Do you feel the cost is worth it? Because you have to rent a car or Uber your way around once you arrive at your destination. I think rail is awesome, but at the current cost it’s definitely cheaper and more convenient to drive imo.

Im asking more bc im genuinely curious and I’m not from Florida. How long is the drive from Orlando to Miami. When I put it in my app it says its like 3hr 20min. Brightline seems to be abt the same amnt of time. Obv rush hour traffic would change this but is 3hr 20min drive from Orlando to Miami outside of rush hour traffic a realistic amount of time ? If so then Brightline still has a ton of work to do. They still have work to do regardless but. Someone lmk plz lmao.

@@lisabebesitai imagine thats probably true if ur just going to the city to explore around that specific city. But for people going to the airports, disney, and eventually the port of miami. The train will def make more sense. Rn theres a shuttle that takes u back and forth from the brightline stations to the airports and to disney. Eventually tho I believe they plan to build a station at disney and one at the port of miami. That would be 1000x more convenient than driving imo for people traveling to those specific destinations. But for people just going to Miami or Tampa for a good time and to check out the city it might make more sense to drive unfortunately. Until these places continue building out their walkable cores and making their greater metro areas more accessible by public transportation the brightline might not make a ton of sense for those specific travelers bc of the issues u mentioned. I know I was watching a video where a guy mentioned it took him 6 hours to go from Orlando to Miami bc of rush hour and construction traffic and the train only took 3 & 1/2 hours. So in that case people might want to just say fuck it, get on the train and uber everwhere once they get to their destination just to skip that traffic. But idk how often traffic is like that in florida. If its only a rush hour problem theyd prob just schedule their trip around that. If its an all day sort of thing than train would be better. Idk how florida traffic is tho. Also brightline doesnt run at top speed consistently. Theres still stretches where it only goes 25 mph so theres still lots of improvement to do to truly make it competitive with the highways.

​@@colinbauer1538 my family lives in Tampa and went to Miami for a cruise and would've definitely preferred a train ride over the car ride with the cost of parking our cars for the week we have come out ahead. The biggest thing is brightline connecting Orlando, Tampa, and Miami means you can fly into any one of these 3 airports and take advantage of discounted flights regardless of destination. I hope one day it also runs up to Jacksonville and out to Pensecola so we can travel to any part of FL without having to make a 300 mile drive.

​@@lisabebesitawhy do people only bring this up with brightline but never bring this up with a flight.

This is such a key point. The California high speed rail is failing because they are having to buy and develop ROW from scratch.

​@@swimspudIt's not failing, it's just expensive.

​@swimspud plus the brightline florida lane is using normal trains not expensive high speed lanes like California

I wonder how many stretches of existing railroad could support high(er) speed trains. Maybe some of this rail can be used with slight modifications (turn angles to meet requirements). Investing in brand new rail is probably going to be too expensive...running as fast as we can on existing right of ways may be the way to go.

@@extragoogleaccount6061it’s not only the curves that limit the speed of a track. It’s more the preciseness of the distance and hight between the two steel beams of a track. The faster you want to go the more precise you need to be. All in all tracks are incredibly robust and easy to build. Just think about it being used at the front in wars (e.g. Ukraine) it is repaired fast and often there because it’s easy and old tech. It gets more complicated with newer tech and so on. I recommend the UKposts channel “practical engineering” and its new series about trains and train systems. It’s still ok my watchlist tho and I don’t know if he already has a video about speed and track requirements :)

Car rentals like airports is the minimum option to fix this. Ideally we would fix the transit networks but just making the train station an important trip generator like an airport is a good step towards justifying transit improvements to serve it. (Atleast from a fiscally conservative angle) And from a climate or national energy security perspective just using the electric train between the 2 cities is an improvement, even if a car was used at both ends. Its accepting good enough in place of perfect so we can have better than the present, and perfect is slow.

I love the push for decent public transport! Personally, it has never been entirely suitable for my chaotic lifestyle, the nature of my work, hobbies, and responsibilities. I did use it for a couple years as a student, but it was not an efficient nor cheap way for me to travel, especially when juggling two jobs. These new projects are a feat to have gotten so far and it would be great to see new end point solutions put forward. There’s no point in the train if we end up being extorted by taxis and Uber at either end.

That's what bothers me but this is Florida, owning a car is just a necessity and Brightline has free parking. Well the station near me has ample parking, I can't speak to other stations. Some of the transportation money state and federal should go to buses too because that is a necessity for those who can't drive for whatever reason. The wait times for a bus is insane tho. They can't put GPS in buses and build an app to track them? Waiting in the rain and the heat sounds awful.

@@BkNy02 Even for Australia and New Zealand with pretty average public transport, we have GPS tracked public transport through an app or more rudimentary systems with just have electronic signs with an ETA in minutes. Hell, a lot of public transport and flights have free wifi.

