SunRail's new night train, not late enough?

We’ve heard a few people complaining that SunRail’s new night train – starting next week – doesn’t run late enough.

To those whiners we can only say: Chill out!

Let’s get real: This is Central Florida, not New York City. We don’t need 24-hour train service.

We’re grateful SunRail has added the late-train to the schedule. This late train can do wonders for restaurants, entertainment and cultural venues along the SunRail corridor. At this point we're mainly focused on getting everybody to take full advantage of this new night train. Strong ridership on the night train sets the stage for weekend SunRail service.

SunRail’s deal with CSX requires SunRail to get their trains off the tracks before midnight to make way for freight trains. As it is, SunRail's new night train ends its run in DeBary at 11:30 p.m. 

Let's keep in mind there are many businesses along the SunRail corridor and elsewhere in Central Florida that count on those overnight freight trains to haul supplies and products.

Starting next week Orlando Magic fans can use SunRail to get to and from games on weekdays. We understand that many performances at the new Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts won’t end in time for patrons to use the train to get home. Sure, that’s disappointing, but it’s impossible to please everybody all the time. Maybe the performing arts center can consider starting performances a little earlier so their patrons can use SunRail. Everybody needs to bend a little. SunRail has shown good faith by expanding their service.

As for late-night revelers who want to ride SunRail home at 3 a.m. after a night of slamming drinks, all we can say is tough luck. We don’t want SunRail to become a rolling drunk tank. If you want to drink yourself into oblivion, then it’s your responsibility to find a safe way to get home.

Please wear your thinking cap on SunRail

Some people must forget to wear their thinking caps when they board SunRail.

This morning we watched a woman miss her stop at the southbound Church Street SunRail station because she took too long to get off.

The woman who missed her stop was riding with a coworker on the upper level. The coworker made it off, but the other woman got trapped on board when the doors closed and the train pulled away from the station. The conductor was in a different car and couldn’t see the problem unfold.

The coworker explained the dilemma to the station ambassador who politely suggested that it’s always a good idea to gather your belongings and prepare to get off before the train reaches the station.

The coworker said, ‘Well, they should announce that.”

Seriously?

Does anyone need to tell you to come in from the rain if you don’t want to get wet?

Come on folks, a little bit of “walking-around-sense” is needed if you’re going to use SunRail.

The train is on a schedule and can’t wait 10 minutes at every station for people to figure out what they’re doing. People who take a long time to get off are being unfair to all the other riders.

Get with the program. We’ve written it before and we’ll write it again: Step lively, folks!

Weekend and late-night SunRail service is (almost) on the way

They heard you.

The petition signing and riding SunRail on Black Friday to demand SunRail service be expanded to the weekends and later at night has made a big impression.

This (Wednesday) afternoon at a meeting of the SunRail Technical Advisory Committee Florida Department of Transportation bosses agreed that they were impressed by the turnout for #RideBlkFri and they openly suggested what expanded SunRail service might look like.

They’re talking about adding four trains (that means 4 round trips between Sand Lake Road and DeBary) on weekdays, and 9 roundtrips on Saturday and Sundays. Yup, real weekend service!

Don’t do a victory dance yet. The real devil is in the details, and as you might imagine getting that service expansion boils down to politics and money.

First, a quick history lesson. SunRail operations are being overseen at this time by the Florida Department of Transportation because this rail system was built to alleviate the huge traffic jams that are expected when the massive Interstate 4 construction project begins this coming February. In 2021 (that’s no typo) after the construction is complete, the financial responsibility for SunRail will go to the city of Orlando and Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties.

So before FDOT commits to expanding the SunRail service the state needs to get assurance that those local governments are willing to pick up the tab when the time comes. Here’s another little factoid to keep in mind, there is almost no public transit system anywhere in the world that pays all of its expenses from the fare box. That’s why local government money is needed.

How much is all of this going to cost? SunRail is currently tallying the estimate and plans to release a “white paper” in a few weeks that will get into all the gory details.

If all the stars are in alignment and those local governments agree, we could have weekend and late-night SunRail service in six months.

