KCRag Forum

Posted: **Mon Jan 09, 2023 5:11 pm**

Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 1:19 pm
earthling wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 1:08 pm Am looking to buy a place anywhere along this line, maybe Boca. Planning extensive global travel next year and will be nice to have easy access to 3 international airports and 3 cruise ports along the line. Extension to Tampa also planned.

BTW am now reluctantly but officially a FL resident for tax purposes. Planning to keep KC condo and investments across MO but will be a global nomad as long as health allows, based officially out of FL.
Florida is an incredibly advantageous place to base out of as a global Nomad. My buddy did that when he got out of the army, and has been mostly around South America since, but organizing travel to anywhere in FL is incredibly easy for him, and not too expensive either. I’d explore the likes of Cocoa, for it’s affordability, as it’ll likely gain an infill station at some point in the future. You’ll have to let us know how functional it is for that purpose!

We'll see how it plays out. Am targeting to base out of various ports around world for about a month or so each, like Southampton outside London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Auckland, Rio or Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Singapore, etc. and roam inland via train. Not planning to be in FL much, just there for tax reasons and travel base. Not much into cruises for vacation but not too bad if thinking of them as transport ships with room/eats rather than for vacation purposes. Hope to keep at it until tired of it.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 10:59 am**

earthling wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 1:08 pm Am looking to buy a place anywhere along this line, maybe Boca. Planning extensive global travel next year and will be nice to have easy access to 3 international airports and 3 cruise ports along the line. Extension to Tampa also planned.

BTW am now reluctantly but officially a FL resident for tax purposes. Planning to keep KC condo and investments across MO but will be a global nomad as long as health allows, based officially out of FL.

I own a (vaca) place in the Delray/Boynton area; just north of Boca Raton. Should you wish for unbiased (well, not commercially biased) advice, feel free to ask.

I do suggest looking in the general area of Delray/Boynton/Boca if you are planning to do the travel shtick: PBI is incredibly convenient; though FLL offers more comprehensive destinations.

Oddly, if you buy anywhere near the Intercoastal; you'll be within earshot of Brightline (it is surprisingly quiet). When the BL does extend to Tampa in 2024; that will be a major game changer.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:26 pm**

^Might take you up on that when in search mode this summer. Am currently based on Gulf side, taking care of relatives along Tampa/Sarasota/Ft Meyers stretch but would prefer to base along Brightline. MCO/Orlando connection will also be very nice w/out having to live in area. I'll be often secondarily basing out of NYC via my brother's place in Brooklyn as well. Plenty of cheap one way TATL flight options from NYC and FL ATL coast as well as many cruise ports to choose from. Need to work out global health insurance too, leaning towards Cigna Global. Have a year to plan.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:59 pm**

I live in PB -- originally from KC and still have a house there. There's a small group of KC people here in Palm Beach County. A much larger group of St. Louis peeps. Many midwesterners prefer the Gulf Coast side (Naples/ Ft. Myers/ Sarasota/ Tampa).

The Brightline is great, but for nonstop flights, you are looking at the Miami airport and OneWorld/ AA. MIA is served more conveniently via our commuter rail TriRail, on its own tracks about one mile west of the Brightline tracks. Brightline also has had some negative PR by the sheer number of pedestrians killed so far. The Brightline runs right through the coastal towns and pretty close to the commercial strip aka Dixie Highway, meaning a lot of interactions with foot traffic. Once the Orlando airport MCO connects to Brightline, that will also open some other opportunities and not so AA-heavy.

One important Florida thing that outsiders sometimes do not realize: our state and county governments expect residents, especially those of us on the barrier islands, to maintain a house elsewhere to which we can evacuate several times per summer and for multiple weeks at a time. They sometimes shut the utilities off, so it's not really an option to stay put and ride through the hurricanes, and we get one or two every year.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 2:24 pm**

earthling wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:26 pm ^Might take you up on that when in search mode this summer. Am currently based on Gulf side, taking care of relatives along Tampa/Sarasota/Ft Meyers stretch but would prefer to base along Brightline. MCO/Orlando connection will also be very nice w/out having to live in area. I'll be often secondarily basing out of NYC via my brother's place in Brooklyn as well. Plenty of cheap one way TATL flight options from NYC and FL ATL coast as well as many cruise ports to choose from. Need to work out global health insurance too, leaning towards Cigna Global. Have a year to plan.