@@ethan4237 You make a good point about the taxis, and Ubers can raise their prices very high, sometimes especially Uber because they raise the prices based on demand. I’ve taken the train twice from Orlando airport south and into of the southern cities Fort Lauderdale in West Palm, there is a free electric van that meet the train however, I tip them

why not both? I don't get how they affect each other

But but what about the tunnels for the cars bruh?

oh yeah the PODS XD

​@@dav9104 because it diverts attention as well as financial and political capital from things that work to things that definitely don't.

@@dav9104 Because there is a limited amount of funding, space, capacity by construction companies, staff, political capital..... Wasting it on scams or prestige projects means less functional infrastructure.

That's probably going to be Brightline's plan.

@@lost4468ytummm no they haven’t

No one is ever better off when the government steals private property.

@@lost4468ytYou’re just making shit up.

​@@lost4468yt Where/when did they say that? 😏

Living a ways outside of Atlanta, agreed on all counts. Gods know that it'd make a Florida vacation a lot easier and cheaper compared to driving or flying, and it'd definitely be a boon for business along the entire corridor. The parking and intra-city transit struggles would be very real, though. MARTA is hard-pressed as it is.

Agree that this would be an awesome idea…but one of the Brightline success factors is that the Florida East Coast Railway is a partner in this, so there’s no conflict with the freight/legacy railroad owning the tracks. So as far as the East Coast goes, they could hypothetically extend the same model as far north as Jacksonville, the northern limit of the FEC. To be clear, I hope Brightline continues to succeed and expand as I have family in FL. This would make getting around a little easier / more relaxing.

@@cincycubfan23 Fortunately, GDOT currently owns hundreds of miles of abandoned rail right-of-way between Atlanta and the Florida border that could be used for passenger rail service. It'll of course take time to examine the existing routes, clear them, and lay new track, but it'd still be easier than acquiring new ROW. Amtrak is already looking at reactivating the old Nancy Hanks route, so Atlanta > Macon > Savannah > Jacksonville seems like the likeliest route.

Brightline doesn't want to expand where actual workers needed that's why south florida was perfect. Right of way was there, they improved tracks and voila we got a train. Safety wise is awful watching an 80 mph train flying thru the very same crossings from 100 years ago. A "high" speed rail service should avoid at grade crossings

Atlantan here. I’d be SO down

I already ride Chicago to Milwaukee pretty regularly. That Amtrak line could probably double its speed and make a profit.

Lmao

The Lincoln Service from CHI to STL is only like 10mph slower than Brightline, comparing average speed to average speed. It'd be easier to speed it up by 10mph than build a whole new service.

California HSR is working on it, they're just fighting every NIMBY on the planet

Kinda weird to see Californian feeling jealous on Brightline, cause you guys are literally getting 2 actual high speed rails in your land - CAHSR and Brightline West. And yes, I know that CAHSR is expensive as hell, but it's a proper high speed rail with 350km/h (220mph) maximum speed, with completely new infrastructure - meaning that it's gotta be way more expensive than Brightline. But the final result and impact will be far, far more impressive than the Brightline, so I'll say continue support the project if you truly want to see it. Brightline West is not within California for its full length per se, but it still provides valuable connection from Las Vegas to SoCal. This, unlike Brightline in Florida, is going to be true high speed rail with the maximum speed of 300km/h (186mph). tldr: California is getting things that are way more impressive than Brightline Florida, not just one, but two.

​@@Lowspecgames-lr2qz If you think about it, you really only want one rail system. Brightline first connected South Florida. Then it added Orlando. Now it's expanding to Tampa. Is that three things or one? Meanwhile, CA HSR is a boondoggle. You should not be feeling jealous about that. It's a bit like feeling jealous about your spendthrift neighbor's new car only to watch it repossessed a few months later.

@@Lowspecgames-lr2qz Right but they are not here yet and we've had things promised by private companies or local/state governments before only for them to stall or fail (ie. Hyperloop, other local public transportation expansion projects). Brightline is something parts of Florida has now and while not yet perfect, things are looking "bright" for them.

​​@@grantcivytside note, i dont feel any jealous on CAHSR at all - im not even living in the US, and all the countries that I lived in already have well-established HSR systems. I just wondered why would Californians be jealous about Brightline Florida when they are getting even more things. CAHSR is a good and necessary project. It is constantly exceeding its budget limit and it can be seen as problematic, but I personally think its due to America's lack of experience in HSR construction (or just any large infrstructural project, considering how highway projects are also being overbudget and getting delayed) and complicated bureaucracy, based on my research. Nearly all of developed countries have high speed rail outside of North America, and all of them have faced the same issue. Even Shinkansen exceeded its initial budget estimation and faced constant opposition - but nobody complained about the cost after it finally opened. Florida could have built true high speed rail, with 150% faster top speed than current Brightline. They just cancelled the project by themselves and got Brightline later. It is clearly good system, and even revolutionary in the US standards, but still could have been far more impressive and transformative. Also, the number of rail systems can really depend on the way how the region has been developed. If things are like Florida - where big cities can be connected in one line - you can cover most of them with just one line. If there's more cities outside of one corridor, you can (and probably should) build more rail lines. Both CA and FL has a population equivalent of a mid-size country, which definitely deserves more than just one passenger railway line. Even Brightline Florida themselves are planning to expand their service to Jacksonville, which will create a branching service.

