Ridership studies don't support local rail link

A Tampa-to-St. Petersburg bullet train connection could lose up to $2-million a year, two ridership studies show.

By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 23, 2002

Supporters of a bullet train across the waist of Florida say it would be a dependable alternative to Interstate 4, where accidents, weather and the smoke from winter fires wreak havoc on traffic with stunning regularity.

The Legislature picked the I-4 corridor for the first leg of statewide high-speed rail because it would be the easiest leg to build, or so it seemed. There was all that public right of way between the lanes of I-4 where a rail line could run, and the environmental impact and engineering studies done for the highway would suffice for the rail line.

But two preliminary ridership studies done for the Florida High Speed Rail Authority now indicate the link between Tampa and St. Petersburg would not generate enough money to cover operation and maintenance of that segment, and the Legislature is so far unwilling to let any segment rely on a taxpayer subsidy.

The studies predict a revenue shortfall of $1-million to $2-million a year on the St. Petersburg-Tampa segment, regardless of the destinations chosen for the train when it reaches the Orlando area.

Riders to and from Pinellas County are projected to number between 405,000 and 465,000 a year, generating revenue of $4.4-million to $5.2-million.

"Our early estimate put operation and maintenance costs at $6-million a year," said Nazih Haddad, staff director for the rail authority. "Based on that, it doesn't seem that the revenue would be there to support the St. Petersburg-to-Tampa route."

After voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2000 mandating that a high-speed train link the five largest metropolitan areas in the state, the Legislature included St. Petersburg in the Tampa-to-Orlando leg with the expectation that it would draw the millions of tourists who visit the attractions around Orlando and then drive to the Pinellas beaches.

"We had to have those riders for the system to be viable," said state Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg. "If those folks look at riding a train from Orlando to Tampa, then getting off and renting a car to drive to St. Petersburg, they're just going to rent the car in Orlando and drive the whole trip."

But Sebesta, the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, and Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel, say they don't believe the preliminary studies are accurate.

"For one thing," Sebesta said, "potential commuters aren't in there. You've got 100,000 cars commuting across the bay every day. If we could capture just 10 percent of those people, it would add tremendously to the numbers."

Seel said she wants to see the ridership data.

"I would question the consultants' figures," Seel said. "We have over 5-million visitors a year in Pinellas County. We have a lot more visitors than Tampa, and a lot of them come over from the Orlando area. I want to see what the consultants based their figures on."

Sebesta said a more definitive ridership study is due next summer.

"That's when we'll find out if any of it can be done," he said.

One alternative for St. Petersburg would be to use light rail -- an electric train that might travel up to 60 mph -- to connect with the high-speed rail in Tampa.

"That might be the more cost-effective way to do it if we can't bring high-speed rail across the bay," Seel said. "We definitely want the linkage to this side of the bay. If that's the only way it can be done, we'd have to consider it."'

But it is an alternative that would require legislative approval.

"We'd have to go back and advise the Legislature and allow them to determine if the law should be changed, or if we should build a subsidized system between Tampa and St. Pete," said William Dunn, a Miami consultant and a member of the rail authority board.

Running the train between Tampa and St. Petersburg has been dicey from the outset. None of the three major bridges across Tampa Bay can support such a system, meaning a new bridge would have to be built just for the train. The cost of such a project has been estimated as high as $1.5-billion.

One of the existing bridges might sustain light rail.

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