This is the best and worst of times for local public transit

This is the best of times and the worst of times for public transit in Central Florida.

First the bad news. Earlier this week (5/21) a referendum to add a penny to the sales tax in Osceola County was resoundingly defeated by voters. In addition to road projects, a portion of that money was also supposed to be used to improve SunRail and Lynx bus service.

No one loves the idea of increased taxes. Granted sales tax increases cause a special burden on people struggling to make ends meet. Improved public transit – weekend SunRail and improved bus service – also expands opportunities for those same workers.

We also know that Osceolans love and make great use of public transit. You can see that every day for yourself every weekday mornings on northbound crowded trains headed out of Osceola, and at the downtown Kissimmee intermodal station (shown in the accompanying photo) where workers board buses. It was not too long ago that there was no Lynx bus service in Osceola County.

The voters have spoken and now the burden falls on Osceola elected officials to identify other sources of money needed to keep growing public transit for residents.

The good news, however, outweighs the bad.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings last week announced plans to pursue the one-cent sales tax increase in Orange County to improve public transit. That is an important move because the reason public transit is so weak is because there is no dedicated source of funding for it. Hopefully, Mayor Demings and his supporters will take the time to understand why the initiative failed in Osceola.

As a reminder, no public transit system in the world can pay for operations solely from the fare box. Typically, a transit system can pay about 30 percent of the costs from fares. Beyond that, they need government support.

Remember, public transit is a service. The police and fire are also very expensive services paid for by the government. Unlike police and fire, transit raises some of the money needed to pay for its operating costs. Keep in mind that all transportation – from the street outside your house to the airlines – receive government subsidies.

The most exciting news came this week when Virgin Trains (formerly Brightline) announced that it started construction on tracks between West Palm Beach and Orlando International Airport. This has been discussed for years and now it’s happening. We can’t wait.

The best is yet to come.

See you on The Rail!

SunRail is ready to start a new chapter

POINCIANA -- Sunday morning at 9, the SunRail trains are locked, loaded and ready to roll – on Monday morning.

The newest chapter in SunRail history starts – sort of – on Monday, July 23.

That’s when SunRail begins to run its new schedule – including scheduled stops at the new southern expansion SunRail stations.

While the trains will follow the schedule – they will not pick up or let off passengers at the four new stations – Meadow Woods, Tupperware, downtown Kissimmee, and Poinciana.

In other words, all southbound SunRail riders will be required to get off at Sand Lake Road (Yes, Joanne, that means you, too).

Once leaving Sand Lake Road, the SunRail train will continue its southbound run with brief stops at the new stations. No one will be allowed to board at those stations.

Think of this week (July 23 to July 27) as a dress rehearsal for the passenger service that will officially begin on Monday, July 30. When that service begins there will be a limited number of free rides offered to people who board at the new station. For details on those free rides, please click here.

To accommodate the new schedule, and for other logistical reasons, SunRail has established a small maintenance base in Poinciana where 2 SunRail trains will be stored – which is why they were there on Sunday morning. The rest of the SunRail trains are stored based in Sanford.

While we continue to lament that SunRail does not offer weekend or late-night service, the new schedule does offer a few improvements and changes.

To see the new schedule, click here.

Get a free subscription for the latest SunRail news by clicking here.
 

SunRail needs some Disney pixie dust

SunRail can use some Disney pixie dust to attract thousands of new riders for Central Florida’s struggling commuter train.

Having spent 7 years working for Disney we’ll let you in on the big secret: How The Mouse keeps his amusement parks packed.

Disney focuses an insane amount of time and resources to understand who their customers are and what those customers want.

Disney doesn’t only want to know what customers like. Disney wants to know what those customers don’t like. Then the Mouseketeers figure out how to give the customers exactly what they want.

Anyone who has visited the Magic Kingdom recently knows that customers use Magic Bands to get into the park, pay bills, open their hotel room door and so forth.

Those wrist bands are a result of exhaustive research that told Disney how to eliminate hassles and make Disney vacations more enjoyable.

