In response to both comments, what are the transit connections like at the airport?

I can imagine airports being good transit/intercity rail hubs, because people are already used to travelling/parking there when flying, so if you want to go "oh, there's this way that takes like an hour longer, but you don't have to deal with security or baggage claim, so it's actually quicker" then a lot of people will take you up on the offer.

Americans also love investing in their airports, so they probably have the better transit/road connectivity.

It's a similar point to what I make about HS2 stations, most people don't live in city centres/downtowns, so serving them isn't the be all and end all. What's important is that the stations are well connected. This may be easier to achieve downtown, but I won't disregard a project for not making downtown-downtown, especially if it would add significant cost to the project.

I'm not disregarding the project because it doesn't go to downtown, but ideally there ought to be some connection to it and Sunrail/Amtrak ideally in the future and the fact that the Sunrail commuter network was setup in 2014 would suggest there is some demand for downtown etc, there were plans to take Sunrail to the Airport but they seem to be on the back burner at the moment. I admit the reason a lot of people go to Orlando is obviously the theme parks more than anything else. From my own experience if you want to get to downtown and Amtrak, In my case after taking the hire car back to the Airport I needed to get to the Amtrak station which the only options were Bus or Taxi, I opted for Taxi which cost about 30 dollars.

Ideally if the Project does eventually get to Tampa then a station near downtown would be good or Sunrail if its not routed close to downtown.

Its true to say that for many American cites they are more spaced out, and more designed for the car than European cities making the idea of a central station in easy reach of most of the cities facilities more difficult.

 

[Jozhua]

"American love investing in their airports" - since when? US airports are consistently the worst in the developed (and much of the developing) world.

Well they only really invest in highways and airports. The only things that get investment are things that burn, or facilitate the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuel. A.k.a - Highways, Airports, Millitary, etc.

Oh airport transit at Orlando is terrible. It's not 100% clear what you'd build transit to though, and it's very unlikely it would be to downtown. I would guess that the majority of the traffic overall will be going to one of the theme parks, and even out of season it will be going to diverse places across the metro area and surrounding region. Downtown has very little transit, two freeway junctions on a Freeway that sails through the middle on a viaduct, and not much else.

This is a problem for lots of American cities, but Orlando is the worst I've seen. Even LA has more of a Downtown.

Eeek, this does not sound like paradise for sure lol.

North American cities I have visited have been fairly good for transit & airport connections. New York, Chicago & Toronto. But these are probably somewhat outliers.

I'm not disregarding the project because it doesn't go to downtown, but ideally there ought to be some connection to it and Sunrail/Amtrak ideally in the future and the fact that the Sunrail commuter network was setup in 2014 would suggest there is some demand for downtown etc, there were plans to take Sunrail to the Airport but they seem to be on the back burner at the moment. I admit the reason a lot of people go to Orlando is obviously the theme parks more than anything else. From my own experience if you want to get to downtown and Amtrak, In my case after taking the hire car back to the Airport I needed to get to the Amtrak station which the only options were Bus or Taxi, I opted for Taxi which cost about 30 dollars.

Ideally if the Project does eventually get to Tampa then a station near downtown would be good or Sunrail if its not routed close to downtown.

Its true to say that for many American cites they are more spaced out, and more designed for the car than European cities making the idea of a central station in easy reach of most of the cities facilities more difficult.

When visiting Ontario I spent most of my time in a town near Niagara Falls. Got on the train from the airport to downtown, changed for a regional train (GO) to Hamilton, then got a express bus (GO) to St Cathrines. Then got the bus to my friend's place. Every change I took was in a dedicated hub of sorts, never having to walk half a mile or anything. Transit authorities which have their act together realise this and are sucessful for it.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I guess my point would be that Orlando needs to figure out what their hubs are going to be and come up with a plan for how transit will work as a system. This is especially important if you can't run high frequencies due to budget constraints and the like. No point centering your transit downtown, then having your intercity rail terminate at the airport. So actually, you know what, I agree, they should have looked at building Brightline downtown.

I do have an idea though, from browsing Google Maps. The Sunrail line comes fairly close to the airport, with the closest station being Sand Lake Road. They could look at building a people mover, similar to the ones used to shuttle people out to the terminals that would interchange at Sand Lake Road, similar to the Airtrain at JFK. Alternatively, they could just run a direct service on the line downtown, possibly using light rail/tram trains if that helps to make constructing a freeway median viaduct easier.

Also just seen that highway layout in Downtown...gross.

Btw, the public transport from Orlando Airport to Disneyland is 2-3 hours, vs about 30 minutes in the car. You'd of thought you could run a pretty popular bus service just ticking off the resorts in a relatively timely manner, but I guess not. Especially considering many people will work there as well, so you could actually reduce traffic a decent amount too.