>>This week on NewsNight, getting central Florida's transportation infrastructure on the right track.

>>We have to have contingency plans to be able to move the needle within the breadth of what we can afford to do.

>>Infrastructure hasn't caught up with the amount of people coming in.

>>People in Brightline have asked me, will it work?

>>There's a decent amount of skepticism.

>>From roads to rail, from busses to pedestrian safety.

An in-depth update on efforts to get our region's growing population moving.

[MUSIC] NewsNight starts now.

Hello, I'm Steve Mort at Lynx Central Station in downtown Orlando.

This is a hub for bus and commuter rail services in central Florida.

It's predicted that some 18 million rides will have been completed on Lynx busses this year alone.

More than a million on SunRail as ridership creeps back up following the pandemic.

Florida is growing faster than any other state in the nation, by some estimates, more than a thousand a day move here.

And getting all those people where they need to go is a monumental logistical effort.

First tonight, in a metro area spanning several counties with multiple transit operators, who is in charge of coordinating a transportation strategy?

I sat down with Gary Huttmann the executive director of Metro Plan Orlando, which leads transportation planning efforts in Orange, Osceola and Seminole Counties.

>>We have many partners that we need to work with on a daily basis, making sure that there's there's equity in and fair share in the funding distribution.

And at the same time, meeting the challenges that we have of doing the best projects and sometimes the best projects.

You know, sometimes it may look like it's not fair because there may be one of the counties that is receiving the bulk of the funds, but over over a ten year period, we work with DOT and really do a good job of balancing that out.

>>Let's look at where we are right now as we know our state and our region is growing at a record clip.

Do we currently have the infrastructure in place to get all those people where they need to go?

>>If they have a lot of time.

You know, it's there are many improvements to be made.

And recently, you know, we've really taken a larger focus on multimodal types of transportation improvements, less focused on simply adding capacity, more focused on active transportation, and making sure that there are sidewalk connection, bicycle connections, accommodating different e-scooters and that sort of thing.

But transit is really the the big ticket and the one that, you know, we've done a number of studies throughout the region.

Everyone gets excited about doing those studies.

But when you get the price tag on them, many of them are very intimidating.

And, you know, we don't have a dedicated funding source for that.

Continue to try to get one.

But but the transit improvements would go a long way in helping to get people to places that they need to be.

>>You have a plan for 2045?

>>Yes.

>>What are the priorities as you see them that you'd like to see as an organization implemented by that time?

>>Well, there are some highway projects, you know, the continuation of the I-4, what they refer to as the beyond the ultimate project.

That's a big one.

We've done a study about the state Route 50 project from all the way from Lake County out to the UCF main campus.

And that was a really good and promising BRT project.

It's still kind of on the books, you know, as well as as one with along State Road 436.

>>So BRT being Bus Rapid Transit that would be an east-west corridor where SunRail is is a north-south corridor.

>>That's right.

And those are the connections that we need to bring to accommodate that demand that's out there.

>>When you look at the the challenges that lie ahead and all the work that you have to do, are you optimistic that you can get where you need to be in a reasonable timeframe?

>>I would say that I'm up.

I want to be an optimist and I base that on the way transportation planning has changed.

We've gone from developing plans that are 100% focused on highway capacity and adding highway capacity to plans where we have a significant amount of our investment targeted toward premium transit system.

You know, and and overwhelmingly, when we do research, the public seems to support it.

They want they want more of it.

It's a difficult thing is making that connection that that everything costs money, you know, and if you want something, then you need to be willing to pay for it.

[MUSIC] >>All right.

Next tonight, with the billions of dollars it costs to pay for new transit options and maintain them.

There's no shortage of political debate over how that money should be spent.

With SunRail set to transfer from state to local control and local sources of funding needed for future big ticket items like the Sunshine Corridor, leaders in central Florida are trying to find ways to come up with the money.

Orange County commissioners recently approved a special taxing district around Universal's new Epic Universe park to help generate $174 million for Sunshine Corridor related projects.

I sat down recently with Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, whose bid last year to establish a penny sales tax to pay for transportation projects was rejected by voters in 2022.

Let me start by asking you about SunRail.

SunRail incurs an operating deficit.

As we know.

Are there enough local resources to fund it when it transfers from the state?

Are you confident that it's going to be in safe hands?

>>I'm confident that we will reach a point in time where all of the local partners will come to an agreement about what the financial commitments would be from each local jurisdiction because the state of Florida will continue to own it.

It is unknown how much money the state of Florida, through the Florida Department of Transportation will bring to the table as well.

I would say that when you look at the various transit models around the country and almost all of them, they are you cannot operate them solely based upon the fare box receipts.