The result of this research is that 365 days a year thousands of people line up at Disney’s front gate eager to pay hundreds of dollars to get in because they know they will be getting the experience that they want.

SunRail needs to follow Disney example to get more riders on the trains.

Since we love SunRail, we’ll spare them the millions Disney invests in customer research.

Central Floridians want a SunRail they can use when they need it. That means 7-day service, late-night trains and hourly trains at off-peak periods during the day.

Give residents what they want and they’ll line up to ride SunRail.

One thing we know for certain. What SunRail has been doing for the past 2 years is not working. To keep doing the same thing is the definition of insanity.

It’s time for some pixie dust.

Will SunRail be running for Come Out With Pride?

Will I be able to take SunRail to the Come Out With Pride Festival at Lake Eola?

SunRailRiders has been campaigning for weekend SunRail service for more than 2 years. We’re the guys who launched the petition drive to get weekend train service.

Just this past weekend we got word that a group of local stakeholders was launching an effort to raise private money to pay for weekend SunRail service. They said they hoped to begin service on October.

Come Out With Pride is on Oct. 8. Our sources tell us that the stakeholders plan to have #SaturdaySunRail service started in time for Come Out With Pride. The exact schedule for that Saturday and other Saturdays will be announced this Thursday.

For the latest details follow us at www.SunrailRiders.com, www.Facebook.com/SunRailRiders and www.Twitter.com/SunRailRiders

SunRail is a disaster

We’ve declared SunRail a disaster.

The only way to save SunRail is to admit how badly things are going. They say the first step to sobriety begins with an admission you’re an alcoholic.

We base our disaster declaration on academic analysis presented on www.thetransportpolitic.com. 

Yonah Freemark, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, publishes that website.

Freemark noted that SunRail has the second worst operating effectiveness costs among commuter rail systems in the U.S., according to 2015 figures.

Data shows SunRail’s operating expense per trip is $35.11 compared to $8.47 for the Salt Lake FrontRunner – similar to SunRail in many ways. Click here for more details.

Responding to an email from us, Freemark wrote: “The ‘operating effectiveness’ figure ($35.11 for SunRail) means that it costs SunRail $35.11 to transport each rider.

“Because SunRail collects $2.21 per passenger in fares per trip this means that other sources (public subsidies) must provide $32.90 per trip to support the operations of the train,” Freemark continued, “You'll note that SunRail is also the worst-performing commuter rail agency in terms of expense per passenger mile ($2.39), which requires the largest subsidy per passenger-mile ($2.24). These figures would be improved substantially with additional ridership.”

Feeble attempts by SunRail and its high-priced consultants haven’t been able to improve SunRail because it’s operating with a half-assed schedule.

Lots of people want to use SunRail. Just check our Facebook page to see the intense demand for SunRail service. But SunRail doesn’t run when many people need it.

• No weekend service.
• No holiday service.
• No late-night service.
• No DeLand service.
• Service gaps of up to 2 ½ hours during the day.

It’s no surprise SunRail’s ridership is in a death spiral.

Please end the disaster. SunRail’s management and operations need a major shakeup to provide the service riders demand.

We’re tired of excuses and SunRail’s ‘can’t do’ attitude.

Save SunRail because it’s critical to provide transportation options Central Florida needs to thrive.

SunRail screwed Volusia out of DeLand train station

SunRail is running off the tracks.

Volusia County Council (county commission) members are ready to pull the plug on SunRail unless the promised DeLand SunRail train station gets built.

Who can blame them?

Mythical DeLand SunRail station

Nine years ago Volusia signed on to SunRail because they were promised a train station in DeLand – Volusia’s county seat.

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) currently operates SunRail. Orange, Seminole, Volusia, Osceola counties and the city of Orlando are supposed to take over the financial responsibility and operations of SunRail in 5 years when FDOT leaves the project.

Three new stations are currently being built in Osceola County – with the help of a special federal grant. A new spur is being planned to connect SunRail tracks to Orlando International Airport. But nothing is going on with the DeLand station.