Maybe some day it will stop killing people. And flying to miami is cheaper and faster.

Hopefully you will be coming to the Space Coast when that Station is open. Brightline already purchased land for a Station. I’ll definitely be visiting Tampa again. Driving is a pain. A Station has already been proposed for Indian River County on The Treasure Coast. FT Pierce is finally developing an interesting new downtown project. I hope Brightline brings Floridians closer together so we can more easily enjoy our beautiful State.

@@NuNugirldreams of an interconnected, more sustainable future might be possible. Even if it is private.

Anything to get off I4

@@NuNugirl Would be a great option for me to see major launches at the KSC.

Yes sir. You got it right.

Where have you seen tickets for $29? Every one way I've searched from Orlando to Miami starts at $49, and those leave at like 4am...

Wait $29? Where are u getting those killer deals?

@@Igneusflama They run sales all the time. Just have to be on the lookout for them

@@XenonSwift are you like... On a mailing list or something? I have family in Miami and I'd visit more if I didn't hate the drive, and $400 round trip for the family is a bit much. $240 sounds a lot more reasonable for a visit every now and then, but I've literally never seen that.

​@@Igneusflamalook late at night and look for non peak time traveling. Naturally when more people wake up the cheaper options will vanish quickly. I work graveyard shift and frequently check Brightline in the middle of the night, I oftentimes see tickets between 29 and 49 for a round trip. Yes you have to go outside peak times and that's for pretty obvious reasons

Exactly.

@jeffersonelbertsimoes3911 eh

I recently visited Basel, Switzerland, and was blown away by their amazing transport. A comprehensive tram and bus network, lots of bike lanes, and a HUGE intercity passenger rail network, with many international and high-speed connections. I was even able to make a day trip to Basel from my hotel further north in Frankfurt thanks to the frequent ICE departures. Keep in mind, Basel is a relatively small city of only 500,000 people in its metro area, so there's no reason cities in North America can't do the same.

Technically we have a national railway network if you're willing to put up with AmTrak. 😅

i really hope it does, as a non american who visits america frequently so much of it would be much enjoyable if you could get there without driving

it isn't, you see the problems in a decade or two. Regards a Brit

I'm curious, what is the primary benefit of a high-speed train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?

@@Strideo1 He meant a national High Speed network

Right. I'm downright amazed a chicago to STL high-speed isn't there yet.

Did you watch the video?? (the part 17:55 -> 20:10). It will do the exact opposite. The private sector is capturing all the profitable routes the government should be using to fund less profitable routes.

@@JL1 Wendover has another video on European train privatization, it's a completely different model than the US one, can't be directly compared at all. If the US government were owning the lines and companies competed to run the trains it would be similar, but in the US Brightline owns/controls basically everything on its lines. Unless the government does something drastic, there will never be competition on their tracks, other companies would have to lay whole new tracks to compete for the same routes.

it isn't, you see the problems in a decade or two. Regards a Brit

​​​@@damnkristhat's not the point of my original comment. My hope is that it improves government services which can happen with using private companies. What is happening with brightline will not happen in the North East and other areas. It is much more likely that the government allows private trains on their tracks then demolishing thousands of homes to build new private tracks.

i mean trenitalia is generally cheaper and more comfortable, and is operating still as a private company while being public

private rail can work, but there needs to be a public competitor. Or they can jack up prices as theyd have a monopoly on rail. Brightline seems good though, it looks like they genuiley care about rail transport in the us

You have to be a little careful of what you wish for. Generally speaking, if an area's connectivity takes a big step upwards, housing prices do too. The trick is to get there before anyone else realises the connectivity is coming. In some countries train companies have exploited this very thing. In Japan, for example, a train company would buy up a patch of emptiness, build a trainline from the local city, make a killing on the housing. Same here in London.

@@abarratt8869 housing prices already shot up in the region thanks to COVID and the remote work phenomenon. People from LA and SD fled to the Inland Empire, leading to a 30-40% real estate increase. IE natives then fled to Vegas and Phoenix, leading to upwards of a 100% increase in prices! Case in point: I bought a Phoenix home for $238k in 2019 before any mention of COVID. I sold it in 2021 for $470k!!

@@abarratt8869 Transit oriented development makes life better for everyone though. obviously higher demand means higher prices, but its not a bad thing to make something that people want wrt buying the patch of emptiness. also they typically build the housing and business spaces themselves.

I'm sure a number of Vegas residents would use it going the other direction.

