Traffic Congestion and High Speed Rail are topic conversation in Central Florida and have been going on since the late 90’s. I am sure you have heard recently that Obama passed a stimulus package to help support this speed rail. The President believes this will help Florida’s congestion problem and provide thousands of people with jobs. There’s nothing like killing two birds with one stone.
Now there are many people who disagree with this and feel this will not help Florida because it has not helped other cities that have tried it already. However what they need to be aware of is the fact that we are fourth largest populated state and has the highest anticipated growth rate in the nation. Also our non-residence tourist population and visitor population is the highest amongst all states. If we can reduce tourist traffic it should help the local traffic congestion.
I found an article is called Traffic Congestion and it was written based on Central Florida and the resident growth, commuter’s growth and the congestion growth. The writer talks about I-4 being the most densely populated road in all of central Florida. Which makes us question is it a traffic and population problem or is it a development problem (Garcia, My Region.Org, 2003).
The article talks about how Orlando has hundreds of thousands of commuters coming into Orlando daily to work. In 2000 there were over 164,000 commuters from surrounding counties like, Seminole, Osceola, Volusia and Lake who came to work in Orange County. Not to mention the 377,000 people who already live and work in Orange County (Garcia, My Region.Org, 2003). This is why we have the kind of traffic we have, however if we were smart and built better roadways from the beginning or years ago then maybe this would have reduced some of this congestion. Instead we talked and planned for Central Florida to grow, but left out the road way system and support of this growth.
We have so many commuters because the cost of homes have increased at high rates over the years and families cannot afford to live in Orange County so they have to live on the out skirts to afford a home, but have to work in Orange County to make a decent living. So this tells us that the commuter problem is not going to go away. This is where I feel the Speed Rail will reduce traffic because it will help commuters coming from Tampa area, Lakeland and up towards Orlando. And if this goes to Deland it will help individuals coming from the opposite direction. This will reduce traffic congestion for commuters too.
Still, there are millions of dollars of proposed road improvements. The passing of the light-rail bill is something they were fighting for the last 10 years and now local businesses like Walt Disney World are throwing in land and extra funds to support it along with the stimulus package. Can you see where this could help give thousands of people jobs and help our congested highways?
If we are going to be a tourist state and bring in travelers from all around the world, as well as house many retirees and working families then we need to be smarter and plan better. We need to do this right the first time verses trying to come back after the fact.