Last year SunRail’s FDOT masters applied for a special federal grant to extend the SunRail tracks to DeLand. The grant was denied. This spring FDOT was preparing another application for the federal grant. In a surprise move, at the last moment, FDOT chose not submit the grant application to extend tracks to DeLand.

Volusia County deserves more than sweet words from FDOT. The county was promised a SunRail DeLand station. FDOT needs to deliver.

Currently SunRail tracks only go as far as the Volusia County city of DeBary – one of the busiest stations in SunRail.

We’re passionate supporters of SunRail. We’re also deeply disappointed in the defective SunRail product FDOT delivered. The train service is limited to weekdays. There are service gaps of up to 2 ½ hours. No late-night service. There’s no trains to DeLand, even though that service was promised.

No surprise SunRail is used by fewer than 2,000 daily because its schedule is so inconvenient. SunRail’s potential is tremendous. There are at least 10,000 people on the SunRail track corridor who could be use the train daily.

SunRail was pitched as a vital element in the I-4 transportation network. Unless our leaders wake up, SunRail will run off the tracks in 2021 when FDOT departs. We’re furious because FDOT’s poor leadership, poor planning, poor attitude and indifference to customer satisfaction are responsible for SunRail’s failures.

Please get this railroad back on the tracks.

Please don't blow it on Sunday

We’re praying SunRail doesn’t blow it on Sunday.

This Sunday will be a historic occasion – the first time SunRail will carry passengers on a weekend. For months we’ve campaigned for weekend service and we want everything to go smoothly.

The special Sunday operation -- organized to support the Orlando City Soccer Club’s inaugural Major League Soccer match versus the New York City Soccer Club at downtown Orlando’s Citrus Bowl -- is sure to push SunRail and its station at Church Street -- to their limit.

Orlando City Soccer sold out tickets for the Citrus Bowl (#Fillthebowl) – 60,000 seats.

In addition, the Orlando Magic will play the Boston Celtics at downtown Orlando’s Amway Center on Sunday. Basketball fans also will be ride SunRail to the Church Street SunRail station. No doubt lots of leprechauns will ride SunRail to Winter Park’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday afternoon. Surely many other events will be held along the SunRail corridor. In addition, hundreds of residents will ride to check out SunRail for the first time.

We all remember what happened last May when SunRail launched with free rides.  Many stations and trains were overwhelmed. That was then, and this is now. We just hope the SunRail leaders are on top of their game, nimble and ready to respond to unusual situations.

The stakes are high.

International news media will be in town to cover the historic soccer match. SunRail lovers and haters from Washington D.C. to the Tampa Bay area will be watching closely. Attention will be particularly acute in the Tampa Bay area where our mass transportation allies have been fighting for years to get a commuter rail system.

If we have a SunFail on Sunday, anti-rail forces will gleefully smear SunRail as a taxpayer boondoggle, and that will be a major blow to commuter rail expansion here and throughout Florida.

SunRail needs to be prepared to add trains, as needed. It would be nice if they asked Lynx to be on standby to pick up fans at outlying stations and bring them to the Citrus Bowl in time for the soccer match if trains get overwhelmed. Fortunately people will ride for free on Sunday so riders won’t have to struggle with SunRail’s balky ticket- vending machines – a major chokepoint.

The SunRail bosses have an obligation to keep riders informed if there are problems. People tend to feel better if they know what’s happening and what’s being done to resolve the situation.

Before heading to the closest SunRail station riders need to take a chill pill. SunRail was built to be a commuter train, not a special-events train. On Sunday 25,000 people or more could try to use SunRail. Sunday is an unusual situation – very different from the generally smooth weekday SunRail experience.

Realistically the tracks, trains and stations have a limited capacity. SunRail trains aren’t like the New York City subway. The passenger coaches weren’t designed for standing-room only. On Sunday many people will be standing – it’s unavoidable. Things will go wrong. Patience and good humor can do more to solve problems than a bad attitude and angry words.

Now let’s go make history.

See you on The Rail.