You have to have some federal funding, a state or local dollars to make these types of operations work.

We have a commitment in Orange County for the next five years.

We are committing $100 million of Orange County General fund dollars to improve pedestrian bicycle safety, lighting and other features around highly trafficked intersections.

In addition to expanding the number of routes that Lynx busses will operate within throughout the main corridors of primarily the international drive tourist corridor, as well as some of the other areas around the county that will reduce the total travel time for many of those who depend on busses.

But we also need an expanded commuter rail system here within our community and then link the two.

And then thirdly, we need to make certain that we continue our efforts to build workforce housing in the centers of commerce so people work where they live, and that can cut down on the tremendous commute times as well.

>>SunRail, of course, is part of those plans for a sunshine corridor to link up with Brightline.

Connect I-Drive the convention center, but without that penny sales tax that you pushed for that didn't succeed at the polls.

Is there really a way to afford that kind of money?

>>It would be very difficult to do something that is transformative.

But with this, we have to have contingency plans to be able to move the needle within the breadth of what we can afford to do.

We identified going back to 2021, a $21 billion deficit, a need in our community to address the transportation and transit improvements that were needed.

That $21 billion deficit today is even more than it was in 2021.

And so the in order to adequately address all of that, we need additional funding revenues to address that.

Unlike the federal government, we cannot run a deficit.

And since, according to the census data, in the decade leading up to 2020, our population in Orange County alone grew by 25%.

And with that type of population growth, yes, our infrastructure is falling behind.

So we do need to look at multimodal solutions.

>>Would you consider bringing back the idea of the penny sales tax at some point?

One of the pushbacks at the time was we can't afford it at the moment.

Do you think that's something you'd like to reintroduce as a concept?

>>We're having those conversations.

The first time that we can put it on the ballot again would be for the general election of 2024.

What I can tell you is that at this time it's unknown if we advance it to the ballot.

The Board of County Commission will have to make that decision by late spring of 2024 and order just to get it on the ballot.

The economy will play a decision and play into the decision of whether or not we advance that tax or not, being able to sustain the momentum that we have with our economy is going to be part of, I think, a global economic picture.

And so we'll just have to see at this point.

>>You can find links to federal transportation funding, statistics for Florida from the White House and money allocated to transportation and the Florida budget on our website.

[MUSIC] That's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

All right.

Next tonight, war on the Sunshine Corridor.

We've already heard how Orange County and Metro plan view the multibillion dollar plans.

But what about those that'll be running the trains?

Brightline recently established a brand new passenger rail service between Orlando International Airport and South Florida.

It plans to run its services onto Tampa in the future with the help of government funding.

But how it gets there from Orlando has been the source of debate.

Initially, Brightline had planned to build a line along the 417 expressway to I-4 and then south.

But those plans changed under pressure from local leaders.

The route is now planned to run from the airport with stops at a sun rail interchange, the convention center and South to International Drive near Disney World before heading to Tampa.

The projected price tag, about $2 billion.

The Florida Department of Transportation this year began a review of the project holding public meetings in December to look at the community impact, the potential costs and the environmental consequences of the project.

Well, I caught up with the president of Brightline Patrick Goddard at the company's new station at Orlando International Airport, Terminal C, and I started by asking him about the start of services between Central and South Florida.

>>I think it's a very big deal for the state, and it's really the culmination of a decade of work.

But more importantly, it's the realization of a vision that the state has long held to connect Central Florida and South Florida and eventually Tampa by intercity passenger rail.

There have been several false starts on this project by government agencies, but it ultimately took the private sector, you know, led by our founder Wes Edens, and his vision for what was possible to actually get something done.

So when you're undertaking something of this magnitude that has been talked about for so long, there's a decent amount of skepticism around whether or not it can actually be done or not.

So to actually get it open to be running trains every hour, to have passengers benefiting from the service and having the impact on people's quality of life and their ability to move around the state already, it's pretty exciting.

>>Do you see yourselves eventually as sort of the Acela of the South?

The Amtrak lines between Washington, Boston dominate transportation between those major cities in the north.

Do you think eventually Brightline can dominate travel between the cities in Florida?

>>I absolutely do.

You know, they've had about a ten plus year head start on us in the northeast corridor, but it's become a way of life there.

And that's really our objective with Bright Line is for people to fold this into their everyday life.

Florida as a state is outgrowing the rest of the country.

But individually, as you look city by city, these these cities are all experiencing rapid growth for a myriad of different reasons, and they're experiencing growth in terms of tourism visitation.

So all of that augurs well for the future of intercity passenger rail in the state.

>>Now, talk a little bit about the Sunshine corridor.

