February 18, 2025 • 24 mins
Brightline's success in Florida not only enhances travel between Miami and Orlando but also spurs potential advancements in the state's public transit system. As the Sunshine Corridor expansion plans unfold, the discussion uncovers how private initiatives can effectively stimulate public investments and reshape commuting in the region.
• Overview of Brightline's operational success and ridership growth
• The positive impact of Brightline on public transit perceptions in Florida
• The current state and planned expansions of Orlando's SunRail system
• Insights on funding structures for future transit projects
• Exploration of public-private partnerships and their role in transportation development
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
on this episode, we're exploring how private
partnerships can actually spurpublic transit investment in
Florida.
Of all places.
Check out how the Bright Line'sconnecting Miami to Orlando and
what that means for the Orlandometro area.
On this episode of TransitTangents.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name's Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we're going to be
asking an interesting questionin this episode, and the
question is is Brightlinespurring public transit
investment in Florida?
It's been really strange to seeFlorida become the state that
has the fast trains the fastestalready, and this is kind of
(00:57):
another interesting element here.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Places that you don't think that mass transit is
going to do.
Well, florida is not top ofmind, no, but what we're seeing,
it's surprisingly doing verywell.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, and at least the future is looking like it
should be doing very well.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
The future's looking like it's going to do really
well.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so this episode we're going to kind of talk
about the plans for expandingOrlando's SunRail.
Obviously, right now Brightlineconnects Miami to Orlando.
Orlando has been the recentextension here.
Miami has some public transitand some rail infrastructure and
whatnot.
Orlando not necessarily knownfor that sort of thing, but
(01:36):
interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I disagree, Lewis, have you been to Disney World?
That's fair actually.
Public transit at Disney is topnotch.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's fair.
We've had that requested as anepisode, by a couple people
actually, but yeah.
So, yeah, we're going to kindof dive into this in this
episode.
Before we get into the specificSunRail initiatives the
existing SunRail system as wellas what's called the Sunshine
Corridor extension we're goingto start by talking about how
Brightline has been doing overthe last few years, which is
(02:18):
increasingly doing really well,are pretty positive of
Brightline.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You run into people occasionally who don't really
support the idea of privatebusiness.
You know, setting out theserails, setting out these
projects.
We'll kind of get into that alittle bit, but pretty much
everybody has heard ofBrightline at this point.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Totally, and now they have 15 trains per day in each
direction, which is basicallyhourly service throughout the
day.
In the morning it's a littlebit more frequent than that even
, and then it kind of tapers offat the end of the day.
And again, full route right nowgoes from downtown Miami to the
Orlando airport, so there's nolike downtown Orlando stop or
(02:57):
anything, but right now we'rerunning to the airport.
There are plans to extend thisto Tampa, which we'll talk a
little bit about later.
But again, really frequentservice.
And what's surprising is weconsistently hear about like oh,
Brightline's expensive andthat's kind of one of the
negatives of having this morelike private business running
this, which I think there arereal concerns there that that
could be an issue.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, private business can charge whatever
they want.
I mean, look at airlines,airlines can kind of charge
whatever they want when theyknow that a seat is in demand,
right.
And that's the fear I thinkwith Brightline is like you have
this really great public goodand they're going to charge
$1,000 for a ticket, right.
And, to be fair, when theyfirst opened, tickets were
pretty expensive.
Right, it was comparable towhat you would pay for a flight,
(03:38):
maybe slightly more in certaindays, but it was comparable to a
flight, but in certain days,but it was comparable to a
flight, but today that'sdifferent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, so I just for a test to see.
I looked for tomorrow andtomorrow there were probably 10
of the 15 routes throughout theday, not routes scheduled times
throughout the day.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Tomorrow being mid-February, depending on when
this episode comes out, right?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, tickets were about $44.
Some of them were as low as $39.
And these are for kind ofsimilar to an airline that have
different tiers, right.
So these are for the ticketsthat are non-refundable.
You can't change them.
If you wanted to upgrade it toan economy ticket that you can
change, it was more like $60 or$65, which still feels very
(04:20):
reasonable to go from Miami allthe way to Orlando, and then on
top of that the first classtickets were around $120, which
for a first class ticket feelsagain pretty on par with what it
should be.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I'm curious because I'm doing the math in my head.
Like you know, you can probablyget a pretty cheap airline
flight from Miami to Orlando,like a Spirit or Frontier or
something, for a comparableprice, like $60, maybe less, but
then you have to pay for thebags, right and you have to go
through all the process of thatairport involves.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, at some point we'll do a very specific episode
, kind of just focusing on theBrightline model, kind of
comparing what they're doing inFlorida to what they're planning
to do out in between LA and LasVegas, which is currently under
construction.
It's not necessarily the pointof this, but we're going to
share a couple stats here justto give folks an idea of how
(05:08):
many people are riding it,because this directly will
influence the kind of expansionplans for the Orlando Sun Rail
that we're talking about.
When you have, all of a sudden,all these people landing in
Orlando with no car, do theyhave to rent a car or can we get
them to the rest of theirdestinations continuing to use
transit?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So if we're talking about Brightline stats, like I
said, this project, it lookslike it's going really well.
It's only seemingly growing inthe future.
In 2024, Brightline saw about2.7 million riders, which is a
lot.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
It is a lot, yeah, roughly between 200,000 to
250,000 a month.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, and if we compare those to some of the
Amtrak routes that we see, Imean that's it's significant
compared to a lot of the Amtrakroutes that we see too.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Absolutely.
