>>This week on NewsNight, as Brightline begins services between Orlando and Miami, we take an in-depth look at the future of intercity passenger rail in Florida.

Plus, Disney's CEO pledges to quiet the noise in the culture wars.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

First tonight, the highly anticipated and delayed start of Brightline rail services between Orlando and South Florida.

The beginning of the services marks a key moment for private rail in the United States.

In a moment, we'll talk more about what it all means in the context of our region's transportation future.

But first, here are some of the scenes from the arrival of the first train from Miami last Friday at Orlando International Airport.

>>It is great to welcome Brightline to the city of Orlando in Orlando International Airport.

>>There's been a monstrous amount of work to design a train, design systems work with the the train manufacturers.

All the elected officials get all the permits.

I mean, it's a long, long list.

But all that is what's happened to bring us to where we are right now.

And today is a celebration about what we've accomplished thus far.

And we feel really terrific about it.

>>Welcome to the first Brightline train from south Florida!

>>Brightline is at the intersection of hospitality and transportation.

We are changing the way millions of people have traveled in South Florida and now throughout the state by prioritizing the guest experience.

We're going to move millions of people around this state for millions of reasons, and we encourage you to hop on board and experience firsthand what the Brightline real evolution is all about.

>>To discuss the start of services and what it all means for Central Florida, I spoke this week with Kevin Spear, who covers growth, sustainability and transportation for the Orlando Sentinel.

>>For years, I watched Brightline come along at many different stages getting money, getting permits, getting land or right of way.

It all seemed theoretical, so I'm still kind of rubbing my eyes at this thing has finally gotten underway.

How significant it is, we're going to find out.

The big question is, is how much will people rush to Brightline to go back and forth between Orlando and Miami?

>>There was a $6 billion project.

It's not high speed rail, but it is one of America's fastest rail services.

Now outside of the northeast.

Is Brightline, do you think legitimately a disruptor in a space that's been kind of dominated by the government and Amtrak for so long?

And can it change the paradigm as a whole in the country?

>>Well, it already has.

It had to develop from scratch.

Its locomotives and its coaches, its entire train set.

They were instrumental in making it what it is today.

Amtrak and its cousins, they have all adopted that train set now.

So just from that standpoint, but the idea of getting millions of people, millions of people on that train every year, if they do that, they will entirely disrupt what we know of as travel by rail.

>>I mean, as you alluded to there, Brightline thinks it can serve about 8 million people, generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue within a few years from those you talk to.

Does that sound realistic, given how long it takes for other rail services to make money?

I mean, can they really be like the Acela of the South?

>>You know, I don't know that there's a really that I can be confident in any kind of answer there.

I know people in Brightline who who have asked me, will it work?

I mean, we're all waiting to see.

Now, I will say that Brightline did something that's really hard, really, really hard from as the things they talked about, permits and money and land and all of that.

And and every step of the way.

Every year there was some pushback from somebody.

Airlines, local governments.

Somebody had a beef with bright line and they were able to hang in there and do something that nobody's done in a long time.

So if they had that kind of horsepower, so to speak, that caliber, to make that happen, then I have to believe that they they know what they're doing in terms of the next step, getting people on their trains.

>>Do they have do you think, the aim at least of dominating travel between central and south Florida, much like Amtrak and its Acela services have managed to do on the Washington, New York, Boston corridor.

Do they aim to compete with roads and air travel?

>>Absolutely.

Will they dominate?

No, I think they'll be a solution.

A part of the transportation challenge traveling up and down Florida.

They don't aim to take a monopoly of passengers or travelers, but they want a solid chunk of that.

>>Kevin Spear from the Orlando Sentinel there.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, we've got Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

Thanks so much for coming in, Ryan.

Always appreciate your time.

Alexa Lorenzo, morning anchor at WFTV Channel 9, also covers transportation over there.

Thanks for coming in again, Alexa.

Good to see both of you guys today.

I'm going to ask you both the same question that I asked Kevin Spear, and that is about the significance in your mind of the start of these Brightline services.

Ryan, what about you?

>>I think, like Kevin mentioned, it's kind of a monumental deal.

Central Florida hasn't really had something like this, presumably ever.

You know, you look at SunRail that's very much a commuter rail train, but this is a connection between two cities.

