Willie, I love train travel as much as anyone, but it is laughable to think a high speed train between Tampa and Orlando, which is less than 60 miles apart, will be used at all. It is a straight drive on the Interstate as is, and NO ONE COMMUTES BETWEEN THE TWO ANYWAY AT THE PRESENT TIME.
We would be better off, if money is going to be spent, developing monorail links in urban/suburban areas where people actually commute to work where traffic is a problem.
For example, expand the Metrorail service in Miami, where there is HORRENDOUS traffic and no chance to expand the roads due to density issues. People commute to the city and go to the suburbs. It can take an hour to go 10 miles if you live southwest of Miami.
The intercity high speed travel just does not have the demand you think there is.
The building of the 2nd Avenue subway line in Manhattan is justifiable by demand, the Acela to D.C. is limited to the speed the train can go around curves, which is well below it’s top ability.
I could see Las Vegas as a hub to California cities and Denver/Phoenix. But on the east coast, NO ROUTE IS EFFECTIVE ON A COST BASIS.
In order for this to work, business travelers need to use it instead of flight. In order to be of use to the business traveler, multiple trains would be needed on a route, and that could be prohibitively expensive to maintain and man the crew.
Stick to local train expansion and put the intercity plans on ice, FOREVER.
And make the city lose out on parking fines? Never!
Here’s a novel idea. If the people in Miami think they’d benefit from a monorail, let the people who benefit from it pay for it.
It is a straight drive on the Interstate as is, and NO ONE COMMUTES BETWEEN THE TWO ANYWAY AT THE PRESENT TIME.
Then who's in all those cars crawling bumper-to-bumper along the Interstate at a snails pace?
That's not supposed to be a 60-mile long parking lot full of empty cars, you know.
In order for this to work, business travelers need to use it instead of flight.
Business commuters would probably find passenger rail travel a LOT more relaxing and convenient than short-hop air travel on trips of 150~600 miles. Seating accomodations are much more spacious, and there are fewer restrictions on carry-on luggage and briefcases. And Amtrak has started offering free WiFi service (while the airlines make you turn-off your electronic gadgets for fear of electrical interference).
In order to be of use to the business traveler, multiple trains would be needed on a route, and that could be prohibitively expensive to maintain and man the crew.
That's a pretty silly labor analysis considering that a passenger train can carry far more passengers than an airplane. And unlike planes, the carrying capacity can easily be adjusted simply by adding/removing cars.
Furthermore, it requires far more sophisticate skills to train a jetliner pilot than a train engineer. And the trains have much greater potential to be totally automated, while few people will ever want to board a pilotless plane.