And again, and this is inFlorida.
Yeah, this is not.
This is not the Northeastcorridor.
This is not like a super, youknow what I mean.
It's it's.
This is Florida.
Yeah, like a super, you knowwhat I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
This is Florida, yeah , and we're seeing this growth
trajectory which is lookingreally good.
In 2019, it was 885,000passengers.
Again, you know, we're kind ofgetting close to the COVID years
, so some of this is going to bedepressed to some extent.
But by 2022, we got to 1.2million.
2023, we're at 2 million, andnow here we are sitting at about
2.7.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So, 1.2 million 2023, we're at 2 million and now here
we are sitting at about 2.7.
So really impressive growth inridership and with all the
ridership to uh brightline.
Initially started with uh fourpassenger cars on each of their
train sets.
Uh, at that level they wereselling out a ton.
Sorry, the train sets.
I just, I'm just picturing likelittle trains that's like the
industry jargon, I think youcall it a train set.
(06:46):
So they have since added afifth car to all of their train
sets.
To that each or additionalpassenger cars, so that each of
the trains will have up to sevenuh, passenger cars on them,
(07:11):
which is pretty significant.
Just to give you an idea of howmany people fit in each one,
when they were doing fourpassenger cars, each train could
carry about 240 people, whichis already a pretty significant
amount, especially when theywere selling it out when they
bumped it up five.
That bumps it to about 306people.
And then I'm doing a little bitof assumptions here, because
(07:32):
some of the cars will be firstclass cars versus economy and
I'm imagining there are lessseats in the first class cars,
but estimating to be around 430people per train once they get
this up to the full seven carsper train.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, it's a lot of people being able to move in one
go.
A good comparison to that is acommercial airliner like a 737
maxes out around 200 people, 200passengers.
So it is a way more efficientway to move large amounts of
people and I think that's a goodpoint.
To try to segue back into.
(08:06):
The point of this episode isokay, we are moving so many
people between Miami and Orlando.
What happens when they get toOrlando and that is a question
you hear or statement you hearall the time about connecting
cities by train is well, if thecities don't have public transit
, then how are people going toget around?
What's the point of the train?
Right, which I don't like thatargument, but I think what we're
(08:26):
seeing in Orlando is a goodanswer to that argument Totally,
and to this end too.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I mean, people don't necessarily want to get in a car
.
There was one really otherinteresting tidbit that came out
of this October call withBrightline.
They did a survey of theirfrequent riders.
There's a large group of folkswho are riding Brightline for
work on a regular basis and,according to Brightline, 66% of
long haul survey respondersstated that Brightline has
(08:52):
changed their habit from mostlydriving to mostly taking the
train, which is amazing.
So if these folks are changingtheir habits there, instead of
landing in Orlando and gettingan Uber or renting a car at the
Orlando airport where they'reending up, if they could just
transfer onto another train toget them to their final
destination, these people verylikely would want to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's going to be a much morecomfortable experience If the
train is taking a comparableamount of time.
You can get up, you can get asnack, the seats are bigger, you
can watch a movie, you can workon the way.
It just makes way more sensethan taking a private car or a
plane in that case Totally so.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
That brings us finally to SunRail here.
So right now, Orlando operatesa commuter train that runs 61
miles, which is prettyimpressive.
That's also wild.
In the north it presently endsin DeLand Sorry if I'm saying
these wrong DeLand, deland,deland.
And in the south it ends inKissimmee and Poinciana.
(09:54):
I don't even know if it'sKissimmee, is it Kissimmee,
kissimmee, kissimmee,kissinciana.
I don't even know if it'sKissimmee, is it Kissimmee,
kissimmee, kissimmee, kissimmee?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The Florida folks can laugh at me.
I don't know Poinciana, I don'tknow Poinciana, but I know
Kissimmee, kissimmee, kissimmee.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Kissimmee.
There you go, beep yeah.
So south route hitting both ofthose destinations on the far
ends, with downtown Orlando inthe middle.
It doesn't see crazy ridership.
I mean this isn't going throughthe most dense areas in general
.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I would not call this region of Florida very dense.
You have a couple of small towncenters Downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Orlando has some stuff going on.
For the most part, it is theland of suburbia, Right.
Even despite that, last year,in 2024, this existing SunRail
route saw 1.2 million riders,which again not great, but it's
also not, you know.
It's a good place to start,especially considering that this
isn't connecting a lot of majordestinations in the Orlando
area.
In addition to SunRail, Orlandooperates a whole variety of bus
(10:57):
routes, ranging from kind oflike BRT light routes to just
normal local buses.
Just for some context onridership in Orlando, we're
seeing almost 20 million riderson their bus system throughout
2024.
It is almost a 7% increase fromthe year before, so it is
(11:19):
trending in the right direction,which we obviously love to see.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
One thing to also note about SunRail.
We mentioned that it is acommuter line that runs these 61
, 62 miles through this regionand it gets very close to the
airport but it doesn't actuallymake the connection to the
airport which is something veryfrustrating in a lot of cities
in the US is that there's norail connection to airports,
unlike cities in Europe.
However, you do have Brightlinegoing into the Orlando airport
(11:47):
and then you have a SunRailstation.
