re: Florida's high speed train Brightline struggles, seeks rescue after $5.5 billion debt

I love taking the kids on it when we’d go to the kids museum in Ft. Lauderdale or to a few spots in Miami. The train is beautiful, clean, and very well run.

The problem is the price is so hit or miss. It can be insanely expensive at times. I’d use it a lot more if it actually stopped at FLL or MIA.

I see and hear the bright line daily but have never taken it. Few issues-
1. There's no station stop between West Palm and the Orlando airport so by the time youd drive down to West Palm to go to MCO, it makes zero sense. Putting in even one station in Port Saint Lucie, Stuart, Jensen, Vero, etc would probably draw all of those towns to the bright line. And if I'm driving to West Palm, I may as well keep going down the turnpike or 95 to get to Lauderdale or Miami.
2. Price- as you stated, it's hit or miss. Either super expensive or a reasonably priced ticket but at odd hours of the day.
3- Train schedule/traffic- besides the already mentioned suicides, these trains are moving through busy intersections from Miami to MCO every hour going both ways. The amount of traffic this causes during rush hour is crazy on the local roads

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The problem is the price is so hit or miss. It can be insanely expensive at times.

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Depending on the price of gas, i was spending $15-30, roundtrip, to drive to Tampa and Orlando. The talk of the train excited me. They were taking about $4 each way. The longer it didn't get started on construction, the more expensive the tickets got. I stopped looking when it jumped from $4 to $28, then $35.

Please do not take any of my tax dollars to pay these inept buffoons.

Im not sure why its a requirement for public transit or healthcare to be for profit businesses. They are services for citizens that could reasonably be covered by the trillions of dollars we pay in taxes if those in charge cared about us rather than lining their own pockets and dropping bombs in the middle east. We've spent $25 billion in the past 2 months in Iran and got nothing in return.

There’s no way the people that live in Florida could handle something that goes 200 miles an hour

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Oh, idk. maybe so we allocate resources efficiently, ultimately saving the most lives and money.

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I'm all for this if we reduce taxes. But that isn't happening, instead we pay a shitton in taxes and most of it is wasted or laundered.

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I hope they can figure it out
Brightline is a great ride, and can be a really convenient option to move around South Florida

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Don't see how anyone doesn't recognize this, at least to some extent. But that's the US. People laugh even at similar times to driving, but if it's similar times to driving, then it's logical to say you might want to take the train a time or two, depending on money. Before opening the link and reading about it, I assumed it was a very short distance covered and had horribly long travel times. Sounds like a decent way to maybe go to Miami for the day/evening and come back without driving/getting a hotel. Guess that's not desirable.

Unless you live in Tokyo, it doesn’t make sense. All trains have stops within walking distance of a major shopping district. So you take a train from Tampa to Miami, then what? Rent a car or catch a bus? Maybe take a cab or Uber to your destination.

Didn’t they build their own tracks?

I don’t see how a railway can be popular enough to pay for this.