Riders open letter to Orlando City Soccer President Phil Rawlins

Greetings Phil,

We want to congratulate your success in selling so many season tickets for your team’s inaugural year as a Major League Soccer club and to tell you about a message we just received from one of your team’s fans.

Phil Rawlins

The fan wants to know if he can take SunRail train to the team’s #FilltheBowl event on Sunday, March 8.

As we’re sure you know, SunRail doesn’t run on weekends. But what if it did?

Imagine how cool that would be to have thousands of people getting off SunRail in downtown Orlando for the pre-game festivities and then to head over to the newly renovated Citrus Bowl stadium for the team’s much anticipated match against the New York City Football Club. What a first-class way to begin this new venture, and to show the New York City team that Orlando has got it going on.

You’ve got the power to make this scene a reality by sponsoring SunRail operations for that one day – Sunday, March 8.

There is precedent sponsoring SunRail operations. The organizers and sponsors of the Jan. 1^st Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl paid to run SunRail that day, and it was much 

appreciated by the college football fans. 

The train ran before and after the game – but not during the game.

Citrus Bowl fans

We’re suggesting that you one-up the Buffalo Wild Wings team by sponsoring SunRail for the entire day – maybe 8 round trips.

Why? Because SunRail riders – many of them are fans and season-ticket holders for your games – want to see SunRail run on weekends. Running the train on Sunday, March 8 – would provide an opportunity to show how many people would ride SunRail on weekends, if it was available.

Many people work weekends and need the train to get to jobs. Others want to ride the train to easily reach a variety of destinations, including, church, shopping, dining, museums, parks and to cheer for your team.

Sponsoring SunRail operations for a day certainly would cost more than $100, but it strikes us that you’re a guy who knows the value of a great investment – considering that you’re spending nearly $7 million on Kaka’s contract.

Fans going to the Citrus Bowl got to ride for free. But maybe you can recoup some of your investment by requiring people who ride on March 8 to pay the regular fare. We bet SunRail fans would be more than happy to pay.

So what’s in it for you and Orlando City Soccer?

Great publicity and amazing goodwill in the community. We’re sure your marketing team will tell you that you can’t buy that kind of goodwill for $100 million. You’ll be making a crucial investment to improve our community, and we’ll never forget that gesture.

March 8^th is only a few weeks away. So how about Phil? We’d love to see you on The Rail on March 8^th.

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.

Orlando gives SunRail riders "the finger"

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.

The SunRail #NightTrain is a winner

In case you’ve been wondering, SunRail’s new #NightTrain is a big hit.

Tuesday night, after the Orlando Magic game the newly added SunRail late-night train was carrying a heavy load when it left Church Street for the last northbound run of the evening. And the riders were ecstatic.

Tuesday was just the second night for the new #NightTrain that was introduced on Monday as a test of expanded SunRail service.

As expected, Monday night’s passenger load on the #NightTrain was nothing to write home about. Only about 100 people used that train, but that was no surprise given that it’s Christmas week and there was nothing special going on in downtown Orlando.

But it was an entirely different tune on Tuesday. By early evening on Tuesday we heard reports that there were lots of people riding SunRail downtown for the Magic game. Until now most Magic fans couldn’t seriously considering taking SunRail to the Amway Center because the last train for the evening passed through Church Street before the end of the basketball game.

Under SunRail’s new test schedule the northbound #NightTrain pulls into Church Street at 10:30. That gives Magic fans lots of time to exit the Amway Center and stroll over to the Church Street SunRail station. (Fans were particularly happy because the Magic won for a change!)

Many fans arrived at the SunRail station at 9:45 p.m. and a few even had time to get a drink at nearby nightspots and reach the train station with lots of time to spare. In addition to basketball fans, we also chatted with several folks who just left a John Lennon tribute concert on Church Street and some tourists who left their car at Sand Lake Road and rode SunRail to explore downtown Orlando.

Now everybody is asking us when weekend SunRail service will start. With the kind of strong ridership we witnessed on Tuesday night, hopefully SunRail weekend service will be here soon.

SunRail riders, your help is needed

Calling all SunRail riders, a local official needs our help.

Bob Wesley, Public Defender for Orange and Osceola County, has a big problem. He’s running out of clothes to give defendants that his lawyers represent in court. Everyone the Public Defender represents is needy and many defendants don’t have anything better than a T-shirt and jeans to wear for court proceedings. Clearly that’s not appropriate attire for serious business. Research shows that juries can be adversely affected by a defendant’s attire.

