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Comment by ulfw | Hacker News Reader

It's also going nowhere. Miami to Orlando... Airport! Not city, not Disney. Orlando Airport. Then what? Rent a car?

You get to Orlando city center...and there's not much to do, it's very tiny part of a low density city. There is a bus terminal and an Amtrak station. I did get around town on the city busses pretty well.

Pretty easy to catch a shuttle bus to Disney and local hotels from the airport. Probably more transportation from there than downtown.

This is true, and it’s worth noting: there would be more to do in Orlando’s city center if it had a direct connection to another major city.

This is one of the many ways in which designing for cars/low density “curses” an area to perpetual underdevelopment: direct rail connections would be speculative rather than serving existing demand.

I think there's a few things to note (as someone who used to live in Orlando):

1) The actual city of Orlando is about 9miles (as the crow flies) from the airport

2) The Brightline eventually plans to go to Tampa on the west coast of Florida, but is coming from South Florida

3) The existing Amtrak/Sunrail lines run south-ish to north-ish on the west side of downtown Orlando. To use the existing routes and knowing where Brightline plans to go, it'd likely have to go through the airport anyway, then curve north to downtown Orlando, then turn around and head back down southwest-ish to Tampa.

4) At some point they hope to connect the existing Sunrail commuter rail to the airport, so you could take that to downtown

5) There's not really a whole lot to do in downtown Orlando itself, not a ton of shopping, restaurants or entertainment. Most travelers to Orlando are there to go to the theme parks that are outside of downtown.

You're looking at it backwards. Orlando is the tourist destination. People fly into Orlando from all over the world. They're already at the airport. Taking a day in Miami now fits into their existing travel plans.

I don’t understand this.

So someone flew into Orlando airport, and then immediately took a train to Miami?

Why not just fly into Miami instead?

You take it once you're done with Disney. Go to Disney, take the train to Miami, then go back to the airport to head home.

Then the train should stop at Disney, not at the airport you're not even flying out of.

There's a planned expansion to the Orange County Convention Center and Disney after the airport stop.

Why not? That's what you'd do if you flew in.

More generally, airports have many options for ground transportation and connecting to an existing transport hub makes a lot of sense.

Apparently there's a company that just runs shuttles to Disney.

Disney wanted to build a maglev from Orlando Airport to Disney property. Prevent any revenue leakage. Everybody else in the area screamed.

That would have been convenient. What I think they should do is work with the other major parks (Universal, SeaWorld) to build a maglev to a specific hub where you can then split off and go directly to the park. This way it's not specific to Disney (appeases some, not all, naysayers) and you still get Airport-to-Disney train access. Of course that means Disney loses some control but I think it'll be a net positive for them overall.

Here's a driving map from the Orlando Airport to all the parks I mentioned above. You can see there's a central area not far from SeaWorld that could a good place to build this hub:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZuR1a8fVNQoXmPeK8

If you build normal railway line instead, you can run direct trains from many other towns and cities, in addition to metro/commuter-style fast connections from Orlando / Orlando Airport.

Disneyworld Paris has a normal station within it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marne-la-Vall%C3%A9e%E2%80%93C...

Disney wanted to build a 7-minute maglev ride from Orlando Airport to Disney properties, with no other stops.[1] "“Obviously, it makes no sense to operate a train at 350 miles an hour and have it make a stop every four miles.” - Disney rep.

It would have been a huge competitive win for Disney. People who took that route would not rent cars. Car rental, once you're on Disney property, is deliberately inconvenient, involving bus travel off the property.

[1] https://archive.ph/He0tR

That's one of the advantages of traveling by train rather than airplane: train stations are much closer to city centers than airports. And, at least in Europe, they are the "existing transport hub" of the city, connected to things like subway, suburban trains, city and long-distance buses etc.

Or a taxi, car service, friend, family, own cat in a parking lot (already present at an airport), city bus, walking, folding bicycle, transcontinental Starship service (coming soon to MCO) . . .

The airport is not exactly in town, unless you want to walk or bike 10 miles with luggage.

Right. As far as I can tell, MCO doesn't have any real mass transit besides buses. Maybe they're thinking that Brightline will eventually expand into downtown Orlando itself, or will link directly to SunRail[1]?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunRail

Phase 3 of the Brightline, the expansion to the Orlando airport from West Palm Beach was phase 2, has 3 planned stops. The Orange County Convention Center, near Disney Springs and Tampa. It will connect to the SunRail at the convention center stop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline#Planned_and_propose...

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