California's High Speed Rail Project Runs Out of Money

And again once the government is involved it'll be a boondoggle, will go well over cost and the taxpayers will be the ones footing the bill. I was never against HSR, I was against my taxpayer dollars funding it.

And you are wrong, Brightline is here in Florida and there's even a west coast version of Brightline that is opening up a Las Vegas to Los Angeles HSR line.

It sounds to me you're more against the government and don't realize it. Like you said the problem, as it is with so many things in this country now, is all the red tape. Government only creates more red tape.

 

It’s a lot cheaper to take your car. I’ve done Brightline a couple of times to Orlando and it for sure beats driving. As pointed out before, the Turnpike is a roll of the dice. And 95 has the worst drivers in the US. On the train I can work or have a drink and watch a movie. Arrive fresh and relaxed.

The issue is you still need a car once you get there. I have young children so Uber doesn’t really work for us. So between the train, parking at the train station, and renting a car in Orlando, it’s about $600 (and that’s w/ Bogo deals) as opposed to maybe $150 for gas and tolls. So it’s a luxury.

Honestly I’m fine paying more to not have to drive, but the biggest problem for me is the quality of rental cars is terrible these days. You used to be able to get cars that felt almost new, now everything is dirty and smells bad. Even at premium rental brands. So I’d rather drive our car. Maybe when my kids are older I’ll take the train and do Uber.

BTW, the original plan had a station close to Disney which would have been ideal. MCO is convenient for those flying into Orlando but not for us coming from South Florida. I really hope they add Tampa. Would love to take it to downtown Tampa.

 

I’ve rented from Sixt about 5 times in the last 2 years. Cars were great less than 5k miles. I did go with the BMWx-5 or x-3 however.
Got an Atlas once it was a clean good car.

 

I posted that it was a bad idea, and "railed" against it for Florida... no pun intended. Easy money if I had bet on it.

 

I’ll try Sixt next time. I got a suburban from Hertz a few weeks ago and smelled like something died in there, but it was the only large SUV they had at the moment. Had to bring it back the next day. They gave me an explorer with was ok but not very clean. Had to wait to have them ‘detail’ it again.

 

I remember it being a topic. Was in a meeting back in '08 with some Florida city / state planners and they were talking about how there was no way you could expand I-75 in West Florida enough to account for all the expected growth in the Southwest part of the state. It looks like traffic is getting bad enough to make private rail viable these days.

 

Saving 2 1/2 hours doesn’t seem like that much of a deal.

It’s too bad they couldn’t do a true HSR from say Orl to Miami
And Miami to Jax. Guessing not enough volume to support it.

Some of my coworkers are gonna do bright line to Miami in Feb, they have to drive from daytona to sanford.
I’m just gonna drive, I’ll likely beat them.