Orlando City Soccer and Winter Park Art Festival rock!

Orlando City Soccer President Phil Rawlins is a gentleman and a scholar.

About two weeks ago on this blog we posted an open letter to Mr. Rawlins suggesting that Orlando City Soccer make Orlando history by paying to run SunRail on a weekend for the first time on Sunday, March 8^th – when the team will play its opening day match.

While we never heard directly from Mr. Rawlins, he did respond.

It was announced today that the team worked out a deal to provide SunRail service on March 8 to help fans get to the match at the Citrus Bowl.

It’s also noteworthy that on that same day the Orlando Magic will be playing the Boston Celtics at the Amway Arena. Parking and traffic in downtown Orlando are sure to be a nightmare, so SunRail service will be a huge help.

This is historic because up to now SunRail only runs Monday to Friday – though everyone has been pleading for weekend service since the train launched May 1, 2014. March 8 will be the first time SunRail provided passenger service on a weekend.

The Orlando City Soccer news broke on the same day the organizers of the Winter Park Art Festival announced they will provide SunRail weekend service during that annual event on Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22.

These are phenomenal developments and they provide a great opportunity for all Central Floridians to show how they would use the train if was available every weekend.

Past demonstrations, such as our #RideBlkFri campaign, overwhelmed SunRail with enthusiastic riders who took the train to go shopping, going to parks and visiting friends.

These large rider turnouts are essential to help persuade local officials to find local dollars to keep SunRail rolling every weekend for leisure riders and for those who need to train to get to work on the weekend.

We can’t tell you how grateful we are to everyone who is making it possible to operate SunRail for the Orlando City Soccer opening day and during the Winter Park Art Festival.

Let’s ride!

SunRail rolls for Winter Park Art Festival

Weekend SunRail for the Winter Park Art Festival is the best news we’ve heard in 6 months.

First we must salute the city of Winter Park, the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, the Winter Park Art Festival and Florida Hospital for bankrolling the train operations on Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22. That’s what we call making a serious investment in the future of our community.

Winter Park Art Festival

Providing SunRail service for the art festival is such a smart move because the festival is excellent, but driving there and finding a place to park is a nightmare. It’s a shame that until now we have not been able to get SunRail to budge beyond Monday to Friday service.

By sponsoring the train for the festival weekend our Winter Park friends will show Central Florida what a joy it could be every weekend to get from Point A to Point B if we had full-time SunRail service -- something this community badly needs to reduce the horrendous traffic congestion that plagues almost every major and secondary thoroughfare in Central Florida.

SunRail officials said it will cost $5.5 million annually to provide weekend service. State officials declared they won’t allocate money for weekend service. 

Despite those roadblocks, the city of Winter Park, the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, the Winter Park Art Festival and Florida Hospital put some serious skin in the game to show what’s possible. We’re deeply grateful for their leadership and checkbook on this important issue.

But remember, the funding is just for the festival weekend. We all need to be ask: Where do we go from there?

Unfortunately we’re not going to come up with a permanent formula for weekend SunRail service today. Meanwhile, let’s all plan to ride SunRail to the art festival next month.

See you on The Rail.

Weekend SunRail means more than joyriding

When most of us vent our frustration about SunRail’s weekday-only schedule, we talk about all the cool places we could visit on weekends if the train ran Saturdays and Sundays.

But for numerous riders weekend SunRail service isn’t about “leisure riding”. They need weekend SunRail service to get to work because they don’t have traditional Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 jobs. Many can’t afford cars.

Empty SunRail station on the weekend

Recently we heard from an Orlando mother whose adult daughter rides SunRail to her waitress job in Altamonte Springs.

When SunRail is running the daughter can get to work in about 40 minutes. But on the weekends when she has to rely on several Lynx buses to reach her job it takes nearly 3 hours to travel to work.

That’s ridiculous.

Some will say, will say: “Well before SunRail she was taking the bus. What’s the big deal if she has to take the bus two days a week?”

Well, before indoor plumbing everybody had to go outside and use the outhouse. Today how many of us would want to go outside to use an outhouse a couple of days every week?