That's maybe a couple milesaway from the airport, not too
bad, but there is a bus the Lynxbus that can connect you from
the terminal to that station,right.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And there's one bus that takes you right to the
station.
It seems like it runs aboutevery half an hour or so there's
another bus that kind of getsyou close.
It's really not perfect, though.
This isn't even like a directbus to the SunRail, it's just a
local bus that makes stops alongthe way.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I do like how the advertisement for this, though,
is a hassle-free experienceconnecting you to sunrail, but
you have to get on a bus and youhave to download a links app
and a sunrail app and find thestation and walk it.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Just it's a lot I think it requires a shuttle bus
from like your airport terminalto to get you to the bus station
it is not a hassle-freeexperience right, um.
However, the good news here isthat the plan for the extension
to sunrail is to actually makeit a hassle-free experience.
So enter the Sunshine Corridor.
(12:43):
Lots of use of the word sunhere we need a good, bright
sound.
As this comes on.
The Sunshine Corridor is kindof a we're going to call it a
rough outline.
Right now the exact alignmentshere are not fully agreed upon.
There have been lots ofdifferent potential alignments
floated for a long time now.
This project has been floated adecade ago at one point.
(13:06):
It's very much in.
We'll kind of get into theexact stages in a little bit
here.
But it would essentially takeyou from the Orlando airport.
It would go west towards theSunRail, eventually meet up with
the SunRail corridor for a bitand have what seems like would
need to be like a new transferstation with the SunRail.
(13:27):
There's a lot of potential todo some transit-oriented
development and stuff like thatin an area like that.
And then this new line wouldcontinue to veer off the SunRail
corridor and head further westtowards the Orlando Convention
Center as well as potentialstops near Universal Studios as
well as Disney Springs.
So really connecting theairport to the SunRail corridor
(13:49):
which makes it so you could getup to downtown Orlando as well
as to kind of major tourist butalso employment destinations in
the area major tourist but alsoemployment destinations in the
area.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I was just thinking that too.
It's great for employees in theOrlando area if it's connecting
to some of the residentialareas, but the biggest thing in
Orlando it is the touristindustry.
I mean, Orlando is the mostvisited city in the United
States, I think, as far asdomestic tourists go for all of
the parks.
If there is any city that has agood use case for a mass
transit system and being able toefficiently move these people
around, it is Orlando.
(14:21):
So having the option to land atthe airport and then take a
train to Universal or to DisneySprings and then get in your
hotel there, that's a viableoption I think many people would
take.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Absolutely.
And hearing, you know right nowthe Orlando mayor is very much
in support of this and hearinghim, as well as other county
officials and whatnot in thecounty that Orlando is in, as
well as some of the othersurrounding counties, talk about
the potential for multimodaltransport at the airport.
You know, seamless connectionsfrom Brightline onto the Sunrail
(14:56):
, from folks coming in from theairport to.
You know, building better,potentially even bus
infrastructure in the area.
It's just like again I justback to the beginning like this
isn't Florida.
Yeah, we'll jump right backinto the episode in just a
second, but first, if youhaven't liked this video or left
a comment, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit andwe also have some exciting news
.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, want to support the show.
We have swag, we havemerchandise.
Go check out our store whereyou can get hats, t-shirts, uh,
hoodies, a bunch of other thingscoming, new designs for that
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.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Let's jump right back into the episode, and it's some
positive news here too.
So the next kind of step tomake this happen is a
feasibility study.
You do the feasibility studyfirst and then you use the
feasibility study to kind ofpitch for federal funds.
Now, federal funds could be anissue.
We'll kind of talk aboutfederal funds in a second here.
But a feasibility study forthis right now.
(15:57):
They're saying it's only goingto cost $6 million so far, to
the state of Florida's credit.
They're saying it's only goingto cost $6 million so far, to
the state of Florida's credit.
They're saying we'll cover thefirst $2 million.
Florida DOT is saying okay,we'll do the $2 million.
City of Orlando has saidthey'll chip in $500,000.
And then Seminole County hassaid that they will chip in an
additional $500,000.
So we're currently sitting atthree of the $6 million for the
(16:19):
feasibility study already set up.
Some of this has literallyhappened in the last couple days
, so this is currently in motion.
It sounds like they're notworried about raising the six
million, that it's just a matterof having the county
commissioners meetings and thatsort of thing to get them to
vote on it.
It also sounds like Brightlinemay chip in.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I was just thinking if Brightline would chip in.
Yeah, because it's good forthem too.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
It's good for them too for a couple of reasons.
It's good for them because itcan help deliver people to their
train.
But number two, this SunshineCorridor, is actually the most
likely alignment that Brightlinewill take in the beginning of
their Tampa expansion, so theBrightline trains would actually
run along the same right of wayfor about 12 miles until
(17:02):
Brightline then needs to justget on its own track following
the highway to Tampa.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, I think it's a good synchronicity.
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, it's a very harmonious project.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Exactly, it would be a good partnership for them.
Good synergies, good synergy,there we go.
Yeah, that was probably theword you would use Synchronicity
, synchronic for them.
Good synergies, there we go.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Synchronicities, but yeah, I mean overall this is an
ambitious project.
It's not going to happenovernight here.
This is still early stages, butI mean it's really optimistic
to see stuff like this happeningin a state like Florida.
I also think that with thisextension you're also going to
see positive synergies again nowI can't stop using the word but
(17:44):
with the rest of Orlando'spublic transit.