I understand there are a lot of unknowns at the moment about that.

This is the project that'll create stations, I-Drive, convention center and then an interchange with with SunRail.

Congressman Soto was sort of said that he thinks that the federal government could probably pick up about half of that, but local taxes, private investment is going to have to pay for the rest.

Is Brightline in it to win it for that?

Are you willing to invest the money that's needed for the infrastructure here?

>>I think we are.

I think that we are.

I think that we always have been.

I think that we we had initially envisioned a different project that didn't cost $6 billion, that we were prepared to take on.

You know, independent of all of that help.

So now that we're looking at this alternate project because it's going through more urban areas, it needs to be elevated and that's driven the cost up significantly.

We think it's a good solution.

It's just much more cost prohibitive.

So as it is really the community that is demanding or asking for this solution and we see the clear benefit of the community being able to leverage that infrastructure to expand SunRail and create a lot more mobility options and transit options for central Floridians and visitors.

So there's a lot of value to it.

We think it's very much worthwhile.

And because now the community is very much invested in making that happen, I think there is a significant opportunity for us to go out and get some federal funding to help make that a reality.

>>Brightline President Patrick Goddard.

Well, to learn more about the Sunshine Corridor, I turn to Kevin Spear, who writes about transportation for the Orlando Sentinel, and he's been covering developments in recent years.

So Orlando, to Tampa, is there timescale on that?

>>No.

No.

And that's frustrating for a lot of people, I think.

Brightline wanted to do it on its own.

It wanted to take a route that would go through along the 417 and then off to Tampa.

And that brought a lot of pushback from Universal.

And I-Drive businesses and others, so they had to regroup and take a look at going by Universal I-Drive and Disney.

If that delay hadn't happened, I think they would be near construction now to get to Tampa.

But as it stands, Orange County, Orlando, Universal, I-Drive and Brightline and DOT, a lot of cooks in that kitchen are still wrestling with who's going to pay for what and how much it's going to cost.

>>That sounds to me like a very expensive proposition.

>>You know, right now the federal government looks like a really key source of money for that.

>>They didn't pay anything for the for the line from from West Palm to Orlando.

>>They didn't.

But in this case, where we're going to see a possibly see a public private partnership, public money may come in to that and it may come in from the infrastructure money that's out there.

The State Department of Transportation seems more interested in this than they ever have.

And in my time covering this.

So there's a big mix out there waiting to provide money to the Sunshine corridor.

And my wonder about this is if all those cooks in the kitchen are going to be able to act quickly enough to tap into those different sources of money.

As we've seen in Washington, things go through cycles.

Money comes, money goes.

>>I mean, the federal government is doling out money for the Brightline service from Las Vegas to Southern California.

I guess that might give hope that the federal government is into these projects.

But as you say, administrations change.

Congresses change.

>>You know, what would really give all of this hope is that the new service from Miami to Orlando, if that is immediately or quickly popular, and we see a lot of people getting on those trains that I think will bring some pressure to get the service built from Orlando to Tampa.

>>All right.

Next tonight, the role of technology.

Behind me.

You can see one of those ubiquitous electric scooters that you see people riding around.

They provide what are called last mile options for travelers around the metro area and many cities in the country.

But it's not only scooters that are part of the technological puzzle.

Autonomous vehicles are also becoming more and more popular.

But there are many unknowns about the role they may eventually play in the broader transportation picture.

>>So this is actually one of the vehicles that we have in operation here in testing in Lake Nona.

>>To find out more, I spoke with Racquel Asa from Autonomous Shuttle Company Beep, which operates services in Lake Nona and pilot Services in Altamonte Springs.

And Orlando's Creative Village.

>>So one of our differentiators as an organization is that we are in the communities where we are today in central Florida, in Georgia, North Carolina and in California, because those governments, those municipalities, those transit agencies have actually contacted us to test this autonomous technology.

So we work hand in hand to to test this technology in areas where they see needs to address some of the transportation challenges that they're currently facing within their community.

Then we work with them to to do a pilot project for a certain amount of time.

>>Your services, it seems to me, and those of other autonomous kinds of transit work in pretty controlled environments like Lake Nona or Zoo Miami, I think is is one of the other places.

How far away are you, do you think, from this kind of technology being deployable on city streets, on scale or sort of used to to build out maybe bus rapid transit infrastructure, that kind of thing?

How how far away away from that?

>>I think when we look at how far away are we from longer and I'll call faster routes, you definitely have to ensure that you're walking before you're running.

And we firmly believe to enable these vehicles in a safe environment.

You do have to start within a confined to area first because you can monitor effectively and safely that operation with a defined area as a technology continues to increase.