The young woman with the waitress job certainly is not alone.

There are many riders who work non-traditional schedules including people employed in the hospitality/tourism industry, hospitals, public safety and airport, to name a few. Their need for 7-day SunRail service is at least as important, if not more important, than our desire to ride the train to the Winter Park Farmers Market on Saturday morning.

Weekend service is much more than a joyride, it's a necessity for many workers.

SunRail needs to add a cash machine at Church Street station

Customer convenience is a concept that seems to be foreign to some SunRail bosses.

If they knew, or cared about customer convenience, it sure doesn’t show in the design of the SunRail station at Church Street – the busiest rush-hour destination for riders.

Church Street has the worst designed station in the SunRail system. At 11 of the 12 stations the northbound and southbound train platforms are directly opposite each other. But as the accompanying aerial photo shows, Church Street has a split station. The northbound platform is at Church Street, and the southbound platform is at South Street.

Reasons for this weird configuration are complex, and should have been avoided because it creates lots of confusion for riders. On numerous occasions we’ve met SunRail newbies on the northbound platform who really wanted to go southbound. They didn’t realize they needed to walk another block and cross busy South Street to reach the right platform.

Adding to this confusion is the sad reality that SunRail only provides 1 ticket-vending machine per station that accepts cash. The other 3 ticket machines only take cash or debit cards.

All the ticket-vending machines in all the stations should take cash and plastic. It’s downright elitist to assume that everyone has plastic. And anyone who doesn’t have plastic has to walk further to buy a ticket.

We pity the poor soul who runs up to the Church Street southbound platform and all that person has is cash. Hopefully that person can run two blocks and vault over South Street to buy a ticket before the train arrives.

Since the Church Street station already has an inconvenient design you would think SunRail would install a second cash machine on Church Street’s southbound platform. But as seasoned riders know, convenience and common sense are in short supply at SunRail.

SunRail’s official response on the need to add a cash machine on the southbound platform: “As always, FDOT continues to monitor station activities…”

Gee thanks, that really helps. Now, please put a cash machine on Church Street’s southbound platform.

Don't trust SunRail railroad crossings

We don’t know about you, but we don’t trust SunRail crossing gates.

Friday morning shortly after 9 we were driving to an appointment in downtown Orlando. Driving east on Central Boulevard we saw the lights flashing and the crossing gates lower at the tracks next to the big fire station. There was an SUV in front of us at the crossing. The gates were down for more than 30 seconds, but from our vantage point we couldn’t see a train. A female passenger got out of the SUV, and much to our horror she walked around the gate and crossed the tracks. Still no sign of a train.

After the woman crossed the tracks, the gates went up. Mind you we still couldn’t see a train. But the SUV in front of us (the one the woman got out of) didn’t budge. And then a moment later we could see the locomotive of a northbound SunRail train slowly rolling toward the Central Boulevard crossing. But get this: the crossing gate was still up. As the train reached the crossing the gate came down and the warning bells started ringing.

WTF!

What if we were coming down Central at a good clip and the gates didn’t come down until the train was actually crossing the street?

Now we understand why we’ve been seeing angry Tweets from motorists complaining that they almost got killed by a SunRail train. We thought those motorists were just SunRail haters, or reckless drivers. But no, we’re now convinced that there is something wrong with the SunRail crossing-gate system, and this problem isn’t isolated or new. We’ve been seeing Tweets about the crossing gates for months.

Think about it riders, how many times have you been on a SunRail train that had to stop so the conductor could climb down to the ground and use a red flag to stop traffic for the train to cross a street? (Shades of “Petticoat Junction”, Google it millennials) This past week we rode SunRail in the evening on Wednesday and Thursday and both nights the train had to stop for the conductor to flag traffic and Holden and Michigan Street in south Orlando. We’ve also seen crews working on crossing signals at several locations.

Thank goodness there have only been a handful of accidents with SunRail trains. To our knowledge, the crossing gates were not at fault in any of those incidents. But considering what we – and other riders and motorists – have seen, something is not working right in the crossing-gate system. How long before a malfunctioning crossing gate gets somebody killed?

