SunRail costly — but roads costmore
For two gloriousweeks, SunRailwas the place to be in Central Florida.
Riding was free. And folks flocked to it— including families, commuters and especially retirees, who swarmed the trains as if theywere running directly to an early-bird special at Piccadilly.
But nowthe freebies are over. And ridership numbers have settled back to earth.
They’re still around what transportation officials were hoping: topping 4,000 riders a day. But with the celebratory opening now past, the grousing will soon resume. “A billion-dollar boondoggle” is a popular phrase uttered by those whowere determined to hate rail, no matter howmany people rode it. But let’s talk about the numbers for a minute. A billion dollars is big indeed. Massive even. Yet it’s less than half of the $2 billion the state is getting ready to spend on a seven-year revamp of Interstate 4.
And you knowwhat you will get at the end of that $2 billion spending spree? Toll lanes down the middle. This has been Florida’s costly status quo for decades. We spend, spend, spend and pave, pave, pave— yet congestion rarely improves.
We’re talking $50 million to widen State Road 50, $400 million on new interchanges and more than $4 billion on roads throughout the state every year. Yet none of those massive payments removes a single car from the road. Mass transit is the only thing that does.
It baffles me when people gripe about a train “losing money.”
What do you think roads do? They don’t make a dime.
Unless they’re tolled— and folks seem to hate that aswell.
We spend billions on asphalt that doesn’t do anything financially except drain more tax dollars for maintenance. Rail at least pulls back a portion.
Perhaps I sound like a rail rooter. If so, I’m new to the game. In fact, if you look back through 12 years ofmy columns, youwon’t find a hint of rail cheerleading. If anything, Iwas skeptical of the claims by rail boosters and critical of pie-in-the-sky ridership projections.
I supported rail conceptually, but I’d also seen this community push costly endeavors meant more as vanity projects than practical solutions. And whenever there’s a ton of money involved, I’m wary scandal will follow.
But so far, SunRail seems to be delivering what was promised. And for that, those responsible for making it happen— including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Rep. John Mica— deserve credit.
So I’m not offering any of this as any kind of rail sycophant. I’m offering it as a financial pragmatist. And as a planning pragmatist. One of the best things about rail is its ability to prompt smart growth. Once you set up a rail line, development follows. Apartments and condos sprout near the train stations. That means more people on trains and fewer people on roads.
Sprawl is one of Central Florida’s costliest scourges. Rail helps keep things concentrated.
Sure, there are kinks towork out. For starters, it’d be great if our trains could stop plowing into cars. But that’s mostly on motorists. (Don’t stop on the tracks. In trains vs. cars, the train wins every time.)
SunRail also needs towork on train timing and getting real-time information to riderswaiting at the platforms. It also needs to think more about running trains on nights andweekends when demand merits.
Often, people from Orlando will visit other communities with rail, ride it throughout their visit and delight in howeasy it is to get around. Yet the moment someone in their own hometown talks about building something similar, they scream: “BUT THAT WILL COSTMONEY!”
It’s always been thatway. When the first leg of NewYork’s subway systemwas constructed in 1869, itwas a piddly 312 feet long— fodder for boondoggle claims from Reconstruction-era critics. Yet look at that system today. You have to start somewhere.
In fact, if youwant to look at transportation beginnings, just look back to 1965, when Central Florida opened Interstate 4. On that first day, hardly anyone used it.
By comparison, SunRail isway ahead.