So my guess is this wouldincrease ridership on the
existing north-south SunRailline and this also could
increase ridership on buses,especially if you have more of a
focus on feeder buses feedinginto the rail stations,
increasing rail frequencies andthe like.
It'd be really great for thearea.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, I think it's something we should stay tuned
to, stay tuned for, stay tunedto, but it is something that
will be in development.
There's no exact alignments yetfor how this is going to go.
We just have sort of generaldestinations that the city wants
to connect.
We just have sort of generaldestinations that the city wants
to connect.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, so while the alignment doesn't have a
specific route yet, it's prettyinteresting when you look at it
just from satellite view.
There is like a weirdassortment of freight lines that
kind of run through this area,as well as a couple wider roads
with some right-of-way thatcould probably be tweaked to
sneak this rail line in.
There's some industrial areasbefore you get to the park areas
(18:43):
, so they could get prettycreative and not need to go
spending tons and tons of moneyto put this rail line through.
It's not like it's through asingle family neighborhood or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I agree, and Florida's not shy about building
highways, especially in theOrlando area, because if you've
ever been to Orlando, it is justa huge highway network to get
around.
There's a lot of right-of-wayto use Totally.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
As far as the federal money goes too, I think this is
an interesting situation, right, because you know we now have a
Trump administration.
The Trump administration is notsuper fans of transit.
However, I think that there area couple things going for this
project that maybe they willactually get federal grant money
(19:29):
.
As we mentioned, a lot oftransit advocates' criticisms of
Brightline are that it is aprivate company.
They obviously do also receivefederal funding.
They've been receiving federalfunding in the project for
Bright Line West.
They have received some for theproject in Florida as well,
(19:49):
because this alignment is goingto be sharing the Bright Line
alignment.
I think that there's a reallystrong chance that the Trump
administration looked at thisand says look, private industry
is building this rail line.
We should invest in this sortof thing to make sure that
private rail companies can be athing.
Look at how efficient they'redoing it.
(20:09):
Blah, blah, blah.
This is not how I feel entirelyabout this, but I'm just trying
to put my brain there.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
No Republican governments, state governments
in general, but especiallyRepublican governments, love P3s
, any type of private publicpartnership, because it does
take some of the burden off ofthe you know public budgets and
it allows market forces to uhdictate how things work.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And there's there's pros and cons to that yeah, and
I would say they specificallylike ones that like have a
proven track record.
Yeah, like it'd be one thing if, if bright line was super over
budget delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, blah, blah,
blah blah.
But they have an and I'm surethat they were not exactly on
their schedules and everythingand whatnot.
But for the most part, I thinkwe can agree that Brightline was
a pretty well-managed projectas far as putting it together
(20:53):
and it is currently runningreally great service.
It's overwhelmingly popular.
So I think, when they look atthat, I think that the Trump
administration is not going tobe that hesitant to chip in some
dollars for this.
I could be wrong, but yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I think one thing too , reading through some of the
directives from the DOTcurrently, since our new
secretary Duffy is in there,going to miss Pete, rip, rip,
rip, rip, rip.
But one of the directives is tofocus on allocating transit
funding, or transportationbudget funding in general, to
(21:29):
places High birth rates.
I wasn't going to say, highbirth rates, that is one
directive.
Focus on places with highfertility rates it's weird.
But to focus on projects thathave a sense of positive
economic impact.
So we have to start looking attransit projects, at what is the
economic benefit going to bewith this project being
(21:50):
completed and less about hey,we're trying to connect these
communities, because connectingcommunities is not the language
they want to hear.
They want to hear things indollar amounts.
So maybe there's a sort ofconversation shift that has to
happen around these projects.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And we do want to do a more in-depth episode kind of
about the transit policy and thenew transportation secretary.
We're holding off a little bitright now just because
everything is changing soquickly, but as we kind of learn
more, stay tuned for that sortof thing and if there's specific
things you want to hear or wantus to dig into on that,
definitely let us know in thecomments.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, but I think what any transit advocate needs
to be focused on now is we needto support Amtrak, try to
preserve what we can of Amtrak,but we also have to be open to
these ideas of private companiesalso creating these projects.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Right, it's either that or just sit on our hands
and wait, and I'd love to seethe Trump administration throw
money at Amtrak and say, expand,make it bigger.
But it ain't gonna happen.
There's no way it's gonnahappen.
So yeah, to your point let'spreserve what we have with
Amtrak and let's see if doingmore things like Brightline, or
(22:56):
if Brightline wants to expandinto more cities, I think we
really need to get behind itbecause otherwise we're not
getting more rail right now.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So, like we said, stay tuned to this Florida plan
that is coming out.
There's a lot of reallyexciting things coming from this
state.
Also, share with us in thecomments what you think about
the P3s, the private-publicpartnerships, or what you think
about Brightline and how it canspur this development of public
transit.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
If you're not following us on social media,
please do.
We've got accounts on Blue Sky,which is a new one.
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I haven't been posting muchthere, I'm sorry, but we'd love
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We respond to messages on mostof those places as well.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Please like and subscribe to this video.
Yes, also, if you want tosupport us further, we have our
Patreon, where we try to releaseepisodes early and we also add
some additional content there aswell.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Totally.