And you look at the economic potential of that, whether it's connecting businesses, connecting travelers, you know, there's massive potential with a connection like this.

>>Yeah, I do want to talk about the the potential for the economic impact a little bit.

What do you think, Alexa?

>>This is a monumental move.

That's the word Brightline has used a lot.

And to be clear, it's not a commuter rail.

Like you stressed.

They love to say it's where hospitality and transportation meet and it really is.

>>Yes we did hear that from them, yeah.

>>Yeah.

We're going after a specific class here, whether it's the business traveler or the family for tourism, we're going to see business and tourism travel intermingle on this Brightline train.

>>Yeah.

Before we talk a bit more about the future, I did want to talk about an immediate pressing problem for Brightline.

The opening service was delayed because of a fatality on the track, I think, at Delray Beach, a southbound Brightline train.

Why does this keep happening and what's Brightline doing about it?

>>What we noticed on that first train was that we needed to hold because of that incident.

So that's something that-- >>You were on the train, right?

>>Yes, I was out of the on the train out of Miami, and we were seeing that delay.

So we held for about 30, 45 minutes for the incident on a separate train.

That incident involved a pedestrian in a grassy area.

So that wasn't necessarily a great crossing incident.

But for the train moving through Brevard County, it'll be moving through 50 crossings, a total of 50 crossings in Brevard County.

And they have really beefed up security measures there.

They've added quad gates, cement medians.

And at this point, every situation that happens, Brightline continues to say it's always the fault of the person crossing, whether it be in a car, whether it be a pedestrian.

The train has never veered off the tracks.

>>They are pretty impressive, those crossings.

They are they have done everything from lights to signs to gates.

They're trying to go the extra mile here, but it's that education portion that they continue to push out.

Do not try to cross stop.

They go quickly.

You'll get your turn.

>>See if they can avoid the issues in this part of the state that they've seen in south Florida.

Ryan, let's talk about the economic impact there that you alluded to before.

What is the calculation there and how is that calculated?

>>So they've said in the past it could be as much as $6.4 billion.

Obviously, we don't have the exact formula, but we can assume that would include stuff like, oh, spending in different markets coming into Orlando, in south Florida, some of the job creation aspects of it, whether it's direct job creation, you know, the Brightline jobs that are in both those markets are indirect job creation.

Some of the things that as a result of this service are created.

So that kind of fits into the picture of what they're projecting the service might be and what kind of impacts it might have as it kind of comes to maturity.

>>Yeah, you both spend a lot of time talking to local leaders about what their expectations are.

What do you hear from local leaders about how they hope this will impact our region?

>>Something I thought was interesting was we've always thought that travel was going to be 50/50, right?

50% of travelers would go into Miami and vice versa.

Right.

At this point, they're saying more than 50% are going from Miami to Orlando and then less than 50 the other way.

So it's a little bit of a bigger boost anticipate for our Orlando region.

But the impacts that I found really interesting were real estate development.

People are saying they're going to start seeing new houses pop up, higher sales near the Orlando station as more people move here for jobs.

The other thing is the convention center.

There is no direct connection right now to the convention center.

But you have these employees, these workers who either work conventions, but they now have access to in both Orlando and Miami.

And you have people down in Miami who say, I'm going to go to that convention in Orlando, and we'll see that boom without a doubt through there.

I mean, Brightline thinks it can make a lot of money out of this and its other plans, like it's about to begin construction of its Las Vegas to Southern California track.

I wonder whether economists that you talk to Ryan agree with that and whether it can successfully compete with roads and air travel.

>>I think the jury's still out on that front.

We're still waiting to see a lot of the ridership numbers come in.

I've talked to experts, including those with the airport, who have said this is a little different than some of the legacy markets.

You look at it in Europe where there is already rail service that connects with a lot of the airports.

The airport hasn't seen that impact yet.

So it's hard to say.

I know a lot of the folks who are looking at ridership, Brightline in their ridership report said that they're expecting when the service stabilizes in 2025, at least 4.3 million long haul riders between South Florida and Orlando.

And they'll be a mix of different folks, you know, travelers both domestic and international, as well as residents in each of those markets.

>>Yeah, that's interesting what you talk about, the connections.

