Then Disney should have no problem funding it.
Rob Hicks of Tampa, I think laid it out well in a post on the Orlando-Tampa HSR line proposed project. I can’t really add more than what he said in a reply to a Heritage Foundation blog on the subject and I present it here for your edification:
Rob Hicks, Tampa, FL on February 25th, 2011 at 9:21am said:
Who is going to be riding this high speed train? A recent Tampa Tribune article says that the price of a ticket from Tampa Airport to the Orlando Airport is project to be $30. Therefore if I take my wife and two kids on the train to visit Disney World for the day, I will be spending an additional $240 for rail tickets, plus bus transportation to Disney. Any time I gained on the train would certainly be used up on the bus ride.
Compare this to driving my car 77 miles to the front entrance of the park. Since I have an SUV I only get 18 miles per gallon on the interstate. At $3.00 per gallon that translates to a total cost of $25 for the round trip. Still, a savings of $215, which would buy a boat load of Mickey Mouse ears. Plus my kids are not missing the fireworks so that we can get back to the train station on time.
Let’s next consider a single business man heading over to Orlando for a business meeting. It is still going to cost him $60 for the round trip, plus transportation to and from the rail station and possibly parking fees for his car at the Tampa end while he is gone. This is more than double what it would cost him to drive.
Until the cost of the more convenient option of driving your own car exceeds the cost of riding the train, with all of its logistic pitfalls, people are just not going to do it!
IIRC, Disney wants to fund it entirely themselves... I think the local politicians are trying to co-opt the project to include more stops. Disney, of course, wants to bypass all the local restaurants and hotels along the way and go straight to their property. [It’s been a few year - not sure where the projects stands, but the whole fiasco illustrates the point.]