Reno is the equivalent retirement city up north. We have Amtrak that goes from The Bay Area to Reno. It's expensive, so expensive you might as well fly, and it's slow, much slower than driving, despite there being very few stops along the route. And then once you're in Reno you pretty much need to rent a car unless someone can drive you everywhere. For this reason few people use Amtrak. If a SoCal to Vegas train line is going to succeed it is going to need to be high speed and it needs to be cheap, cheaper than flying. This is why I disagree with the end of this video. We shouldn't have more popular lines subsidize less popular lines. Rail is already cost prohibitive when there is no subsidizing going on. The reason for this is because the US has ultra cheap gas, some of the cheapest in the world. This makes flying and driving cheaper. Why take a train when you can fly for the same price?

You do have to be mindful that too many stops removes the reason people are going on it right now, which is that it is a fast train. But improving connectivity is good, so there may be a solution?

@@nathanball99 fair point. What I meant more in my head was just more connectivity between the major cities. I do understand it's high speed rail. Getting to the destination faster than driving is absolutely amazing. Maybe in the future if this is successful they will consider more Intercity transport. Though I won't even pretend to know what goes into all that. Short of it I love the bright line and hope it continues to connect further destinations

​@@nathanball99 the solution would likely be some direct miami-orlando (with maybe a stop halfway) and some others that make the stops at each station. People wanting to go all the way can take the direct. Commuters can use the ones that do every stop. Kinda like the regional vs acela in the northeast corridor.

@@mrpielover615 As I'm writing this the Miami downtown connector for Tri-rail, the local commuter rail, will open. With that they'll be able to directly serve Miami Central station, in theory making it possible for people who live along that corridor like in Hialeah to take Tri-rail there and then Brightline up north, my hope there is that Tri-rail transforms from a commuter line into an actual regional rail service. Brightline themselves have said that they want to build more stations along their corridor in South Florida and run regional services to better serve the region and feed their long distance trains. Remains to be seen what comes out of it with time but I for my part am pretty excited about the developments in Florida

using trains in the UK and Australian cities, many stops isnt an issue, and providing service to less popular destinations is why its so reliable and dependable, also whereever you are, you can find your way to a train station, and get anywhere from there. also express trains exist for those needing speed ​@@nathanball99

@ethans2223 no no I don't think I will

the tracks are owned and maintained by the rail companies. do you propose stealing them?

@@ronblack7870 Eat the rich then nationalize their ill-gotten gains.

Keep in mind that those rails have a limited capacity of trains per day. Adding passengers displaces freight. One passenger train equals maybe 25 buses while one freight train equals over 300 trucks.

@@GMC.SprintThe answer then is to re double track the ROWs as much as is practical. Then upgrade the signal system to allow for more trains. Switzerland has a ton of single track yet they manage to have a ton of trains per hour because of advanced train control and precise scheduling.

That only works on very flat land. High speed trains can't handle the same tight curves and steep grades as cars.

@@kkobayashi1 and the US is famously not at all flat :P

When you're talking about Florida.... It's flat enough.

@@Igneusflama Yeah, Florida and the LA->Vegas stretch seem well suited to this sort of development. I've driven to Vegas before and iirc most of the interstate is straight or gradually curving.

Parts of California have this.

Think of how valuable the stress reduction is, when added to your equation.

And factoring in delays too, trains still have delays but instead of the 1-2 hour delay of planes you can get 10-15 minute train delays

The video you speak of not only gave advantage to the plane since they took it in the morning as opposed to the afternoon, the train has also gotten faster since then. If anything, the train to Miami only takes ~40 minutes more than flying. 1 hour pre-airport arrival 1 hour flight 20 minutes of deboarding 20 minutes to traverse from MIA into downtown Miami where Brightline Miami Central is already located 20 minutes for baggage claim if you did checked luggage. That's 2 hours 40 minutes to 3 hours compared to 3 hours 25 minutes on Brightline.

I’ve done the west palm to Orlando on Amtrak and that took almost 4 hours, cutting that down to under two hours would have been amazing. Trains are great for that 2-3 drive time trips

And sometimes airplanes have big delays in Florida, especially during the summer because of the thunderstorms. So, if I’m flying long distance, I don’t mind flying that a short distance like from Orlando to Miami I’d rather take the train because sometimes upon landing on a short light flight, my ears tend to clog up and hurt.

They do in Many other countries

@@AdrianMcDaidWhere and why?

@@davidjackson7281 UK and Ireland for example. Use be called Road TAX

Shouldn't profitable and end up like new york subway or should be profitable and end up like JR . LOL

Speak for yourself, we have a gas tax for just that. In fact, there's been some concern recently becuase people buying EVs don't pay it.

Top tier journalist content isn't really setting the standards very high. But, yeah it was a pretty good video.

​@@MultiArtStyleTWT wake up man journalism is dying, all that's left are rage farmers, political grifters, and columnist putting up triggering headlines & stories for clicks!

