Hear those trains a-comin’

Editor’s Note: Florida Today editorial board member, Matt Reed, explains well the market-driven decisions behind All Aboard Florida’s plans to speed through Brevard, Indian River, Saint Lucie and Martin counties without stopping. Gov. Rick Scott turned down Federal funding to help develop high speed rail service in Florida, preferring instead a privately funded, marked-driven rail service. 

MATT REED/FLORIDA TODAY

This train has left the station.

Within two years, a new privately owned passenger train system will zoom 32 times a day through Brevard County railroad crossings, sounding horns in neighborhoods. Its owners aren’t waiting for voters or armchair economists to bless their venture. MORE…

Gov. Scott backs project with ties to his top aide

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The $200 million that Florida Gov. Rick Scott pledged to put toward a train depot at Orlando’s busy international airport also will benefit a company that previously employed the governor’s chief of staff.

Text messages obtained by the Associated Press show chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth discussed the rail project with a top aide in the Scott administration while he was still working for Flagler Development Group and Parallel Infrastructure. Both companies are connected to the company building All Aboard Florida, a private passenger line that would link Central and South Florida. All Aboard Florida stands to get a significant boost from the airport depot. MORE…

All Aboard Florida Boon or Boondoggle?

ANN HENSON FELTGEN/BrowardBulldog.org

A growing number of local and federal government officials want to put the brakes on the proposed passenger train between Miami and Orlando before some say it becomes one big boondoggle placed on the backs of Florida taxpayers. MORE…

South Florida to Orlando rail plan draws critics along route

WILLIAM E. GIBSON/ORLANDO SENTINEL WASHINGTON BUREAU

Plans to link South Florida to Orlando with speedy passenger-train service brought an initial burst of excitement from promoters in both regions.

Boosters say it will bolster the economy, create construction jobs and give residents an alternative to clogged highways. They hope it will entice foreign tourists in Orlando to take a train trip to explore the beaches of South Florida.

But complaints from some residents along the route prompted local planners and two Florida members of Congress to look for ways to reduce noise and minimize traffic delays caused by more trains rumbling through road crossings. MORE…

Price tag hits $40 million for quiet zones in Broward, Palm Beach counties

ANGEL STREETER/SUN SENTINEL

A couple of times a week, Steve Stahl is startled out of his sleep by a train horn.

The Fort Lauderdale resident lives just two blocks from the Florida East Coast Railroad where freight trains rumble down the tracks 10 to 20 times per day, he estimates. The series of horn blasts train engineers are required to blow at crossings can be heard day and night.

So Stahl and the hundreds of thousands like him who live near the tracks are worried about the repercussions to their sleep patterns when passenger trains start running on the FEC in less than two years. MORE…

Unexpected cost could slow Miami-to-Orlando train plan

ANN HENSON FELTGEN/BrowardBulldog.org

New downtown passenger train service that will speed users from Orlando to South Florida and back may sound like a tourism dream come true, but there’s a potentially unexpected cost to local residents. MORE…