Brightline ready to expand rail system to Tampa

[CityLife]

Those $69 one-way Southwest flights get rowdy, trust!   

I've taken a Southwest direct from Jax to Vegas and know what you mean. I'm sure LAX to Vegas is even crazier.

Even though it's only an hour and 15 minute flight from LAX, you still have to deal with airport drama. It's so much easier to just casually get on a train. Brightline isn't quite like Europe where you just show up at a station and jump on, but it's still a lot more low stress than an airport.

I'm definitely a little baffled about not having a station further west, but assume they have to know what they are doing. I'd imagine there are all kinds of partnerships with Metrolink, LA Olympic Committee, Vegas/Cali Tourism Bureau's that will make it pencil out for them.

[Jax_Developer]

I really do hope it works out. When I lived in California, the lack of transit was very shocking for how dense it was. My prediction is that this won't make a dent in the West LA crowd, and Brightline's success is very reliant on the IE embracing the route. 100% possible given the immense population in the IE alone.

[Charles Hunter]

"IE"?? Please translate for us not proficient in acronym.

[CityLife]

"IE"?? Please translate for us not proficient in acronym.

Inland Empire. Basically Riverside and San Bernadino Counties. The combined population is 4.5 million. It's the eastern suburbs/exurbs of LA that are generally more affordable than LA and Orange Counties. 

[Jax_Developer]

Thanks CityLife. My bad Charles, my social group always referred to it as the IE instead of Inland Empire.

[WAJAS]

Metrolink and Brightline will share a station at Rancho Cucamonga. With timed connections and hopefully a somewhat connected fair system (I imagine Brightline will offer tickets that include a Metrolink ticket.), most of the headache here will be subsided. They'll just have to do a good job at communicating the ease of connection to the public.

[Jax_Developer]

Metrolink serves as a commuter rail & is not well set up to handle the type of traffic that would be going on vacation to Las Vegas. (Aka safety, parking, etc). (Lived experienced)

[marcuscnelson]

Very exciting to see Brightline West break ground. They're on a very ambitious timeline but it sounds like they're well aware of that and operating accordingly, so hopefully they get it done.

Obviously Rancho Cucamonga isn't quite as direct as everyone would like, but the challenges of trying to close the gap to LA in one seat don't seem surmountable in the near term, requiring either the original plan of a connection to CAHSR, which then needs to actually tunnel through the mountains into LA; or a substantial reconstruction of the Metrolink line that connects at Cucamonga to support high speed trains. Either way, it's something that can be addressed in the longer run while some kind of service gets running. Also worth noting, in the run-up to the Olympics and in general there is a lot of investment going into transit in the LA area aside from Brightline. I have friends there now who are very excited about the systems that will be coming online in just the next few years, and the surge of crowds for the Games will be an opportunity for many to try utilizing those options.

Palm Beach Gardens sounds like an interesting infill opportunity. In the long run, it will be curious to see how service patterns might develop once the overall system has more capacity. Hopefully Jacksonville starts taking notice of what's going on.

[Jax_Developer]

If the California transit agencies can get their act together, Brightline would do amazing. My first statement being the very crux of why California does not have a comprehensive transit network. They have all the ingredients for it. They are too concerned with nature & impact studies, letting costs get so out of hand, that they can't complete anything in a reasonable amount of time. This San Bernadino line has 6,000 daily passengers compared to I-10's 350,000 daily cars. 

Brightline will have done the entire studies/permits/construction in less time than any transit project ran by state/local agencies (in Cali) that I am aware of in the last 30 years. I think that's the biggest takeaway for Florida & Jacksonville's future transit in my opinion.

[thelakelander]

Secondly, I hear that it is likely that Brightline will open a station in Palm Beach Gardens in the near future, possibly even a joint Tri-Rail station. The City of Palm Beach Gardens has done a lot of TOD/Transit/Mobility planning and there is a substantial amount of employment, housing, and commercial activity near the station location.

The thing that will ultimately put it over the top though is that NextEra/FPL is slowly relocating its corporate HQ from Juno Beach (10 minutes away) to a campus right near the future station location. They have one building built already, but I believe will eventually build somewhere between 4-6 total. They have tons of employees and visitors that travel to HQ from all over the country/world. Because of this, they are offering to buy a certain amount of Brightline trips yearly if Brightline builds the station. I've heard it's a huge number.