And that brings me to my next point, which is sort of these last mile options.

Brightline goes to the airport, but it doesn't directly connect to other transportation like we see even in places like Washington, DC, where it's very easy to hop on the Metro and you're in you're in town very quickly from from the airport.

I mean, how do passengers get where they're going?

Obviously, we don't have the Sunshine corridor yet, right?

So how do they get to say, the convention center or do they still get to get on the roads?

>>So Miami and West Palm Beach are more established.

Of course, they've been up and running, but since the beginning they've had more options than Orlando.

Given that Orlando's in the airport, Miami Central Station is in downtown.

It's a little bit away from Brickell.

So you have options for Uber, you have options for those electric vehicles like beep, because it's not highway, it's your downtown streets.

Here in Orlando, your options are Uber that Brightline sets up through its app, or you can book through Mears either a private shuttle or a bus service.

So that can you can book through Brightline for your train and then they can help you book uber or Mears to, let's say, get to the parks.

If you're staying at the park on property and you spend your week there.

>>Yeah, of course.

Miami also has its metro mover and other other forms of transportation.

>>Exactly, Metro rails right there.

>>Connect more easily.

Ryan what's the next step for for Brightline in Florida now and where's that money coming from for that >>So talking with Wes Edens who's the chair of Brightline he had mentioned currently their line kind of looks like a smile missing a tooth without the Tampa extension there.

So they're looking to expand that through both directly to Tampa, around I-4 as well as through the Sunshine Corridor, which would be shared with Sunrail and include stops at the Convention Center and near Walt Disney World.

They're also looking at in the expanded line between Miami and Orlando, having stops on the Treasure Coast and in Brevard County.

Those locations are to be determined.

And also many of those cost too.

>>A lot of debates over the Treasure Coast potential stop for sure.

Before we move on from transportation, and I just want to ask you quickly, Alexa, about an announcement from FDOT this week.

They put out some updates on when we can expect construction on some of Central Florida's road priorities under the Moving Florida Forward Infrastructure Initiative.

What do we learn from that announcement?

>>So this was always to increase capacity and decrease congestion.

So the big headliner has always been with this project in our area, the project that is I-4 from Champions Gate to Osceola Parkway.

And FDOT said that stretch is the most congested in central Florida and Florida.

So that's something that they're really honing in on.

So the project's going to reconstruct I-4 to do three general use lanes, auxiliary lanes, and two express lanes eastbound and westbound.

Now, in the middle, it's going to have open rail corridor right now is going to be grassy area.

But down the line, if they wanted to build that Brightline track or whatever train track down the middle of I-4, that will be there.

We have a start date.

It's late 2024, an end date that's still up in the air.

>>A lot of people certainly that date can't come soon enough for trying to improve that traffic, which seems to exist there at all times of day as well.

It doesn't seem to matter when.

Well we wanted to let you know that we'll be bringing you an in-depth update on Central Florida's transportation challenges later this year.

In the meantime, you can find our past coverage of the issue and much more on our website wucf.org/NewsNight.

Okay.

Next tonight, Disney's investmen >>Disney announced last week it would double its investment in its parks division over the next ten years, saying it plans to spend about $60 billion.

The company has seen a drop off in attendance at its U.S. parks and in the number of people staying at its hotels, especially at Walt Disney World.

Analysts say Disney is keen to maximize revenues from its parks as it faces difficulties turning a profit from its streaming services and reports it's considering selling its TV networks.

Both Disney and the state have lawsuits filed as part of the battle between the entertainment giant and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

But Disney still says it plans to invest billions in Disney World with the creation of thousands of jobs.

All right.

Well, let's get down into this one then.

And Alexa, let's mention that the state of play, first of all, in Disney's lawsuit, it's still suing in state court, right, over those development agreements that it reached with the previous board, but it amended its federal lawsuit recently just this month.

Right.

How so?

>>They want to now just focus on the free speech claim in federal court.

They want to focus primarily on what they believe was retaliation from the governor after they spoke publicly about at the time the bill of the parental rights and education now law.

So they are thinking this is a retaliation case and they want to focus primarily on that free speech segment, leaving the other legalities with the special district and Reedy Creek Improvement District out have that play out in state court.

But at the federal level, they want to just focus on that freedom of expression, free speech claim.