​@@bishop51807 Did you mean to reply to OP and not me?

The current alignment plan is a partnership with SunRail (local commuter rail) that will see a station at OC Convention Center (near I-Drive/Epic Universe) and one near-ish to Celebration/Disney Springs.

It astounds me that neither Brightline or Tri-rail stop at FLL airport. They have stops "near it", but the hassle of taking a shuttle I think will turn a lot of people away.

@@mattpopovich I will admit that having to take the shuttle to the station was a little annoying. Not sure if it just wasn't possible to build a station any closer or what. It won't stop me from going that route again but it would definitely be much more convenient if it was within walking or tram distance.

Was that a family trip? Brightline is failing to catch those kind of travelers. I have been in Miami Orlando 4 times and not tourists at all (actually no groups of 3 or more) renting a car is a no brainer in that case. Doesn't help that both Miami and Orlando have awful public transportation so you are forced to rent a car or Uber 6 times a day

@@maumor2 nope, just me! For people going to WDW only and staying at a Disney resort, it can still make more financial sense to take the train rather than drive because you can get relatively cheap transportation from MCO to WDW and then use free Disney transportation while you're there.

After the Tampa line is done, they'll probably start on Jacksonville. The city does need to build that new intermodal terminal for it to happen - it'll join Amtrak and Brightline into a single station along with other local transportation.

Yeah, and that even without calculating the impact on the environment.

That is a blanket statement that is certainly not true everywhere. Plenty of suburbs have all the money needed to keep the roads in good condition. I would look at fraud, waste and abuse in areas where the problems lie. Dense neighborhoods in urban cores have abandoned law & order, so taking mass transit has its own "fun facts." See the Chicago red line for reference.

@jdog22c34 and that Philly metro 'incident'

And yet owning a car is still stupidly expensive overall, like $8k-12k per year on average. One of the biggest scams of all time, and deeply immoral when you consider that most Americans HAVE to own one to live a normal life.

@@TheDbear42 Government regulations have made cars far more expensive than they should be. Additional expense is self inflicted by not caring for the car and keeping it long after it is paid off. People constantly flip it to the latest model.

But I think the video was very clear in saying that the feasibility is extremely limited to specific routes where things line up just right. Brightline is focusing on those rare cases, so its experience can't really be generalized.

Yeah airline lobbies have convinced politicians that trains are communist for some reason

@@volkris Again though, it's about the _perception_ of feasibility. If the American taxpayers think it can be done, then it can be done, profitably or otherwise. Eventually a critical mass will be reached, at which point even a lot of the less-viable routes start to make more sense.

@@NoobsofFredo that's just pie in the sky thinking. There REALLY ARE things that are not possible in this world, things that really are not feasible. It doesn't matter whether you perceive it as feasible or not that I'd flap my arms and fly around the room. That's not physically feasible. Yes, politicians LOVE to spin this line that we can get whatever we want if we just believe, but that's not how reality works, and we need to call out the politicians who pander to the public for profit with such stances. We shouldn't be promoting that attitude. No. Plenty of things are just not feasible, no matter how much of the public can be convinced to buy the snake oil.

​@@volkrisAmerica cares a lot about the profitability of its public services like the postal service and amtrak. I don't. I don't care about whether a freeway makes money or not, it's a fucking freeway. It's goal is to get people from home to work, goods from factory to market, etc. We acknowledge that there is benefit to having a good freeway network whether it is directly profitable or not. I genuinely don't understand why we ignore the greater public benefit when it comes to public transportation. The postal service delivers to every person in the country, not only the profitable ones. Let's treat it like the public service that it is, aiming for quality and breadth of service, not profit.

I'd love to be able to to actually use other airports in the state so I can have better flying options for international flights. Would be so nice to take a trip once a month as well just across FL.

Cocoa Beach/Melbourne city council need get with the program, the fact that they didn’t approve bright lines offer of a station in 2022 is stupid, as Brightline currently turns there on its way to Orlando. That said, I see them going all the way up to Jacksonville to complete the east coast, and also connect Tampa with Naples and Tallahassee in the future, with Tallahassee eventually connecting to Jacksonville, and Naples connecting with Miami.

That was the original plan for an actual HSR network in Florida. That was vetoed by Rick Scott and then he invested millions on brightline who miraculously got to do the alternative to what the former governor vetoed. Brightline is planning nothing besides Miami - Orlando - Tampa

how much do you pay to ride it ??!!! it’s like $15 bucks toride one way, which isn’t bad but it adds up

@@holasoyalejandro9822 it’s not too bad when you buy the monthly pass. Comes out to like 7.50 per ride if you use all 40 rides included in the monthly pass. I figure it gets offset by lower gas and car maintenance costs. Plus, I retain my sanity by not dodging speeding Camaros on the highway!

@@holasoyalejandro9822There are discounted monthly plans.

And Texas will get one someday...for sure.