You can also check out ourbrand new merch store and you
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Thank you so much, but with allof that being said, thank you
all so much for watching andenjoy the rest of your Transit
Tangent Tuesday.
on this episode, we're exploring how private
partnerships can actually spurpublic transit investment in
Florida.
Of all places.
Check out how the Bright Line'sconnecting Miami to Orlando and
what that means for the Orlandometro area.
On this episode of TransitTangents.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name's Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we're going to be
asking an interesting questionin this episode, and the
question is is Brightlinespurring public transit
investment in Florida?
It's been really strange to seeFlorida become the state that
has the fast trains the fastestalready, and this is kind of
(00:57):
another interesting element here.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Places that you don't think that mass transit is
going to do.
Well, florida is not top ofmind, no, but what we're seeing,
it's surprisingly doing verywell.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, and at least the future is looking like it
should be doing very well.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
The future's looking like it's going to do really
well.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so this episode we're going to kind of talk
about the plans for expandingOrlando's SunRail.
Obviously, right now Brightlineconnects Miami to Orlando.
Orlando has been the recentextension here.
Miami has some public transitand some rail infrastructure and
whatnot.
Orlando not necessarily knownfor that sort of thing, but
(01:36):
interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I disagree, Lewis, have you been to Disney World?
That's fair actually.
Public transit at Disney is topnotch.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's fair.
We've had that requested as anepisode, by a couple people
actually, but yeah.
So, yeah, we're going to kindof dive into this in this
episode.
Before we get into the specificSunRail initiatives the
existing SunRail system as wellas what's called the Sunshine
Corridor extension we're goingto start by talking about how
Brightline has been doing overthe last few years, which is
(02:18):
increasingly doing really well,are pretty positive of
Brightline.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You run into people occasionally who don't really
support the idea of privatebusiness.
You know, setting out theserails, setting out these
projects.
We'll kind of get into that alittle bit, but pretty much
everybody has heard ofBrightline at this point.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Totally, and now they have 15 trains per day in each
direction, which is basicallyhourly service throughout the
day.
In the morning it's a littlebit more frequent than that even
, and then it kind of tapers offat the end of the day.
And again, full route right nowgoes from downtown Miami to the
Orlando airport, so there's nolike downtown Orlando stop or
(02:57):
anything, but right now we'rerunning to the airport.
There are plans to extend thisto Tampa, which we'll talk a
little bit about later.
But again, really frequentservice.
And what's surprising is weconsistently hear about like oh,
Brightline's expensive andthat's kind of one of the
negatives of having this morelike private business running
this, which I think there arereal concerns there that that
could be an issue.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, private business can charge whatever
they want.
I mean, look at airlines,airlines can kind of charge
whatever they want when theyknow that a seat is in demand,
right.
And that's the fear I thinkwith Brightline is like you have
this really great public goodand they're going to charge
$1,000 for a ticket, right.
And, to be fair, when theyfirst opened, tickets were
pretty expensive.
Right, it was comparable towhat you would pay for a flight,
(03:38):
maybe slightly more in certaindays, but it was comparable to a
flight, but in certain days,but it was comparable to a
flight, but today that'sdifferent.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, so I just for a test to see.
I looked for tomorrow andtomorrow there were probably 10
of the 15 routes throughout theday, not routes scheduled times
throughout the day.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Tomorrow being mid-February, depending on when
this episode comes out, right?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, tickets were about $44.
Some of them were as low as $39.
And these are for kind ofsimilar to an airline that have
different tiers, right.
So these are for the ticketsthat are non-refundable.
You can't change them.
If you wanted to upgrade it toan economy ticket that you can
change, it was more like $60 or$65, which still feels very
(04:20):
reasonable to go from Miami allthe way to Orlando, and then on
top of that the first classtickets were around $120, which
for a first class ticket feelsagain pretty on par with what it
should be.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I'm curious because I'm doing the math in my head.
Like you know, you can probablyget a pretty cheap airline
flight from Miami to Orlando,like a Spirit or Frontier or
something, for a comparableprice, like $60, maybe less, but
then you have to pay for thebags, right and you have to go
through all the process of thatairport involves.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, at some point we'll do a very specific episode
, kind of just focusing on theBrightline model, kind of
comparing what they're doing inFlorida to what they're planning
to do out in between LA and LasVegas, which is currently under
construction.
It's not necessarily the pointof this, but we're going to
share a couple stats here justto give folks an idea of how
(05:08):
many people are riding it,because this directly will
influence the kind of expansionplans for the Orlando Sun Rail
that we're talking about.
When you have, all of a sudden,all these people landing in
Orlando with no car, do theyhave to rent a car or can we get
them to the rest of theirdestinations continuing to use
transit?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So if we're talking about Brightline stats, like I
said, this project, it lookslike it's going really well.
It's only seemingly growing inthe future.
In 2024, Brightline saw about2.7 million riders, which is a
lot.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
It is a lot, yeah, roughly between 200,000 to
250,000 a month.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, and if we compare those to some of the
Amtrak routes that we see, Imean that's it's significant
compared to a lot of the Amtrakroutes that we see too.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Absolutely.
And again, and this is inFlorida.
Yeah, this is not.
This is not the Northeastcorridor.
This is not like a super, youknow what I mean.
It's it's.
This is Florida.
Yeah, like a super, you knowwhat I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
This is Florida, yeah , and we're seeing this growth
trajectory which is lookingreally good.
In 2019, it was 885,000passengers.