Sure, that’s a little frustrating, but we remember when no one really wanted to discuss expanded SunRail service? Now SunRail bosses are openly discussing the idea and even suggesting what that expanded service might look like.

You are responsible for pushing the expanded service idea this far. But there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Where's the 3rd car?

Earlier Thursday we heard from a rider that the 3rd passenger coach wasn't on the first train during the evening rush hour on Wednesday.

We put that question to a SunRail spokesman.
His response:

"A third car is put on a train when the train is at 85 percent or greater capacity the previous day. Today, for example, the third car will be added for that afternoon turn. This is something that on-board personnel continuously monitor, as we do with special events. For example, the Maitland Arts Festival starts Friday, so we will proactively add a third car in anticipation of additional riders. Something you may have experienced on board, some of our passengers prefer to stand rather than take an empty seat next to a stranger. The conductors do let standing passengers know of seat availability in other cars or levels of the trains when available."

Feel shortchanged on your SunRail fare?

People frequently tell us that they feel as though they get shortchanged by SunRail when they buy a 7-day SunCard because SunRail only runs Monday through Friday.

We put that question to SunRail, and here’s a written response from a spokesman: “The weekly passes are good for seven consecutive days from the time you first tap on for our regular riders. We also offer a stored value card (with a 10 percent bonus), that operates exactly like your SunPass (toll transponder on cars EDITOR'S NOTE). You are only debited when you use it, plus you get the 10 percent bonus. That means if you put $100 on your card, for example, you get $10 worth of additional free rides.”

Are you satisfied by this response?

Communicate, communicate, communicate

SunRail has one major responsibility: Provide safe, reliable mass transportation.

SunRail is top notch when it comes to safety.

SunRail also deserve very high marks for reliability. But sometimes things go wrong that are beyond its control, such as people and vehicles on the tracks -- where they’re not supposed to be.

Granted SunRail is only 4 months old, but the railroading is nearly 200 years old, so service interruptions aren’t new. That’s why SunRail’s response to a service interruption on Friday morning was so disappointing. Inadequate communications was the major problem.

Passengers arriving at SunRail stations at 6 a.m. were greeted with a number of confusing messages on the public address system. Initially riders were told all train service had been canceled for the morning. That proved to be incorrect. To SunRail’s credit, service resumed around 7 a.m.

Some will say SunRail was being cautious when it said train service was canceled for the morning. How many passengers heard that announcement, threw up their hands and went home, or called in sick.

It would have been better if SunRail was more forthcoming and said, “Service has been interrupted, but we’re working to restore it as quickly as possible.”

SunRail kept playing recorded messages so it was impossible to know if conditions had changed. During an emergency, people want real-time updates, so it would be better to have live announcements, and to let riders know the announcement is live. Begin it like this: “Good morning passengers, the time is 7:10 a.m. and we now have a southbound train approaching the Maitland station.”

You can’t communicate too much during an emergency.

SunRail also needs to do a better job keeping its transportation partners in the loop. Lynx drivers bringing passengers to the Sand Lake Road station had no idea SunRail service had been interrupted. There are 2-way radios on the buses. Let the bus drivers know so they can alert their passengers.

SunRail is an important part of the Central Florida community. We count on SunRail to take care of us.

SunRail platforms suck

Wonder if the person who designed the platform canopies for the SunRail stations actually lives in Florida?

If that designer lived in Florida for at least two weeks in the summer he or she would know that the SunRail platform canopies are completely inadequate. The canopies are too narrow and offer zero protection from the sun and rain. You almost feel like passing out while waiting 15 or 20 minutes for a train.

Come on SunRail bosses, don’t you care about the riders?

Tri Rail in South Florida, which is identical to SunRail in many ways, has platform canopies that are wider and more substantial to protect riders from the elements.

The more we ride SunRail it becomes increasingly apparent that it was built on the cheap. And we deserve better.

Obviously it would be extremely costly to retrofit the existing platforms as plans are being made to extend service north to DeLand and south to Poinciana. But we expect SunRail planners to learn from their mistakes and design serious canopies for the five stations that will be built in the Phase 2 expansion.

And after that, they need to go back and replace the canopies that were installed during the SunRail’s Phase 1. 