>>I mean, that Ryan had been something that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board had wanted right in the first place.

I mean, why did Disney take that step?

>>I think they were looking to narrow in on that.

I think they felt like they had a better chance in the case.

Exactly.

By separating those two and feeling like, oh, we have multiple opportunities to fight this case.

I think that's kind of where they're angling for when they took that.

>>Yeah, less is more, I guess, as all this plays out in the courts.

It's interesting because Disney just announced that it's ramping up its investments in its parks division, which of course is primarily what Disney does in our community.

What does Disney say it plans to do?

>>They started off by saying, hey, we bring in millions of visitors a year.

We employ over 75,000 people in Florida, and we want to continue to grow at this point.

Overall across the board, they want to use the next ten years to invest roughly $60 billion in parks and the cruise line.

And that's about double of what they invested last decade.

So that's a big of here in Florida, they're saying that they want to invest 17 billion over the next decade, primarily focusing on the parks.

And I think they kind of need to do that as Universal continues to expand with Epic Universe.

So I dont want to say they're playing catch up.

They're seeing where they're benefiting the most, and they're they're honing in on that.

>>And they have seen a drop in numbers at the US parks.

Their international parks at the moment are holding holding water for them.

Ryan Disney, CEO Bob Iger said recently that he wants to quote unquote quiet the noise in the culture wars.

But the governor, as we saw just over the last few days, continues to attack Disney in various interviews, making this sort of an essential part of the campaign trail.

And I'm wondering whether you think, as someone who watches the business community, whether this kind of fraught chapter is coming to an end, is the governor going to let that happen like Disney wants apparently?

>>I think if I could predict that, I'd probably be a richer man.

But obviously, watching Florida, I think, you know, they very much look at Disney, see the economic impact of that, and they want that there.

It's not like they're shoo, shoo.

They're obviously pushing their political kind of wants in that situation as Disney has their wants as well.

I think, you know, you see this often in business where, you know, there might be an outward conflict, but there's still opportunities to kind of mend that bridge or kind of come to a understanding on certain issues.

But but it's hard to say yet.

Obviously, we'll have to see what the court fight looks like.

And, you know, if that kind of shapes any of the discussions we might see between the state and Disney on some of those fronts.

>>I just wanted to ask you a quick question about another business story that that made headlines this week.

A federal judge refused to block that new part of a new Florida law that prevents union dues from being deducted directly from workers paychecks.

How have the unions responded and what do they plan to do now?

I mean, I'm kind of interested, how are unions collecting dues at this point?

>>Yeah, so for many of them, they're still fighting and they filed the number of cases tied to these issues.

And for many of those public service unions, they've been trying to find creative ways, you know, looking at like e-subscription sort of thing, much like a Netflix maybe to pay some of those dues because you can't get them deducted out of your pay.

So you've got to find other ways to remind folks.

So, hey, make sure you're paying your dues.

Make sure you know those are coming in.

>>Yeah.

And this applies to public sector workers rights.

Just remind us which workers are impacted by this.

>>Yeah, these are public employee unions.

So this is your teachers union, FEA has been very vocal about this.

This is your city employee unions.

Let's say you work for Palm Beach and you have a union with them, but it does leave out correctional officers, firefighters and law enforcement officers.

They are exempt from these restrictions.

And when we're talking about the collection and who it affects already said that they are no longer using that automatic paycheck deduction.

What they did instead is an automatic checking account deduction.

So at this point, they have 110,000 union members of their 140 using that new method for the time being.

>>Of course, that still has to be set up right for those workers.

It's a case of trying to make sure that they do that.

You know, as far as the unions are concerned.

>>Well, be sure to join this conversation on social media were at WUCFTV on Facebook X, formerly known as Twitter and also on Instagram.

Okay.

Finally tonight, a number of private schools in Florida have become part of Governor DeSantis efforts to target China's Communist Party, Park Maitland, along with Sagemont Preps two campuses in Broward County have been suspended from Florida's school voucher program, accused last week by the governor of having, quote, direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

It means more than 500 students across the schools will not be able to use state scholarships to attend.

>>Thank you.

Thanks so much.

>>In May, Governor DeSantis signed into law several pieces of legislation on foreign interests in Florida.