How does it impact Jax? If Zahn (and whoever else) hadn't blown the JEA deal, there is no doubt NextEra/FPL could have helped encourage Brightline to expand north to provide easy access to a big asset in Jax. Of course this alone wouldn't have had a huge impact, but it would have helped.

The bigger lesson for Jax though is that you have to leverage your assets to help attract Brightline. As I've said before, NE Florida needs to combine all of the business/chamber and tourism agency assets from Duval to Volusia to work together and show Brightline why it makes sense to expand up to NE Florida.

A $350 million UF campus + a campus for the Florida Semiconductor Institute could be interesting leverage opportunities.

[thelakelander]

If the California transit agencies can get their act together, Brightline would do amazing. My first statement being the very crux of why California does not have a comprehensive transit network. They have all the ingredients for it. They are too concerned with nature & impact studies, letting costs get so out of hand, that they can't complete anything in a reasonable amount of time. This San Bernadino line has 6,000 daily passengers compared to I-10's 350,000 daily cars. 

Brightline will have done the entire studies/permits/construction in less time than any transit project ran by state/local agencies (in Cali) that I am aware of in the last 30 years. I think that's the biggest takeaway for Florida & Jacksonville's future transit in my opinion.

I've been saying for years now that Jax's best opportunity at any form of passenger rail service will be intercity service enhancements in the form of Amtrak and/or Brightline. It will be faster than anything at the local level.

[jax_hwy_engineer]

It would be awesome if Amtrak's station relocated back to the Prime Osborne or closer to downtown. It's current station location is such a bleak place...

[Jax_Developer]

If the California transit agencies can get their act together, Brightline would do amazing. My first statement being the very crux of why California does not have a comprehensive transit network. They have all the ingredients for it. They are too concerned with nature & impact studies, letting costs get so out of hand, that they can't complete anything in a reasonable amount of time. This San Bernadino line has 6,000 daily passengers compared to I-10's 350,000 daily cars. 

Brightline will have done the entire studies/permits/construction in less time than any transit project ran by state/local agencies (in Cali) that I am aware of in the last 30 years. I think that's the biggest takeaway for Florida & Jacksonville's future transit in my opinion.

I've been saying for years now that Jax's best opportunity at any form of passenger rail service will be intercity service enhancements in the form of Amtrak and/or Brightline. It will be faster than anything at the local level.

Why is it that way Lake? Is it really that much easier for a private entity to do it? Seems like there has to be a reason why. Money of course, but in some regions... I don't buy that reason. Most of the rail stuff in California for example is just reactivating old lines or building lines between highways. I know several examples out here too that you all have mentioned that have been reactivating old or utilizing existing rail.

Brightline's timeline is extremely impressive.

[marcuscnelson]

It’s not necessarily about being a private entity (which is why Lake mentions Amtrak too) as much as it’s about a larger operation than just regional or local. We’ve seen for a quarter century now the local spinning of wheels on assembling the governance and financial structure needed to establish even a small rail system, much less one that covers the wider reaches of the First Coast. It’s not about just the track but who owns them, who pays for them, who hires people to operate them, who holds liability insurance on them. Despite JTA’s constant dangling of studies it’s a political decision that our politicians have declined to make. An intercity railroad bypasses many of those challenges by already being an entity that is doing those things, but even then they don’t work for free which still leaves the ball in our court.

[jaxlongtimer]

Lake:

I've been saying for years now that Jax's best opportunity at any form of passenger rail service will be intercity service enhancements in the form of Amtrak and/or Brightline. It will be faster than anything at the local level.

JD:

Is it really that much easier for a private entity to do it?

Well, Amtrak is a Federal government corporation (losses are covered by us taxpayers, just like the USPS) and Brightline is getting lots of government subsidies/support so not sure one can say Lake is asking for "private" entities alone to do this.

Public transit is like low income housing... it is never going to work without government involvement as revenues rarely cover expenses or justify private capital investment alone.  So, wherever you see public transit, government involvement can't be far behind regardless of who is fronting it  .