SunRailRiders - soaring over

Here's a cool video that gives a bird's eye view of the SunRail commuter train racing northbound through downtown Orlando, Florida.
Get more SunRail news at www.sunrailriders.com

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.

SunRailRiders - Transportation boss tells riders to take a chill pill

Noranne Downs is a name you should know if you ride SunRail.

Downs is the Florida Department of Transportation district secretary for Central Florida. In that capacity, SunRail is one of many major projects Downs oversees.

Last week our friends at the Orlando Business Journal interviewed Downs. Some of her comments regarding calls to expand SunRail service to the weekends and late-night hours were very disappointing.

During the interview, Downs called weekend and late-night SunRail service “extras.”

SunRail, Downs explained, “was never set for weekends because it was primarily for the majority, which would be Monday through Friday, and we have tried to have our schedules – 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoons – work around hospitals… we’re (SunRail) going through 2 hospital areas … so we need to kind of work around that schedule.”

Thanks Ms. Downs, you made a compelling case for running SunRail 7 days a week.

Those mega-hospitals operate 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. In addition to hospital staff, hundreds of other SunRail riders don’t work traditional Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 schedules. They depend on mass transit – buses and rail -- to get them to work. For them, night and weekend SunRail service is not an “extra”. It’s essential!

We’ve met Downs. Professionally she is very accomplished and deserves a standing ovation for launching SunRail. Yet we’re disappointed because the attitude Downs projected in the interview (click here to see for yourself) seemed almost condescending to the thousands of people who signed the petition calling for service to be expanded.

Maybe the problem is that Downs works for a road-building agency and doesn’t care about mass transportation. Regardless, Downs is a state employee. She works for us -- the taxpayers and voters. Loudly and clearly we have said SunRail service needs to be expanded – sooner rather than later.

Consider dropping Downs a line to let her know how you feel about expanding SunRail service. Write to her at Noranne.downs@dot.state.fl.us. Please be concise and respectful.

SunRailRiders - Petition drive to expand service to weekends and late night

SunRail is perfect, except for two things: It doesn’t run on the weekends, or late at night.

The most common SunRail question we hear is: Why can’t SunRail service be expanded to weekends and late-night hours?

The Florida Department of Transportation officials who manage SunRail say they don’t have the money to expand the service. That’s a shame. It seems odd to create a public transit system that only runs on weekdays. That’s like buying a new pair of sneakers, but only providing shoe laces for the right sneaker. Sure, you can walk in those sneakers, but it’s not easy.

Many people don’t work a traditional Monday-to-Friday schedule. Two of SunRail’s major stations are at Metro Orlando’s main hospitals – Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Medical Center. How many people would go to a hospital where doctors, nurses, other health-care professionals and support staff, only work Monday through Friday?

The current weekday-only schedule prevents SunRail from reaching its full potential. Weekend service would encourage more people to keep their cars at home on the weekend while enjoying cultural and recreational events from DeBary to Lake Eola; visiting a sick friend at Florida Hospital, or having dinner with relatives in Altamonte Springs and Longwood.

Let’s also remember that we have many senior citizen residents who really shouldn’t drive long distances. Weekend service on SunRail would be a godsend to seniors.

Late-night trains offer a transportation alternative to people who have been enjoying “adult beverages” at restaurants and clubs on Orange Avenue.

Every car left parked on the weekends saves energy and helps protect the environment.

Expecting SunRail to run 7 days a week doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Just last month St. Paul, Minn. began service on its Metro Green Line train system. It runs 7 days a week.  Closer to home Tri Rail in South Florida – almost identical to SunRail – operates 7 days a week. Metrorail in Miami runs 7 days a week. The Metromover people-mover rail system in downtown Miami runs 7 days a week. The Jacksonville Skyway people-mover runs 7 days a week. Even the Hogwarts Express at Universal runs 7 days a week!

SunRail fans shouldn’t have to settle for “can’t.” The United States is a can-do nation. We’ve cured dreaded diseases and put men on the moon. Surely we can find a way to run SunRail 7 days a week.

We think expanded service is worth trying. If you agree, please sign the attached Change.Org online petition to expand SunRail service hours to the weekends and later at night.

Click here to sign the SunRail petition