Remember there is a 6 month + 1 day residency requirement in Florida for residency. I'm not exactly sure how they track this, but I know that my snowbird family members in Florida have to do this. Agreed about being willing to relocate. They're in the middle of a 3-4 month renovation after 6" of water flooded their place after Ian. Could have been worse though.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 4:37 pm**

There are some exceptions to the 6 month rule. IE, full time RVrs can base out of FL and don't have a requirement for long term FL stays but if I understand right can't be in any one state for more than a certain period each.

Plenty of global travelers I've chatted with have traveled full time over a year and rarely in FL. Might have to prove it's purely travel if challenged, not sure.

I'm hooking up with a domicile lawyer and will check into it. Some even don't own/rent in FL by setting up a mail forwarding service and 'rent' a 'physical address' for $1/month - will check with lawyer and details and if truly valid. If valid, might consider that but will probably end up buying a small condo along Brightline and share it as a 'family vacay' place, maybe close friends too.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2023 4:49 pm**

herrfrank wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:59 pm I live in PB -- originally from KC and still have a house there. There's a small group of KC people here in Palm Beach County. A much larger group of St. Louis peeps. Many midwesterners prefer the Gulf Coast side (Naples/ Ft. Myers/ Sarasota/ Tampa).

The Brightline is great, but for nonstop flights, you are looking at the Miami airport and OneWorld/ AA. MIA is served more conveniently via our commuter rail TriRail, on its own tracks about one mile west of the Brightline tracks. Brightline also has had some negative PR by the sheer number of pedestrians killed so far. The Brightline runs right through the coastal towns and pretty close to the commercial strip aka Dixie Highway, meaning a lot of interactions with foot traffic. Once the Orlando airport MCO connects to Brightline, that will also open some other opportunities and not so AA-heavy.

One important Florida thing that outsiders sometimes do not realize: our state and county governments expect residents, especially those of us on the barrier islands, to maintain a house elsewhere to which we can evacuate several times per summer and for multiple weeks at a time. They sometimes shut the utilities off, so it's not really an option to stay put and ride through the hurricanes, and we get one or two every year.

Will be good to have Orlando airport in the mix, London and Frankfurt are nonstop and Lisbon/London can be pretty cheap one way with stops. I'll be doing mainly one way with NYC and LA in mix as well to APAC - sister in LA, brother in NYC.

Interesting about the Brightline ped deaths, haven't heard about it.

On planned outages for hurricanes, I'll still have my KC condo and relatives on Gulf side.

Posted: **Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:47 pm**

Brightline testing at 130mph. Great videos including showing it flying past cars on the highway.
https://youtu.be/VIWY6jvau6U?t=50

And the Las Vegas-Rancho Cucamonga line out west should start construction towards the end of the year and open in 2026 or 2027.
https://jalopnik.com/construction-of-10 ... source=YPL

Posted: **Mon May 01, 2023 1:43 pm**

Brightline Florida
The line from West Palm Beach to Miami turned a profit for the first time ever last month. They say this wasn't intended for this route, but great to see, nonetheless. Ridership in March 2022 was 70,000 and this past month, it was 170,000.

The extension to Orlando will open to passengers soon with one-way tickets starting at $79.

Brightline West
$3.75 Billion in federal dollars have been requested for Brightline West (from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga). Some renderings of the station in Las Vegas were released. A new rendering of the trains also got out and it seems like they're switching from a Siemens Velaro to an Alstom Aveila Liberty (like the new Acela uses). I haven't seen this reported beyond the new rendering, so I just assume they're still going to roll with Siemens. Service is still 5.5+ years off, so I guess this part can change.

