SunRail off the shelf and on the way

After being shelved for a time while the governor decided whether it was worthy of his blessing, our local commuter train, SunRail, has finally been given permission to proceed. It was a bit iffy for a while there, despite lots of local support, because of course the governor already axed one local rail project. I was surprised to see a story about our little commuter train in the New York Times.

Comments on the article, though, reveal a common misconception about Orlando. Even the author of the article notes about SunRail, "It will not link to the Orlando airport or Disney World, among the region’s biggest traffic generators." A number of commenters (from everywhere, it seems, but Orlando) proclaim their shock that SunRail doesn't connect to the airport or Disney, and declare it therefore useless. Such comments reveal a lack of understanding of our geography and of the purpose of SunRail.

Tourists visit "Orlando" by flying into the airport (which is as far south and east as you can go and still be in the city limits) and then leaving the city limits and going waaaaaay south and west to WDW. They rarely come downtown. SunRail was never meant to serve them. A rail line serving tourists would run from the airport to International Drive, the convention center, Universal Studios, and then waaaaaay the heck down to WDW. And it would be of little use to most people who live here.

Most locals seldom visit WDW. But we commute to work five times a week. Many are stuck on the Interstate 4 parking lot at the beginning and end of every workday. They are the people SunRail is meant to serve. SunRail is meant to alleviate that I-4 traffic, most of which is caused by people driving from the suburbs in the north (Winter Park, Seminole and Volusia counties) to downtown. That's why plans call for building the northern part of the line first -- that's where most of the bedroom communities are.

One local commenter notes that right now, Central Floridians can't leave their cars home. There are no other options. It's true. I once looked into talking the bus to work, and found multiple problems:

Inconvenience: The bus route in my neighborhood was eliminated because of budget cuts, so I'd have to walk 1.8 miles to the closest stop, take the bus downtown, and walk 0.3 miles from the bus stop to the office. Walking more than 2 miles? In Florida? In the summer? By the time I got to work, I'd need a shower.

Cost: Bus fare is $2, one way. I drive an economical car and get about 29 miles to the gallon in the city. The trip from home to office is 9 miles. So even if gas were $6 a gallon, I'd still save money driving.

Time: This was the deal-killer for me. The walk to the bus stop would take about forty minutes. I'd spend half an hour on the bus. Then it's about a five-minute walk to the office. An hour and fifteen minutes for a commute that usually takes me 20-25 minutes by car.

I will ride SunRail, since it won't waste as much of my time as the bus. A station is planned for five minutes from my house, and another a short walk from my office.

Low projected ridership is a problem for SunRail. I don't know what the solution to the ridership problem is. But adding more lanes to I-4 -- on the false supposition that Central Floridians won't ever use a train -- is not a viable solution to the traffic problem.

Otronicon: The coolness continues

Jeff Stanford, the Orlando Science Center’s vice president of communications, admitted that performance anxiety is a real threat to the staff when they’re planning Otronicon. There’s a need to each year top what was done before.

So far, they’ve managed to do it.

This year, one of the founding sponsors, Full Sail University, ended its five-year run so its staff could focus on other objectives. That could have been a real setback. But it opened the door for the University of Central Florida and its Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy to come in with new workshops and ideas. And the arrival of EA Sports, Stanford told me, made Otronicon “like a new show.”

Even so, Otronicon has continued to focus on career opportunities. Many exhibits, especially the medical and flight simulators, clearly highlight career paths. Posters throughout the center are designed to help kids match their interests and skills to jobs in the gaming and simulation businesses.

It’s this ability to connect the fun to the fundamental that makes OSC an important part of the community. And when I say “community,” I don’t mean just Orlando. OSC’s reputation drew school groups from as far away as Rhode Island.

"Psst…let the bounty hunter win."
Orlando Science Center photo

At this point, there’s no telling what the OSC team will come up with for the 2012 show. But at Otronicon, OSC announced it will host the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit starting in the fall of 2012. It will run through the subsequent Otronicon, so for 2013, at least, the crew will get some anxiety relief.

Why we would rather drive

High-speed rail is slow in coming
to Central Florida. © Bombardier

Americans have been accused of loving their cars too much. But that affection is just the result of having passenger trains that are almost useless.

Central Florida has two rail projects on the horizon: SunRail, a commuter line I could take to work, and high-speed rail, which would connect Orlando and Tampa with stops at Disney World and Lakeland. This will be very helpful for people going from Lakeland to the Orlando or Tampa metro areas for major sporting events, concerts, airports, etc. It would also keep folks going from Orlando to Tampa off Interstate 4, theoretically. Of course, then you're reliant on rental cars or the quality of mass transit at your destination.

This difficulty in getting from one place to another led Busch Entertainment to run a charter bus from Orlando to Busch Gardens Tampa. Very clever, and quite handy. The only drawback was when I wound up with a tired child at Busch Gardens at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the bus not scheduled to leave until five. Ah well. We sat in a cafe and ate ice cream.

All this came to mind because I had to go to a meeting in Boca Raton this week, and a friend offered to drive. I was tempted to drive myself so I could leave as soon as the business part of the meeting was over, and skip the dinner and socializing. But it would be irresponsible to drive two cars if we could both go in one. Besides, I need to practice being sociable.

Then I thought -- maybe I could take a train. Yeah, right. No, go on, look. Just to see. Sure.

The meeting was to start at 1 p.m. The morning train leaves Orlando at 10:30 a.m. and takes four hours and fifteen minutes to get to Delray Beach (the train doesn't stop in Boca -- it's Delray or Deerfield Beach). That would mean traveling the day before and staying overnight. Told ya. Plus, I'd need a bus or a taxi from Delray to Boca, unless I could find an indulgent South Florida friend.

Interstate 95, on the other hand, got us from Orlando to Boca Raton in three hours. More importantly, an Amtrak ticket -- one way -- costs more than a tank of gas, and my friend made this trip -- round trip -- on one tank.

For completeness' sake, I looked at air travel, though of course a plane ticket would cost about five times as much as a tank of gas. But the airlines can only fly me into Fort Lauderdale. Boca's airport is a small general aviation facility without scheduled flights by major airlines. To fly into Boca, we'd have to charter a flight.