No one should feel as though they’re rolling the dice when they cross the railroad tracks. Local government officials should be asking SunRail some tough questions.

We sent an email on this issue to SunRail on Friday. They told us they’re looking into it and will get back to us next week. Stay tuned.

Will you pay more to ride SunRail on the weekend?

Everybody wants SunRail trains to run on the weekends, but are you willing to pay for it?

During last week’s meeting of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission one of the bosses said it will cost an additional $5.5 million to run SunRail on the weekends – 18 trains daily on Saturday and Sunday.

As we previously explained, almost every mass transit system in the world has to be subsidized with public dollars, but the riders do have to pay their fair share from the fare box.

So on our SunRailRiders – Florida Facebook page we asked our followers: Would you be willing to pay a higher fare on the weekends to help pay for weekend SunRail service?

We were blown away by the response from riders who overwhelmingly support higher fares for weekend service.

For example, John wrote: “What's the point of having a system like this unless you can use it at any time -- day or night, weekend or holiday? We'll never get the ideal amount of cars off the roads unless SunRail is available at any time day or night.”

Then there’s Eric, who wrote: “Growing up in a city that had a great train system, I rode all the time as a kid. Now that I have a 3 and 6 year old - I want to take them downtown, and to the science center, etc. … and I would do it all from the Sand Lake station. Not running on weekends is a bad thing. Please SunRail - change this!”

Our good friend Dani, also made a strong business case for a higher fare for weekend SunRail service. She wrote: “I think weekend service should cost more than weekday service. Revenue Management 101 is to charge more for a timeframe that is either more desirable or costs more to offer your service.”

However there were some who don’t like the idea. Patrice wrote: “Not paying more...figure it out...The train was proposed for 7 days, my taxes are paying for it already...now make it happen!”

We tend to go along with the majority view to charge a higher fare for the weekends, but we do have some major concerns.

Many people calling for weekend service want the train running to use during their off hours to visit farmers markets or go to an Orlando Magic game or to dinner in Lake Mary, and so forth. Many of them don’t even ride SunRail during the Monday to Friday work week because the train doesn’t stop near to their job.

However, everybody in this market doesn’t work a conventional Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 schedule. Why should they pay a higher fare just because they work on the weekend?

If SunRail can ever get its ticketing system to work properly, we think the solution is to charge weekday fares to everybody who has a SunCard for rising weekly and monthly, and charge higher fares to people who buy one-day tickets from the vending machines on Saturdays and Sundays.

Hopefully the willingness to pay more to ride on the weekends will speed up the discussions and get trains running on the weekends by this summer.

See you on The Rail.

Take Xerox to the woodshed for screwed-up SunRail ticket machines

SunRail says it’s too late to fire Xerox for the lousy job that company has been doing with the ticketing system it was paid to install.

But it’s not too late to get tough with the technology giant. Last Friday – when 9,000 people rode SunRail – the machines were terrible Even a top Florida Department of Transportation official agreed that the machines performance was unacceptable.

And the way to get tough is to insist that top Xerox executives attend this Friday’s meeting of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission – the body that oversees SunRail -- to give a progress report on the ticket-vending system. Yeah, we know they’ll say they’ve been solving some of the problems. Listen carefully, that’s the sound of us playing the world’s smallest violin.

As all riders know, the ticketing system is terrible. Riders have missed the train trying to get tickets from these blasted machines. We’re pissed off. It’s time for the rail commission – elected officials – to give it to Xerox with both barrels.

At every rail commission meeting the SunRail staff is stuck with the job of explaining why the ticketing system breaks down so often and fails with simple transactions – such as handling transfers between the buses and the train.

SunRail staff members are not ticket-vending machine technicians. That’s why Xerox was hired. The corporation has more than 100 years of technology experience. This is a multi-million dollar contract. Opening-day glitches are understandable, but problems persist since last May – eight months! Even on a good day the machines are incredibly slow.