In this country, everybody is innocent until they’re proven guilty. Cases need to be decided by the facts, not by what a defendant looks like.

So here’s the big ask: Do you have some clean, gently worn clothes in your closet that you’re not planning to use anymore. If so, would you consider donating those items?

Specifically the Public Defender’s Office needs slacks, jackets, dress shirts, dress pants, and professional dresses in all sizes for men, women and children. (Please no swim suits or ball gowns. Believe it or not, people have donated such items in the past.)

Bob and his lawyers will be collecting the clothes this coming Saturday in front of the Orange County Courthouse in downtown Orlando, but since SunRail doesn’t run on weekends, we’ll collect them this coming Friday at the southbound Church Street SunRail station between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

If you can help, that will be great.  You’ll be able to spot us on Friday, we’ll be in the station with a stack of clothes. Your generosity is deeply appreciated.

SunRail can make this a world-class community

Central Florida has all the makings of a world-class community.

Last week we cut the ribbon to open the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando.

That opening was celebrated last Saturday by an open house for the public and a free concert by Grammy-award winner Sheryl Crow. While that concert was underway on the center’s front lawn, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra performed inside. Meanwhile -- just three blocks away from the performing arts center -- the Orlando Solar Bears hockey team played the Greenville Road Warriors in the Amway Center, home court for the NBA’s Orlando Magic basketball team.

There’s so much going on, not just in downtown Orlando, but throughout Central Florida.

But Central Florida still isn’t a world-class community, because we still function like a small town.

Six months ago we launched the SunRail train system at a cost of $1 billion, but it doesn’t run on weekends, or late at night.

SunRail has a station that is within a 5-minute walk of the performing arts center and the Amway Center, but the train wasn’t running on Saturday night when it could have offered a wonderful transportation alternative to the thousands of people who attended downtown events.

In addition to the downtown venues, weekend and night SunRail service opens the door for people to experience a host of other entertainment and cultural venues from South Orange County to Volusia County.

The board that oversees SunRail is scheduled to meet on Wednesday. It would be nice if those officials demonstrated some world-class leadership and put SunRail on a 7-day schedule.

All aboard SunRail for a great event on Thursday

Let’s catch SunRail to the best showplace in Central Florida.

This Thursday we’ll have a unique opportunity to ride SunRail to a historic event – the ribbon cutting for the new $514 million Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, in downtown Orlando.

People have worked 30 years to turn the dream of a first-class center for music and dance to reality. Think of this as our Lincoln Center.

Our new performing arts center contains two performance theaters, a community theater, outdoor plaza and performance place, rehearsal room, educational programming space and a community facility. Wow!

The ribbon cutting will be held, starting at 10 a.m., at the center on Orange Avenue at South Street. It’s across the street from Orlando City Hall, just a 5-minute stroll east on South Street from the Church Street SunRail station.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony the center will be open to the public for tours.

The timing of this event provides a rare opportunity to use SunRail to attend a historic event in downtown Orlando. This can be a great team-builder outing for folks who work in Heathrow, Maitland Center, Winter Park, Florida Hospital or ORMC.

A southbound SunRail train arrives at Church Street at 8:21 a.m., and a northbound SunRail train will arrive at Church Street at 8:25 a.m. Usually it’s impossible to use SunRail to attend popular events in downtown Orlando because the train doesn’t run on weekends, or late at night.

We strongly recommend using SunRail to attend Thursday’s event because downtown Orlando traffic and parking are sure to be a mess.

The Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts is an asset for all Central Floridians, not just Orlando residents. That’s why it’s critical to expand SunRail service hours to the weekends and late-night hours to make it easy and affordable for Central Floridians of all ages -- teens to seniors – to enjoy performances at this new center.

In addition to the ribbon cutting ceremony there will be a number of other events over the next few days to celebrate and enjoy our new performing arts center.

They include:

·        Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. the center will be open for a community open house.

·        Saturday, 8 p.m. there will be a free Sheryl Crow concert

·        Sunday, Nov. 9, community open house and tours starting at noon.

(Remember SunRail doesn’t run on the weekends so you won’t be able to catch the train to attend any of these events. Good luck finding inexpensive parking downtown.)

Click here for a full list of upcoming events at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.