Nuuu, think of the poor car industries 😢😢😢😢

​@@michaeljones7927not while its culture stays what it is

Things move pretty slowly for tech and public projects in Florida. Desantis might be buddies with Musk but he can't convince the rest of the state as easily that it wouldn't be a waste of money or a tourist trap that only serves Orlando.

@@jorger1818Stations are coming to Brevard County and Indian River County. It will take time, but it’s going to happen. This is not just for tourism. It’s going to expand job opportunities for both Counties. The Central Eastern Coast of Florida is steadily glowing. South Florida residents are moving North in considerable numbers.

@@NuNugirl Hyperloop or Brightline? The comment was about Hyperloop

Amtrak already uses the same trains on the Midwest routes (although with some minor differences such as a lack of a streamlined nose cone)

Abandoned rail lines could be taken over and spliced together - the issue we are seeing now is the freight rail companies.

That route runs at 110 mph, bright line runs at 125mph, not much of a difference. Neither are high speed rail, but oh well. The Lincoln service takes 3h 14 minutes to get from Springfield to Chicago, while driving takes 3 hrs. Departures are at 8am, 10am and 5pm. I don't see how you can get much more convenient, esp. with meal breaks and gas stops

@@ethanlink8734 I've ridden on that route. Took the train from Chicago to St Louis and back. I had to get to Union Station at the ass crack of dawn and it took four hours to get to Springfield and and another three to get to St Louis. Even stopping for gas, I was able to save a full hour driving. And I had to be at the St Louis station for the return trip before 4 am. With both the trip down and up, we came to complete stops because of freight traffic. All in cars that hadn't been updated since the 1990s. The top speed may be 110, but the average actual speed with delays and stops comes to 70, no faster than by car. And that doesn't include getting to and from the stations. On a good day it would take 40 minutes just to get from my apartment to Union Station. And that's only by taking a cab. And all of this costing more than the cost of gas in my car. Maybe I took it on a bad day, but the only trip that was worse was a Greyhound trip across Indiana.

@@CortexNewsService That's before all the improvements that Illinois has done. Your point about convenience no longer applies with three daytime departures in St Louis, and new Siemens cars just put into service in the past few years. Illinois has built out new sidings along the route to reduce freight interference, and upgraded the rails to support the 3 hr trip between Springfield and Chicago (4.5 hr to St Louis). The Illinois High Speed Rail commission plans to continue to upgrade the route making it better and better.

well if anything... the rail crossing failed dashers are a huge issue for Brightline... they literally have to upgrade the crossings to ward those idiots... (at least on the original corridor)

@PrograError Yea I've seen a fair few crash videos and never understood it myself.

@@PrograError on plus side natural selection has reached florida.

Brightline has been the deadliest train in America since they opened (and with just one very short line) is borderline criminal that a high speed train (I know is technically not HSR) was approved using mostly infrastructure from 100 years ago with minor improvements. Everybody knew the hundreds of at grade crossings would be a problem. Now Brightline has asked (and already received) millions of dollars in grants from the federal government to improve safety at crossings

​@@R1chardHpeople seem to think that trains can stop on a dime kinda similar to all those idiots you see cutting off semi trucks on the HW some people just shouldn't be allowed on the road

Lmao no theyre not, theyre a real estate company capitalizing on a route that Amtrak has been trying to get started for 50 years but Florida governors have turned down funding for it - TWICE.

Why not both?

How do you know? Genuinely asking.

@@adambubble73 Those aren't mutually exclusive, and if they were _only_ a real estate company with no personal interest there would be no reason for them to build a rail line anyway. There's plenty of developable land available for cheap in the state if you look outside of the existing developed areas. Plus, much of what Brightline runs through has already been heavily developed. They probably have plans for development alongside the right of way, as that's just good business sense. But there's definitely more to it than just a typical "build the rail line then sell plots along it" scheme.

Where do you get that they are "train people" they are real state developers. They are using mostly an existing right of way

This would be massive for the midwest

I would love this. As a Detroiter it's easy to get to Chicago via Amtrak, but reaching the rest of the Midwest is tough.

@anotherguy4157 Right?! Born and raised in Des Moines and I know we all regularly go to MSP, KC and Chicago. Just like mentioned in the video, too close to fly, but the drive kinda sucks especially in winter. lol. I would use that train multiple times a year for sure amd I know many many others would too!

@danreviewstheworld Right?! I live in DSM, having easy access to the nearby major cities would be game changer 😁 and the amount of revenue and increase in tourism we would get as the inbetween of KC and MSP?? Would be amazing

@@danreviewstheworld I live along the Amtrak corridor well south of Chicago and the service is awful. It's been a few years but when I checked it was both faster and cheaper to drive myself to O'Hare compared to just the train to the Chicago station, let alone getting from the station to the airport.

