george matthews wrote:What chance of a ferry from Key West? And rebuilding the railway there?
It's approximately 230 air miles from Miami to Havana, about a half hour flight by jetliner.
It's approximately 159 highway miles from Miami to Key West, about 3.25 hours by train or car.
It's approximately 92 nautical miles from Key West to Havana, about 6 hours by ship at 15 knots.
Seriously, which mode would you use, the one taking a half hour or one taking over 9 hours?
That's 9 hours assuming there is no waiting at the ferry, both loading and unloading. We all know that happens very rarely.
Mainland to island ferry services that might resemble Key West to Havana IMHO is the Marine Atlantic services to Newfoundland. This ferry service sees 230,000 passengers yearly with variable frequencies throughout the year. St. Johns's airport sees 1,500,000 and Gander International sees 300,000 passeners yearly, air seeing 1,800,000 to the island.
The total for all traffic being 2,030,000 per year. Air gets 85% while sea gets 15%. And a huge percentage of the sea passengers are truck drivers making deliveries, not tourists or businessmen.