Democrats are now blaming DeSantis because it is taking so long to evacuate Tampa, a city of 3 million people, in the face of Hurricane Ian, because Republicans think that a train costing $3 billion or perhaps even $7 billion between Orlando and Tampa is a waste of money.
Let’s look at the facts and do the math, because that is what we do here. Normally, Interstate 4 carries 150,000 people per day. The evacuation has more than 2.5 million under evacuation orders, many trying to leave the city along I-4 and I-75 within a 24 hour time frame.
So let’s say we add a train to the mix. A train carries a maximum of 1,000 people. The distance between the two cities is about 70 miles. The train ride would take just over an hour on a high speed train. One hour there, one back. That works out to 12 trips per day at 1,000 passengers per trip- the MOST that a train would do is move 0.5% of the evacuation traffic, and that ignores the problem of congestion at both ends, the difficulty of where you park a million cars on the Tampa end, and what you do with 12,000 people milling around outside of the Orlando train station.
13 Comments
Steve S6 · September 27, 2022 at 6:20 pm
What? I thought they were just going to upload themselves to the Borg/cloud. Trains are mundane. Oh, and don’t confuse the issue with facts (their rule).
Steve · September 27, 2022 at 6:29 pm
I don’t understand this fascination the left has with 19th century technology. It is always over budget by billions or tens of billions. It is always years behind schedule. It is expensive to maintain. It never carries the number of people promised. But it’s the future of transportation.
This super genius can’t see beyond the glamor of “high-speed rail” to know how stupid she sounds. That goes for the people responding to her tweet.
Divemedic · September 27, 2022 at 6:51 pm
For the same reason why they support short range electric vehicles: it gives the government an ability to control where and when you travel.
Skeptic · September 27, 2022 at 6:42 pm
What a stupid ape. And it’s not “wrecks” havoc, it’s WREAKS havoc.
BobF · September 27, 2022 at 7:13 pm
By the time you add the fact that a large number of those train passengers are going to be dragging who knows what for baggage because they have no idea what to expect or what they will do on arrival, turnaround time is likely to be quite extended — the delay will affect both ends of the run. On the plus side, it might be a bonanza for Orlando Lyft and Uber drivers. 🙂
John Fisher · September 27, 2022 at 7:33 pm
You’re doing the logic thing again. ‘Trains’ always cause leftist eyes to glaze over.
Jonesy · September 27, 2022 at 10:36 pm
Math and logic are strengths the left does not possess.
I read down the thread…wow, lots of critical thinkers chiming in.
BraulerBob · September 27, 2022 at 10:39 pm
Three days ago, NOAA had the storm making landfall in the “Armpit” of North Florida. Tampa was “in the Cone” so to speak, but not in any great danger, just wind and a lot of rain. Over the past 48 hours they began to move the storm’s projected track further and further south along the central Florida coast. The Tampa area was now more seriously threatened. Storm surge is the biggest threat to coastal regions and the news channels have been beating the drum VERY loudly. Soon it looked like Tampa Bay would take a direct hit and all hell broke loose. Mandatory evacuations were ordered and we secured our home and prepared to displace for a few days and stay with relatives in Ft. Meyers, about 140 miles south of Tampa.
We were told to begin evacuation Tuesday morning at 7AM. We left at about 0530, in relatively light traffic, for a 2 hr drive south. 90 minutes in we called our family to let them know we were almost there. They told us the local emergency management had just ordered an evacuation in the area they lived in as the storm track had again been updated, and now it was heading straight for Ft Meyers. After helping them pack up and secure their house, we headed back to a friend’s place in Pasco county, an hour North of Tampa. So I basically made a 5 hr round trip to help our family secure their house for the storm.
What this boils down to is that sometimes, the various weather services can’t tell exactly where a storm will be making landfall until very late in the game. And by that time, a train system, however fast, will not be able to handle the traffic load on short notice. Fortunately, we have gas powered vehicles and the mobility and freedom to pivot our plans on a moments notice. If you are limited by where the next charging station for your EV is, or are limited by fixed infrastructure, like the HSR line proposed between Tampa and Orlando, you would be well and truly screwed.
I don’t know who Maya Brown is, but she is truly the idiot, not the Governor.
SiG · September 28, 2022 at 8:06 am
What’s an interesting side light is that I saved a plot of the predicted path from last Friday because I posted it on my blog. The most recent impact point almost exactly matches last Friday’s prediction – the last, most uncertain point in the five day plot. The updates just haven’t been worth it.
I’ve seen this before. Another aspect is that the UK Met model was always to the right (east) of the bulk of the models and every update, the track shifts toward the east.
mike · September 27, 2022 at 10:46 pm
Of course when the black mayor of New Orleans proved to be absolutely worthless as a leader in the Katrina fiasco and did nothing, the blame was readily laid at the President’s feet. I remember the images of many dozens of parked and flooded school buses that were at his disposal and were not used. He waited instead for someone else to do something. The black apologists naturally claimed racism and pointed fingers elsewhere. I am getting awfully sick of these people, The mere sight of them and the incessant false bleating of lies. I am not the only one.
anonymous coward · September 28, 2022 at 6:36 am
Governor DeSantis does seem to be the second most hated man in America by the main stream media.
nones · September 28, 2022 at 8:55 am
The Brightline train from Miami to Orlando, supposedly to be built and run exclusively with private money, now has it’s hand out for (I believe) $25 million in public money. This is just for starters. This handout will never end. Add to that the disruption to people’s lives that near the tracks. They are talking 16 trains per day. Add in the freight trains and imagine the disruption to traffic in any of these towns along the tracks. And can they really run a 125 mph train through cities? Apparently in south Florida, where they are already running the train, there have been a number of casualties to pedestrians along the tracks. If you find somewhere in Florida that you really love, go there and don’t tell a soul.
Elrod · September 28, 2022 at 1:42 pm
I think it’s been adequately proved that if mass evac is needed, personally-owned gasoline-powered vehicles offer the best solution, and those require roads.
Florida has demonstrated that lane reversals work; I’m too tired at the moment to do the math, but I’d wager that any Leftist Craptastic “rail” monies applied to adding a lane in each direction to the majors (I-4, 275, 95, 10, etc) would be approximately equivalent and a great deal more productive. For Tampa evac, the extra lanes on I-4 wouldn’t have to go very much farther than Lakeland, but simple state economic issues say “go all the way to Daytona” because mobility is money. I-95 and 275, though, would probably need to be top-to-bottom because there’s no way to predict from where an evac would have to start. Where those evacuees would wind up, however, is a different issue, one not related to transport.
Related to that, several decades ago I saw something in northern Kali, up around Petaluma – the local roads were all 2-lane but had very wide shoulders and the bridges were 4-lane. I asked the people I was staying with and they said it was common to build bridges and roadbeds wider for future expansion. The wide shoulder had full stone roadbed under it, so when the time came a lane width of the wide macadam shoulder could be cut open, some more stone added and compacted and then paved. Presto – 4 lanes where there had been two for a pretty low price. That was back in the ’60s and early ’70s; I have no doubt California doesn’t do it that way anymore.
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