13th Street Board Members,

If you have a time before our meeting on Thursday please visit the second link below (it is a survey regarding the proposed FEC commuter rail).

In addition, attached are the planned stops in our immediate area.

If you have the same concerns that I have regarding the 15th Street planned stop, which was detailed so wonderful in one of Randall’s earlier email, I would suggest that this would be a good place to input your thoughts.

http://www.sfeccstudy.com

http://www.sfeccstudy.com/online_survey.html

Ray Thrower 

From: Randall Klett

…..if we are to have any hope of a station at 13^th street, we must have people at this meeting to lobby for the 13^th street location.  If we do not act quickly and decisively, there will be no transit station on 13^th street.  The current tentative plans call for a station at Sunrise. The process is early enough in the planning stages to change. If we don’t act now, we will never have a transit station at 13^th St. to anchor our redevelopment. ……If you cannot attend send someone who understands the needs.  It does not take a 100 people to influence a project like this at this early stage. However, if no one shows, we will get nothing.

If a station is placed at Sunrise, 13^th street is too close for a second station to ever be added to the transit line. Depending upon the system selected, light rail or heavy rail, (electric powered cars or diesel locomotive) the minimum efficient spacing between stations can be in excess of one mile. Part of the questions to be answered at this point in the planning process is the type of system we as the South Florida Community desire. Are we looking for fast efficient transit from West Palm to Miami (express trains with few a major stops or stations like Tri Rail) or are we looking for more local transit Pompano to Wilton Manors, Oakland Park to Ft Lauderdale or a mixture of both? 

If the community goes for Express Service with few stops we are likely never going to have a stop at 13^th street.  We already have Tri Rail; we need local service for people to move shorter distances from residential areas to commercial areas.  Perhaps with some express trains with limited stops at rush hour to move people longer distances.

 Advantages you can use to sell the 13^th street station:

1. The real estate is available and for sale.
2. The real estate will be less expensive than along Sunrise.
3. The real estate is vacant, i.e. no people or businesses must be displaced to create a station.
4. The real available real property at the 13^th street station is large enough to permit creative development of a transit hub
5. Traffic on Sunrise is already a nightmare adding a transit station will bring more traffic to sunrise Blvd.
6. Trains slowing for a station at Sunrise will impede traffic flow on Sunrise Blvd.
7. Sunrise Blvd station is surrounded by commercial/public real estate: Home Depot, Rinker, Sears Town, Holiday Park, etc.  There is very little room for the high density residential or mixed use development within walking distance which is the backbone for public transit.
8. 13^th street is ready for redevelopment.  There is a lot of vacant land, there are many properties for sale, and there are a number of shovel ready high density residential and mixed use developments within walking distance of 13^th street station.
9. The 13^th street station area is surrounded by fairly high density residential property much of which is prime, and zoned, for redevelopment as high density residential and mixed use properties.
10. The 13^th street corridor and the proposed 13^th street transit station are in final stages for inclusion in the CRA with the full support of the city and county commissions and city staff.

Randall

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