Right.

And enhance you then open up that geofence wider, wider and wider.

For us as organization, we look at our autonomous platforms and services within two buckets one current generation vehicles.

That's what we have today and what you see on the road.

In the next two years, we have what we call next generation autonomous platforms, which will be operating at a higher capacity, higher speed, more people in the vehicle.

Today, those vehicles do operate in a in a controlled speed of about up to 15 miles per hour in the next two years, it'll be up to 35, potentially 40.

>>Let me ask you about last mile transit.

Can a company like Beep play a role in solving those kinds of puzzles for metropolitan areas that maybe were built postwar predominantly and do not have very good transit links?

>>Not only can we, we will.

And what I mean by that is our project in Altamont Springs with a project that is partially funded by the Florida Department of Transportation.

It is the first project in the state of Florida, in probably the country where it's a multi-phased approach.

So what I mean by that is that you have three phases of the project.

Currently, we're in the first phase operating throughout and testing throughout uptown Altamont.

Second phase will then continue to expand east toward right around the AdventHealth Hospital area.

But the key here is the last phase in its connecting to SunRail right at the Altamont train station for SunRail.

So the goal there is to then provide autonomous shuttles that connect from SunRail to get you toward Uptown Altamonte and everywhere in between.

So you were essentially removing the need for personal vehicle because as you know, along the state road 436 corridor, there's a number of multi dwelling apartments that are there.

There's are also a number of new developments coming online, such as apartments.

So thereby then reducing the need for someone's personal vehicle because if they work at AdventHealth, they have the ability to use a shuttle and then live that an uptown Altamonte.

Same thing with accessing SunRail.

>>I'm standing next to a railroad crossing at one of the downtown Orlando SunRail stations.

It's where traffic and pedestrians routinely cross the railroad tracks.

But it's no secret that Florida has one of the worst records in the nation when it comes to pedestrian safety.

In fact, a new study finds our state ranks third in the nation for pedestrian fatalities.

But there are efforts underway throughout our region to try to remedy the problem, educating drivers on pedestrian safety.

>>You can see on this road that there is a ton of traffic.

>>Vince Dyer is the program manager for Best Foot Forward, an initiative involving county governments and other stakeholders.

>>Best Foot Forward is trying to get the message out that it's the law to yield to pedestrians and the crosswalks.

>>To do that, the agency regularly works with police officers across Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties while they conduct crosswalk enforcement.

On this day, they are working the intersection of Bear Lake Road and McNeil Road in Seminole County.

Staff cross the street, giving drivers enough time to yield.

If a motorist fails to do so.

They face a possible warning or citation.

>>The infrastructure hasn't caught up with the amount of people coming in and the fact that people just don't realize the law.

Those are major factors that make it less safe for pedestrians.

>>Best Foot Forward figures show drivers on this street yield to pedestrians just 13% of the time.

According to official figures for Central Florida through November, there were 1,625 pedestrian crashes, resulting in 138 deaths.

In addition, there were 1,417 crashes involving bicycles, 43 fatalities.

These numbers are broadly in line with recent years in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties alone.

There were 78 pedestrian fatalities, 70% occurring in Orange County.

Florida's record on pedestrian safety's even become a political issue.

>>We are now called to order.

>>At a recent legislative delegation meeting, Orange County Commissioner Christine Moore said the issue was high among her constituents priorities.

>>There's no issue that I hear more about from my citizens than trying to have safe routes to work and to school and keeping our pedestrians safe.

>>Moore says she hopes a set of pilot measures can take place soon in the Hiawassee area to help cut the number of fatalities.

>>People just want to be safe, so anything you can do to help us would be appreciated.

>>Meanwhile, Vision Zero, a program by Metro Plan Orlando has a goal of eventually eliminating all traffic deaths.

>>Until we really get a handle on speed, we're going to continue to have a serious problem.

>>According to Metro Plan, every week, five people die and 35 people are seriously injured in central Florida crashes.

>>We're one of those Sunbelt cities where most of our growth happened in the recent decades, where it's more suburban.

And so our roads tend to be high speed.

And when you combine high speed roads with pedestrians, especially out after dark, that's just a really dangerous combination.

>>But curbing fatalities is a complicated task.

Vision Zero is in the process of identifying the places with the most deaths, particularly in underserved communities which are disproportionately affected by traffic crashes.

It plans to produce a list of projects to finally help the region get on the road towards fewer fatalities.

Before we go tonight, I want to remind you that you can find much more of all the interviews you've seen on the program tonight on our website.

Be sure to visit us online at wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

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

Join us next week for the first of two programs looking back at the top news stories of 2023.

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