Riding The Rail: Orlando

This morning we finally got a response from Orlando traffic engineers about the lack of adequate pedestrian crossings for riders who get off at SunRail’s Church Street southbound platform. They basically gave riders the finger (and you know what finger we mean).

This response comes from Traffic Operations Engineer Frank Consoli: We quote:

1. I have contacted SunRail about the issues on the kiosk at the south station not accepting cash. Their operations people are looking at it.

2. To enhance pedestrian safety we have requested OPD to provide enforcement in this area.

3. Staff is reviewing the current signage at this location. Currently we have signs directing pedestrians to travel to the signalized crosswalks as the safest method to cross South Street.

Unquote.

We consider item #2 to be mean spirited.

Instead of coming up with a reasonable way for riders to cross the street, they’re going to send cops out to give riders jaywalking tickets.

Nice going, Orlando.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Stop panicking about federal agents patrolling SunRail

Every week somebody tweets about seeing armed Transportation Security Administration agents wearing body armor riding SunRail trains. Here's the straight scoop. The agents are members of TSA’s Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) team that works with transit systems throughout the country, including Lynx – our public bus system. (Click here for more details on VIPR)

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation told us that his agency “has been coordinating safety and security issues with the Department of Homeland Security (TSA is part of Homeland Security) and the VIPR team in particular for more than a year now. They have been a routine presence on trains, platforms and the (SunRail track corridor) since service began May 1 and will continue to do so.”

So like the T-shirt says, “Remain calm and carry on.”

Friday, August 8, 2014

SunRailRiders - Do our leaders lack vision?

OK, so here’s what we don’t get.

We don’t understand how our state and local leaders could launch SunRail commuter train without a plan to expand the schedule from 5 to 7 days.

Yet that’s what they apparently did because every time we mention expanding the service they whine about not having the money and needing to renegotiate track usage agreements with CSX. How come they didn’t plan this on the front end?

It’s not like our leaders had to reinvent the wheel. SunRail is almost identical to the Tri-Rail commuter line launched by the Florida Department of Transportation in 1989. Tri-Rail, which transports commuters in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, started with weekday service and expanded to 7 days within a year. Where’s the institutional memory?

We’re tired of watching our leaders drag their feet when we – the people – say SunRail needs to be expanded to weekend and late night service. SunRail was built and is being operated with a combination federal, state and local dollars and rider fares. You know who provided that money? We did! So it seems like what we say should make a big difference.

For the record, of 26 commuter train lines in the United States:

· 20 have weekend service
· 3 limit weekend service to Saturday

For heaven’s sake the Northstar Line commuter train in Minneapolis has a daily ridership of 2,500 and operates on 7-day schedule. By contrast SunRail has a daily ridership of 4,300 and we only run on weekdays.

In this community we’ve gone through great effort and expense to build a world class international airport, a world-class public university, a world-class convention center, a world-class basketball and events arena, a world-class performing arts center, yet we the people are expected to settle for a half-ass commuter train that runs only on weekdays.

We deserve better.