Brightline West will cost $12 Billion and is expected to be operational in 2028 (two years earlier than the hopeful opening of California's Central Valley High Speed Rail). It'll run in the median of I-15.

Alstom Rendering...

Siemens Renderings...

Las Vegas Station...

Rancho Cucamonga Station...

Route Map...

Posted: **Mon May 01, 2023 1:50 pm**

I hope they aren't switching to the Liberty trainset (at least not the specs used by Amtrak) as the word on the street is they are lemons.

Posted: **Wed Oct 04, 2023 4:29 pm**

Doesn't Brightline seem kind of ironic in the grand scheme of things. Brightline is privately ran and it seems to be somewhat successful in Car Oriented, Conservative places that generally hate transit like this, this is making the California rail project look like a complete boondoggle. Is the government going to look at brightline being successful in Florida and put Amtrak on notice? Few years pass and Governement tells Brightline to run Amtrak, in turn Brightline scales down Amtrak to only the profitable routes, leaving most of the country without rail service.

Posted: **Wed Oct 04, 2023 5:00 pm**

Amtrak has both deep and long-time support in red and blue states. It's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

IN a way, Amtrak exists more as a tourist feature except in the northeast corridor, where it is one of the primary transit methods. But the national part of the network functions largely as tourism infrastructure.

BTW I do think that the California HSR is a boondoggle.

Posted: **Thu Oct 05, 2023 10:12 am**

If connecting two of the most powerful cities in the country, with a train technology that has existed for 50+ years in the rest of the world, is considered a “boondoggle”, then I don’t think there’s anything on earth that can save this accursed country at this point

Posted: **Thu Oct 05, 2023 10:33 am**

TheLastGentleman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 10:12 am If connecting two of the most powerful cities in the country, with a train technology that has existed for 50+ years in the rest of the world, is considered a “boondoggle”, then I don’t think there’s anything on earth that can save this accursed country at this point

The project itself is a fantastic idea. The execution has been a boondoggle. It was supposed to run from LA to SF by 2029ish and instead we are getting a project between Bakersfield and Merced by 2030 that is way over budget already. All around it feels like a huge mess.

I'm very optimistic about Brightline, but perhaps feeling even more excitement and optimism about the Texas JR project. That one in particular has a massive "wow" factor that could really change the game in the US (imho).

Posted: **Thu Oct 05, 2023 4:28 pm**

Brightline's big differentiators are full control of their corridor and development rights over properties adjacent to their stations, with the ability to capture the value of those over the long term. Amtrak would need a fundamental change of strategy, possibly up to a literal Act of Congress to pivot to that. In a way, the KC Streetcar value capture model is more similar to Brightline than a traditional rail transit network.

Posted: **Thu Oct 05, 2023 8:53 pm**

I'll be touring the new Orlando facility next week!

Posted: **Thu Oct 05, 2023 11:48 pm**

DaveKCMO wrote: ↑Thu Oct 05, 2023 8:53 pm I'll be touring the new Orlando facility next week!

We need pictures!

Posted: **Sat Mar 23, 2024 4:17 pm**

Ridership continues to blast past expectations. Now they're having a new issue: they can't keep up with demand. Brightline ordered additional passenger cars to try and help with capacity issues, but it's a good situation to have. As a result, they're restricting capacity on some shorter rides.
https://www.thenextmiami.com/brightline ... in-routes/

Posted: **Sun Apr 21, 2024 11:30 am**

Brightline West is breaking ground next week. Connecting Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga (with a connection to Los Angeles via MetroLink). Overall travel time from Las Vegas to LA would be comparable to the drive from LA to LV on I-15 WITHOUT traffic.
- Trains will depart every 45 minutes.
- Operating at speeds of up to 186mph.
- $12 Billion project cost with $3 Billion from the Feds.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/ar-AA1nlNY7

Posted: **Sun Apr 21, 2024 9:01 pm**

Read that MetroLink/Bright Line will partner to increase commuter frequencies into LA. Potential to extend bright line to Union Station later

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