I think you might have a misinformed opinion of Florida being "one of the reddest states in America", as you put it, and also the reason why people in redder states might generally not favor passenger trains. Brightline built a passenger route in a place that makes sense to build a passenger route. That's why it's successful. If the government had tried to build the route they would have decided that it needed to be a top of the line HSR from Miami to Jacksonville at an extremely high cost to the taxpayer that would inevitably have exorbitant cost overruns. On top of that, in redder states, people tend to be much more spread out compared to what you'd find in either Florida or Texas.

@@loganleroy8622 Actually, I am not misinformed about Florida. And I think YOU may be misinformed. You should google Rick Scott and Fortress Investment. That'll tell you WHY you have Brightline instead of an actual high speed railway.

" and would you look at that? People are riding it. " People are riding it is about as low of a bar as can be set. It's new. It doesn't mean it will be sustainable.

@@AllenGraetz Neither does it mean it will NOT be sustainable. Your "low bar" is your opinion, but the numbers prove that there is potential, so while you enjoy sitting in traffic, others will use this. Sometimes I wonder why people are against having choices.

@@AllenGraetz BL 2023 ridership was about 2 million. May reach 3+ million in 2024. BL is profitable and sustainable. Ye of little faith.

Vancouver Canada? That might be difficult given the border crossing.

@@weldin it’s already connected via traditional rail service with daily trains to Seattle

Kinda too bad. The biggest pain in the butt for day travelers to the parks will probably be getting to and from the station. Though I understand if it was just cost prohibitive.

He made a video on that Amtrak law. I think it's titled something like 'the 1 law keeping Amtrak terrible'.

Rick Scott should be in prison

​@@kallmeej9106the entire government should be in prison

Because the funds wouldn’t have done much Obama offered $2 billion in federal funding. Bright line has spent at least 6b between Orlando and Miami. Most of which isn’t tax payer money. Obama’s 2b would have all been tax payer, and still would have needed more. So makes sense why it was turned down. Rail can only succeed by private means, since there is no gas tax for rail service. Which this guy totally left out how much we pay in state and federal gas taxes. We spend on excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon. Florida spends 18.6 cents a gallons. So roads get 37 cents a gallon in taxes to pay for them. Rail doesn’t have this income. Riders barely want to pay what they do now, there is no stomach for an extra tax or revenue stream.

​@@ae9074brightline from Miami Central to Orlando Airport was 2.8 billion. Rich corrupt politicians at Tallahassee vetoed that project and privately invested in brightline

Ha!! LA is a dump and California is a liberal nightmare. Blue states are dieing.

Cut the red tape in California. Too corrupt

Well, you do know that Gavin Newsome was persuaded by Elon Musk not to build high-speed rail because the "hyperloop" was coming don't you? Musk had to know that that would never happen as the loop was an idea tried and discarded over a century ago, and Tesla has already scrapped its phony hyperloop prototype. But being in the car business, duping a governor who is naive enough to publicly say AI will fix traffic out of building the transit that will actually fix traffic is a boon to Musk, the shoddy car salesman. That's the embarrassing part about California- believing Silicon Valley will revolutionize how we live when really they're going to just strap iPhones directly onto your face so you cannot look away from the ads, like the last scene in "A Clockwork Orange."

California as a state is an embarrassment. FLORIDA is the greatest state in America 🇺🇸

@@filthysoap96 considering you're the state that elected Desantos multiple times, I would HIGHLY disagree.

I’ve been on both and Brightline is wayyyy nicer than JR Rail

@@gabrielroura5743 not at all 😂

The path that would set that up for success would be incrementally improving the intra-town/city public transit whether with protected walking paths, protected cycling lanes, protected bus lanes, protected light rail and making sure for the corresponding option the service is very frequent every (5 or 10 minutes) and reliable/on time. That would create a foundation for someone later in taking a home run swing at building out high speed rail between those towns/cities with good intra-transit.

@@gabrielroura5743 JR Rail is good more for the connectivity it provides to Japan. Japan's rail system can get you across the country easily.

Japan has the highest public debt to GDP of any country on the planet and their train network is a contributing factor. Rural japan is dying because the Shinkansen concentrates wealth at its stops and along its route. True flexible mobility that train dependent countries like Japan lack causes them to have high density urban areas where wages are flat, housing is tiny, and starting a family approaches impossible. Highest public debt, lowest birth rate, highest suicide rate, oldest population, small living accommodations, and a 30 year balance sheet recession. But by all means have your brightline to go to WDW to see your public domain mouse.

Your pun game is LOCO. You must be well TRAINed to stay on TRACK like that.

Orlando > Jacksonville > Atlanta would be nice as well.

It'll be a long time as Ft.Myers has a population of under 100,000, Naples 20,000. Tampa Bay region is over 3 Million. I'd Advocate for new Amtrak service using the CSX and Seminole Gulf Railway lines down there. It could run up to Tampa and Orlando so you could transfer to Brightline.

Yeah and California is considered one of the states with the best public transport.

You live in a tiny micro country. Not a model.