We’re sick of it. And it’s time for Xerox to face the heat for their own failure.

Yeah, we know it’s kind of the last minute to demand Xerox officials attend Friday’s meeting, but what the heck, tell them to hop on their corporate plane and jet down here. They’re lucky they don’t have to buy a ticket from one of their balky machines.

SunRail's ticketing system sucks

Enough’s enough with SunRail’s unreliable ticket-vending machine system.

Xerox is the vendor with the contract to install and maintain the machines. Quite frankly, the ticketing system hasn't worked since Day 1.

It’s not as though SunRail just launched the other day. SunRail has been running revenue operations since mid-May 2014 when riders were required to buy tickets. We’ve been in SunRail stations where 3 of the 4 vending machines were out of order. In addition, the ticketing problems have fouled up back-office operations that make it difficult for SunRail to accurately count and analyze ridership trends.

On Friday, Jan. 2, the machines had all kinds of problems when riders surged into stations to ride SunRail at the end of the Christmas holiday season. In some cases SunRail trains left stations while people were still in line trying to buy tickets.

Rube Goldberg contraption

Even when the machines actually work, they’re incredibly slow. Who designed these machines? Rube Goldberg? (Millennials, please Google)

Xerox has a million excuses and says they’ve sent squads of techs to resolve the issues. That’s too little, too late. If Xerox can’t deliver, then they shouldn’t have bid on the job.

The ticket-vending machine problems leave many SunRail riders -- and would-be-riders -- with a bad taste in their mouths. Those riders don’t complain about Xerox. They complain about SunRail. 

We think Xerox's top executives should attend the Jan. 9 meeting of the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission to take heat directly from our elected officials.

It’s time to cut the crap.

SunRail says it’s withholding payment to Xerox, and certainly lawsuits are probably in order. But none of that helps the riders who have been inconvenienced by the ticket-machine problems.

Fortunately, we’ve got a solution. Every time a rider tries to buy a ticket and the machine is too slow, or it won’t work, the rider should board the train without a ticket and tell the conductor what happened. The conductor should record the number of riders who couldn’t buy a ticket. Then Xerox should be charged $7.50 -- the full price of a round trip ticket from DeBary to Sand Lake Road.

Will some scamsters game the system? We’re sure they will. But you know whose problem that will be? Xerox. Get the ticket-vending machine system fixed and Xerox won’t have to pay the fares anymore.

The ticket-vending machine problems aren’t an inconvenience. They’re an embarrassment. We’re tired of it.

See you on The Rail.

Volusia officials seem to suffer from SunRail buyers' remorse

We can’t believe the Volusia County Council is whining about plans to extend SunRail service to DeLand.

This is not a new topic. This has been discussed and discussed. State engineers have done their work, now it’s time for Volusia to pony up.

In a way we’re not surprised about this recent outburst of buyers’ remorse. It would be unfair to call Volusia County Council Chair Jason Davis -- who serves on the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission -- a SunRail hater, but considering some private comments we’ve heard him make, he’s no friend.

While the Volusia County Council is whining about whether to pay their share for expanding service to DeLand, Volusia County residents have demonstrated they’re huge SunRail fans. Even though SunRail only has one station in Volusia County, that station is one of the busiest in the SunRail system. The parking lot at the DeBary SunRail station is running out of spaces.

Hopefully the SunRail commission won’t spend too much time dickering with Volusia. If they don’t want to extend the train service to DeLand; fine. Let’s not extend it. Five years from now Volusia officials will wish they grabbed the opportunity when they had it.

Regardless of what Volusia does, we’re eager to see SunRail service extended down to Osceola County. Unlike Volusia Commissioner Davis, Osceola’s representative on the commuter train commission is a strong proponent for mass transit.

Newly elected Osceola County Commissioner Viviana Janer, who has just joined the rail commission, grew up in New York City and she rode the bus and train to work and school. Many of her constituents rely on public transportation. She understands the importance of reliable, affordable mass transportation. We’re excited to have Ms. Janer join the rail commission.