Again, you know, we're kind ofgetting close to the COVID years
, so some of this is going to bedepressed to some extent.
But by 2022, we got to 1.2million.
2023, we're at 2 million, andnow here we are sitting at about
2.7.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So, 1.2 million 2023, we're at 2 million and now here
we are sitting at about 2.7.
So really impressive growth inridership and with all the
ridership to uh brightline.
Initially started with uh fourpassenger cars on each of their
train sets.
Uh, at that level they wereselling out a ton.
Sorry, the train sets.
I just, I'm just picturing likelittle trains that's like the
industry jargon, I think youcall it a train set.
(06:46):
So they have since added afifth car to all of their train
sets.
To that each or additionalpassenger cars, so that each of
the trains will have up to sevenuh, passenger cars on them,
(07:11):
which is pretty significant.
Just to give you an idea of howmany people fit in each one,
when they were doing fourpassenger cars, each train could
carry about 240 people, whichis already a pretty significant
amount, especially when theywere selling it out when they
bumped it up five.
That bumps it to about 306people.
And then I'm doing a little bitof assumptions here, because
(07:32):
some of the cars will be firstclass cars versus economy and
I'm imagining there are lessseats in the first class cars,
but estimating to be around 430people per train once they get
this up to the full seven carsper train.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, it's a lot of people being able to move in one
go.
A good comparison to that is acommercial airliner like a 737
maxes out around 200 people, 200passengers.
So it is a way more efficientway to move large amounts of
people and I think that's a goodpoint.
To try to segue back into.
(08:06):
The point of this episode isokay, we are moving so many
people between Miami and Orlando.
What happens when they get toOrlando and that is a question
you hear or statement you hearall the time about connecting
cities by train is well, if thecities don't have public transit
, then how are people going toget around?
What's the point of the train?
Right, which I don't like thatargument, but I think what we're
(08:26):
seeing in Orlando is a goodanswer to that argument Totally,
and to this end too.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I mean, people don't necessarily want to get in a car
.
There was one really otherinteresting tidbit that came out
of this October call withBrightline.
They did a survey of theirfrequent riders.
There's a large group of folkswho are riding Brightline for
work on a regular basis and,according to Brightline, 66% of
long haul survey respondersstated that Brightline has
(08:52):
changed their habit from mostlydriving to mostly taking the
train, which is amazing.
So if these folks are changingtheir habits there, instead of
landing in Orlando and gettingan Uber or renting a car at the
Orlando airport where they'reending up, if they could just
transfer onto another train toget them to their final
destination, these people verylikely would want to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's going to be a much morecomfortable experience If the
train is taking a comparableamount of time.
You can get up, you can get asnack, the seats are bigger, you
can watch a movie, you can workon the way.
It just makes way more sensethan taking a private car or a
plane in that case Totally so.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
That brings us finally to SunRail here.
So right now, Orlando operatesa commuter train that runs 61
miles, which is prettyimpressive.
That's also wild.
In the north it presently endsin DeLand Sorry if I'm saying
these wrong DeLand, deland,deland.
And in the south it ends inKissimmee and Poinciana.
(09:54):
I don't even know if it'sKissimmee, is it Kissimmee,
kissimmee, kissimmee,kissinciana.
I don't even know if it'sKissimmee, is it Kissimmee,
kissimmee, kissimmee, kissimmee?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
The Florida folks can laugh at me.
I don't know Poinciana, I don'tknow Poinciana, but I know
Kissimmee, kissimmee, kissimmee.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Kissimmee.
There you go, beep yeah.
So south route hitting both ofthose destinations on the far
ends, with downtown Orlando inthe middle.
It doesn't see crazy ridership.
I mean this isn't going throughthe most dense areas in general
.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I would not call this region of Florida very dense.
You have a couple of small towncenters Downtown.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Orlando has some stuff going on.
For the most part, it is theland of suburbia, Right.
Even despite that, last year,in 2024, this existing SunRail
route saw 1.2 million riders,which again not great, but it's
also not, you know.
It's a good place to start,especially considering that this
isn't connecting a lot of majordestinations in the Orlando
area.
In addition to SunRail, Orlandooperates a whole variety of bus
(10:57):
routes, ranging from kind oflike BRT light routes to just
normal local buses.
Just for some context onridership in Orlando, we're
seeing almost 20 million riderson their bus system throughout
2024.
It is almost a 7% increase fromthe year before, so it is
(11:19):
trending in the right direction,which we obviously love to see.
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
One thing to also note about SunRail.
We mentioned that it is acommuter line that runs these 61
, 62 miles through this regionand it gets very close to the
airport but it doesn't actuallymake the connection to the
airport which is something veryfrustrating in a lot of cities
in the US is that there's norail connection to airports,
unlike cities in Europe.
However, you do have Brightlinegoing into the Orlando airport
(11:47):
and then you have a SunRailstation.
That's maybe a couple milesaway from the airport, not too
bad, but there is a bus the Lynxbus that can connect you from
the terminal to that station,right.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And there's one bus that takes you right to the
station.
It seems like it runs aboutevery half an hour or so there's
another bus that kind of getsyou close.
It's really not perfect, though.