Among them, SB 846, which the governor says prohibits any school affiliated with a foreign country of concern from participating in Florida's school choice scholarship programs.

>>I think people instinctively realize when you have a junta, a ruling junta dedicated to communist ideology like the CCP, that's not someone you want in your backyard and that's not somebody that is going to be productive.

Operating in the state of Florida.

And so today we say no, and that's not going to happen here.

And I hope all states follow suit and follow Florida's lead.

>>In a statement, Governor DeSantis said, quote, We will not put up with any attempt to influence students with a communist ideology or allow Floridians tax dollars to go to schools that are connected to our foreign adversaries.

In a statement to several local media outlets, the schools wrote, “Our schools are locally run that abide by local, state and federal laws and do not have ties to any government or political party, either.

Foreign or domestic.

Our curriculum is accredited, standards-based and academically rigorous.

” Park Maitland and Sagemont are owned by Spring Education Group.

On their websites the school's write quote Spring Education Group is controlled by Primavera Holdings Limited, an investment firm together with its affiliates, principally based in Hong Kong, with operations in China, Singapore and the United States.

That is self-owned by Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong.

All right, let's get into the specifics of this announcement, Alexa.

I mean, what do we know about this announcement from the governor's office in terms of how it will affect Park Maitland and the students that attend?

I mean WFTV has been reporting on the the potential impacts there.

>>So at this point, Park Maitland students have a few options.

They can transfer to a different private school.

They can transfer to a public school or they can pay tuition out of pocket and not use those state scholarship funds.

But Park Maitland has said that they will work with all families to ensure that their children can remain at Park Maitland.

They want them there.

Those students are thriving there.

They'll work with them.

At the same time.

At this point, from the announcement of that suspension of those state scholarships for Park Maitland, they now have 15 days to appeal that suspension.

Park Maitland has not said openly or confirmed with us whether they will do that, but that's where this shake up kind of stands right now with what happens next.

>>What have you been hearing from families?

>>At this point they're trying to figure out how to talk to the students about what's going on because they're seeing increased presence of law enforcement.

And I know that's something that you and I have discussed, why the increased presence of law enforcement.

We'll talk about that later.

But they have additional security guards, additional police officers and administrators that maybe started their day a little later.

Now getting to campus earlier, staying later.

So they're responding across different sectors, whether it's in house with their admin or out of house with security.

They're just trying to juggle all of it for a student safety perspective.

>>Let's talk a bit about a security issue, because WFTV is has been covering this, right?

I mean, what kind of measures are they putting in place?

>>To be very clear, Park Maitland has said they have not received any substantiated, substantiated threat or anything that they need to be worried about.

But their job as an institution that serves so many children and younger children is to take action.

So this is all premature for safety.

They want to make sure that their kids are safe.

And it's because we've talked about this several times with a number of stories.

A headline does so much.

>>Yes.

>>Someone can see that and just rush to judgment, do a scary act that they would regret.

So that's why they are taking proactive measures in this case.

>>Yeah, a good example of where political messaging can have real life consequences.

Ryan, I mean, the governor has been vocal in his calls for sort of freezing out Chinese interests rights from the state.

Remind us what the broader context here and about the law the governor's citing as part of this move.

>>Yeah, weve kind of seen his discussion as he, you know, runs for the Republican primary of freezing out those interests.

You know, we've seen his discussions about, you know, blocking out those real estate investments as well.

He's really kind of been working to kind of set up a platform, kind of to run off that and kind of show people.

Here's what my goal is in blocking all these different types of investment.

>>And the governor has taken his messaging on the Chinese Communist Party on the campaign trail, right?

>>Yeah.

So we've kind of looked and seen his discussions with folks like CNBC.

He mentioned that he would block TikTok nationally if he was elected president and looking kind of more strictly at Chinese investments.

Obviously, China is a huge trade partner with the United States.

So that would obviously be a challenge because we're exporting a lot from them.

>>Yeah, and Florida now, one of the states that has taken action against Tik Tok itself.

You can find a link to the text of SB 846 and the announcement by Governor DeSantis of the decision regarding Park Maitland and Sagemont.

On our website wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal, Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV, Channel 9.

Thanks so much for coming in, guys.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, for all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.