Would you be willing to spend almost $275 for a one-way ticket on All Aboard Florida to Orlando? That’s the cost a study found AAF would need to charge to cover the money borrowed to pay for the high speed rail. 
All Aboard Florida’s high-speed passenger trains would fail to generate enough revenue to cover its debts, and would push much of its financial burden onto taxpayers, according to a study commissioned by Citizens Against Rail Expansion in Florida.
The railroad is underestimating the need for ticket revenue, overestimating its potential ridership and ignoring the fact that “Miami and Orlando are not cities with characteristics in which passenger trains can thrive,” according to Brown University professor John Friedman, who was hired to write the study by CARE FL, an All Aboard Florida opposition organization consisting primarily of gated communities in southern Martin and northern Palm Beach counties.
All Aboard Florida officials could not be reached for comment on the findings.
All Aboard Florida plans to run 32 passenger trains daily along the Florida East Coast Railway corridor. The private company’s $2.25 billion project would begin service from Miami to West Palm Beach by the end of next year and through the Treasure Coast to Orlando International Airport in early 2017.
All Aboard Florida on Dec. 18 received approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation to finance itself in large part through issuing $1.75 billion of private activity bonds — financing that exempts investors from paying federal income tax on the interest earned.
The private company would be an “inefficient” user of the bonds, which provide a major subsidy to the company and a major cost to taxpayers, Friedman said.
All Aboard Florida would need to charge $273 per one-way fare, even under “unrealistically optimistic assumptions,” to keep up with its debt, and as service continues, it would generate annual losses of more than $100 million, according to Friedman.
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02 17 15 Friedman Econ Analysis FINAL
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