This isn't even like a directbus to the SunRail, it's just a
local bus that makes stops alongthe way.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I do like how the advertisement for this, though,
is a hassle-free experienceconnecting you to sunrail, but
you have to get on a bus and youhave to download a links app
and a sunrail app and find thestation and walk it.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Just it's a lot I think it requires a shuttle bus
from like your airport terminalto to get you to the bus station
it is not a hassle-freeexperience right, um.
However, the good news here isthat the plan for the extension
to sunrail is to actually makeit a hassle-free experience.
So enter the Sunshine Corridor.
(12:43):
Lots of use of the word sunhere we need a good, bright
sound.
As this comes on.
The Sunshine Corridor is kindof a we're going to call it a
rough outline.
Right now the exact alignmentshere are not fully agreed upon.
There have been lots ofdifferent potential alignments
floated for a long time now.
This project has been floated adecade ago at one point.
(13:06):
It's very much in.
We'll kind of get into theexact stages in a little bit
here.
But it would essentially takeyou from the Orlando airport.
It would go west towards theSunRail, eventually meet up with
the SunRail corridor for a bitand have what seems like would
need to be like a new transferstation with the SunRail.
(13:27):
There's a lot of potential todo some transit-oriented
development and stuff like thatin an area like that.
And then this new line wouldcontinue to veer off the SunRail
corridor and head further westtowards the Orlando Convention
Center as well as potentialstops near Universal Studios as
well as Disney Springs.
So really connecting theairport to the SunRail corridor
(13:49):
which makes it so you could getup to downtown Orlando as well
as to kind of major tourist butalso employment destinations in
the area major tourist but alsoemployment destinations in the
area.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I was just thinking that too.
It's great for employees in theOrlando area if it's connecting
to some of the residentialareas, but the biggest thing in
Orlando it is the touristindustry.
I mean, Orlando is the mostvisited city in the United
States, I think, as far asdomestic tourists go for all of
the parks.
If there is any city that has agood use case for a mass
transit system and being able toefficiently move these people
around, it is Orlando.
(14:21):
So having the option to land atthe airport and then take a
train to Universal or to DisneySprings and then get in your
hotel there, that's a viableoption I think many people would
take.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Absolutely.
And hearing, you know right nowthe Orlando mayor is very much
in support of this and hearinghim, as well as other county
officials and whatnot in thecounty that Orlando is in, as
well as some of the othersurrounding counties, talk about
the potential for multimodaltransport at the airport.
You know, seamless connectionsfrom Brightline onto the Sunrail
(14:56):
, from folks coming in from theairport to.
You know, building better,potentially even bus
infrastructure in the area.
It's just like again I justback to the beginning like this
isn't Florida.
Yeah, we'll jump right backinto the episode in just a
second, but first, if youhaven't liked this video or left
a comment, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit andwe also have some exciting news
.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, want to support the show.
We have swag, we havemerchandise.
Go check out our store whereyou can get hats, t-shirts, uh,
hoodies, a bunch of other thingscoming, new designs for that
all going to be coming up in thenext few weeks lastly, if you
want to support the showdirectly and get access to early
episodes, you can do so onpatreon, but without further ado
.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Let's jump right back into the episode, and it's some
positive news here too.
So the next kind of step tomake this happen is a
feasibility study.
You do the feasibility studyfirst and then you use the
feasibility study to kind ofpitch for federal funds.
Now, federal funds could be anissue.
We'll kind of talk aboutfederal funds in a second here.
But a feasibility study forthis right now.
(15:57):
They're saying it's only goingto cost $6 million so far, to
the state of Florida's credit.
They're saying it's only goingto cost $6 million so far, to
the state of Florida's credit.
They're saying we'll cover thefirst $2 million.
Florida DOT is saying okay,we'll do the $2 million.
City of Orlando has saidthey'll chip in $500,000.
And then Seminole County hassaid that they will chip in an
additional $500,000.
So we're currently sitting atthree of the $6 million for the
(16:19):
feasibility study already set up.
Some of this has literallyhappened in the last couple days
, so this is currently in motion.
It sounds like they're notworried about raising the six
million, that it's just a matterof having the county
commissioners meetings and thatsort of thing to get them to
vote on it.
It also sounds like Brightlinemay chip in.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I was just thinking if Brightline would chip in.
Yeah, because it's good forthem too.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
It's good for them too for a couple of reasons.
It's good for them because itcan help deliver people to their
train.
But number two, this SunshineCorridor, is actually the most
likely alignment that Brightlinewill take in the beginning of
their Tampa expansion, so theBrightline trains would actually
run along the same right of wayfor about 12 miles until
(17:02):
Brightline then needs to justget on its own track following
the highway to Tampa.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, I think it's a good synchronicity.
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, it's a very harmonious project.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Exactly, it would be a good partnership for them.
Good synergies, good synergy,there we go.
Yeah, that was probably theword you would use Synchronicity
, synchronic for them.
Good synergies, there we go.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Synchronicities, but yeah, I mean overall this is an
ambitious project.
It's not going to happenovernight here.
This is still early stages, butI mean it's really optimistic
to see stuff like this happeningin a state like Florida.
I also think that with thisextension you're also going to
see positive synergies again nowI can't stop using the word but
(17:44):
with the rest of Orlando'spublic transit.
So my guess is this wouldincrease ridership on the
existing north-south SunRailline and this also could
increase ridership on buses,especially if you have more of a
focus on feeder buses feedinginto the rail stations,
increasing rail frequencies andthe like.