You think California was bad. Florida is 1000% worst. And that's the problem with brightline, is connecting cities were public transit is very bad

@@unknownz1238 CA has good public transit? What potent narcotic are the people making such bold statement high on?

@@tube.brasil oh you don't like tiny micro countries? Then look at China whooping America's ass on trains.

Such a good point. Not taking away from the fact that brightline is a positive force even with its flaws but what a cripples this project and many others like it is like you said that towns and cities do not even have a decent if any at all basic public transportation infrastructure to move people around before even connecting them to other towns and cities.

Ok so what? The same thing applies to airports

@@alaskianbullworm only in US again. In Europe you have plenty of rail / bus option to go to city centre or anywhere else in country, straight from the airport.

Intercity rail would provide incentive to build more local public transport.

This is true only in the short term. The ideal public transit rollout framework is (oversimplified and not necessary sequential): Step 1: Reform parking and public right of ways (streets) to induce density/walkability/bikability; Step 2: Reform zoning to allow a dense urban core; Step 3: invest in non-car modes of transport (bike paths, side walks, bike lanes); Step 4: develop a robust intracity public transit system that takes advantage of density and induce further density; Step 5: Develop regional/metro inter-city rail; Step 6: Develop inter-metro high speed rail. The reverse-ideal is happening now with high speed rail being step 1 instead of step 6 which is still a good alternative. You will see over the next 20 years that the reverse-ideal is still a workable solution to incentivizing local public transit. Slow and steady wins the race.

SMART has been an amazing service since it started. It really gave better access to a part of the Bay Area often not reachable without a car. Can’t wait to see it expand into wine country.

Siemens appears to be cornering the market right now. They're building another plant in the Carolina's to fulfill all the orders they have for additional Brightline coaches, Via Rail Canada and a lot for Amtrak.

I heard BL and JetBlue are talking, trying to collaborate on something. Maybe like a codeshare.

Who wants to see the Marlins??

The population density comparison is disingenuous… aren’t 90plus percent of the AU population on strips on either side of the continent? Pretty easy to make a train line when everyone lives in a line

@@JunkSock it is the exact same as with the US. Most people don't live spread out across the entire surface area of the US. Rather most people live in dense clusters of cities and suburbs that are at most 200 to 300 miles away from eachother. For example you've got New York-Newark-Jersey City, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington-Houston, The Pacific Northwest cities, the Intermountain West region of cities between Boise and Salt Lake City. There are many other countries that are simillarly large as the US, (Russia, China, Australlia) and all have great rail networks. Many cities in these countries also grew after the introduction of the car just like US cities, however, their dense neighborhoods, public transit and historic buildings weren't bulldozed for surface level parking lots and highways as much as they were in the US

​@@JunkSockAnd do you think the American population is just evenly distributed across scorching deserts, rugged mountains, and vast empty plains?

And connect through Austin and San Antonio

That exact route is what founded Southwest Airlines. Unfortunately, the entire process of airports now takes much longer than it did back then, since you're supposed to arrive so early and stand through several lines and such. That route would be amazing on high-speed rail, but on the other hand, you absolutely need a car in every city in TX, so private companies may have doubts about feasibility.

You’re going to be waiting a lot longer.

What you might be able to do is take CAHSR to Palmdale, change to Brightline West and go to Vegas 10 years from now. BLW should be done in 2028.

In a country that's so allergic to paying taxes it's almost a citizen's duty to aggressively optimize their tax reports, yeah, as long as it's not their money that's spent, anything is possible

@@pleeplerTaxation is theft. Anyone who advocates for taxation is a thief.

@@greenie3419 Though at what cost? As pointed out in the video, the for profit company will only do the parts immediately profitable, not the parts that are needed. And a for-profit company will always take a cut.

Our rail infrastructure is crumbling because it costs money to maintain and upgrade the existing freight tracks. Companies don't want to do it because it affects their bottom line too much in the short term. ​@@greenie3419

@@greenie3419 Including killing more people per mile traveled, in the case of Brightline vs Amtrak and every other public rail system in the US. Well, not better, but they have the bigger number. That's better in some way... right?

@sherizaahd except Brightline can kick out people who trash their property Japan doesn't need to

@@longiusaescius2537Tokyo Japan's ROWs were benevolently cleared out by WW2 firebombing.

@@davidjackson7281 yeah bro I love the multiple times our sailors are attacked with pre US government knowledge and let it happen too

@@longiusaescius2537happens everyday bro

Any idea when SunRail will connect to the Orlando airport?

@@davidjackson7281 from what I read, they're talking 2028

@@ELAlcoRS3Thanks for the update. That's about the same year BLW plans to start LA-LV revenue service. My thought is perhaps it would be nice if SunRail would connect to the amusement parks, convention center, etc. from the airport so that BL could take the southern route directly to l-4 with maybe a west Orlando station at Reedy Creek and then onto Lakeland and Tampa.