It'd be really great for thearea.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, I think it's something we should stay tuned
to, stay tuned for, stay tunedto, but it is something that
will be in development.
There's no exact alignments yetfor how this is going to go.
We just have sort of generaldestinations that the city wants
to connect.
We just have sort of generaldestinations that the city wants
to connect.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, so while the alignment doesn't have a
specific route yet, it's prettyinteresting when you look at it
just from satellite view.
There is like a weirdassortment of freight lines that
kind of run through this area,as well as a couple wider roads
with some right-of-way thatcould probably be tweaked to
sneak this rail line in.
There's some industrial areasbefore you get to the park areas
(18:43):
, so they could get prettycreative and not need to go
spending tons and tons of moneyto put this rail line through.
It's not like it's through asingle family neighborhood or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I agree, and Florida's not shy about building
highways, especially in theOrlando area, because if you've
ever been to Orlando, it is justa huge highway network to get
around.
There's a lot of right-of-wayto use Totally.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
As far as the federal money goes too, I think this is
an interesting situation, right, because you know we now have a
Trump administration.
The Trump administration is notsuper fans of transit.
However, I think that there area couple things going for this
project that maybe they willactually get federal grant money
(19:29):
.
As we mentioned, a lot oftransit advocates' criticisms of
Brightline are that it is aprivate company.
They obviously do also receivefederal funding.
They've been receiving federalfunding in the project for
Bright Line West.
They have received some for theproject in Florida as well,
(19:49):
because this alignment is goingto be sharing the Bright Line
alignment.
I think that there's a reallystrong chance that the Trump
administration looked at thisand says look, private industry
is building this rail line.
We should invest in this sortof thing to make sure that
private rail companies can be athing.
Look at how efficient they'redoing it.
(20:09):
Blah, blah, blah.
This is not how I feel entirelyabout this, but I'm just trying
to put my brain there.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
No Republican governments, state governments
in general, but especiallyRepublican governments, love P3s
, any type of private publicpartnership, because it does
take some of the burden off ofthe you know public budgets and
it allows market forces to uhdictate how things work.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
And there's there's pros and cons to that yeah, and
I would say they specificallylike ones that like have a
proven track record.
Yeah, like it'd be one thing if, if bright line was super over
budget delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, blah, blah,
blah blah.
But they have an and I'm surethat they were not exactly on
their schedules and everythingand whatnot.
But for the most part, I thinkwe can agree that Brightline was
a pretty well-managed projectas far as putting it together
(20:53):
and it is currently runningreally great service.
It's overwhelmingly popular.
So I think, when they look atthat, I think that the Trump
administration is not going tobe that hesitant to chip in some
dollars for this.
I could be wrong, but yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I think one thing too , reading through some of the
directives from the DOTcurrently, since our new
secretary Duffy is in there,going to miss Pete, rip, rip,
rip, rip, rip.
But one of the directives is tofocus on allocating transit
funding, or transportationbudget funding in general, to
(21:29):
places High birth rates.
I wasn't going to say, highbirth rates, that is one
directive.
Focus on places with highfertility rates it's weird.
But to focus on projects thathave a sense of positive
economic impact.
So we have to start looking attransit projects, at what is the
economic benefit going to bewith this project being
(21:50):
completed and less about hey,we're trying to connect these
communities, because connectingcommunities is not the language
they want to hear.
They want to hear things indollar amounts.
So maybe there's a sort ofconversation shift that has to
happen around these projects.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
And we do want to do a more in-depth episode kind of
about the transit policy and thenew transportation secretary.
We're holding off a little bitright now just because
everything is changing soquickly, but as we kind of learn
more, stay tuned for that sortof thing and if there's specific
things you want to hear or wantus to dig into on that,
definitely let us know in thecomments.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, but I think what any transit advocate needs
to be focused on now is we needto support Amtrak, try to
preserve what we can of Amtrak,but we also have to be open to
these ideas of private companiesalso creating these projects.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Right, it's either that or just sit on our hands
and wait, and I'd love to seethe Trump administration throw
money at Amtrak and say, expand,make it bigger.
But it ain't gonna happen.
There's no way it's gonnahappen.
So yeah, to your point let'spreserve what we have with
Amtrak and let's see if doingmore things like Brightline, or
(22:56):
if Brightline wants to expandinto more cities, I think we
really need to get behind itbecause otherwise we're not
getting more rail right now.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So, like we said, stay tuned to this Florida plan
that is coming out.
There's a lot of reallyexciting things coming from this
state.
Also, share with us in thecomments what you think about
the P3s, the private-publicpartnerships, or what you think
about Brightline and how it canspur this development of public
transit.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
If you're not following us on social media,
please do.
We've got accounts on Blue Sky,which is a new one.
We're on Instagram.
We're on X.
We're on TikTok.
I haven't been posting muchthere, I'm sorry, but we'd love
to see you on our social media.
We respond to messages on mostof those places as well.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Please like and subscribe to this video.
Yes, also, if you want tosupport us further, we have our
Patreon, where we try to releaseepisodes early and we also add
some additional content there aswell.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Totally.
You can also check out ourbrand new merch store and you
can get some fun TransitTangents shirts.
We've got socks.
I don't have any of them yet.
I want to order a pair actuallyHats, all sorts of things For
those of you who have alreadyordered.
Thank you so much, but with allof that being said, thank you
all so much for watching andenjoy the rest of your Transit
Tangent Tuesday.
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