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A Times Editorial
Disney's demand that the high-speed rail bypass other Orlando attractions should be rejected, no matter how much power the company wields.
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 2003
Walt Disney World may have been instrumental in putting the Orlando area on the map, but that doesn't give the theme-park giant the right to redraw one for the state's planned bullet train.
A sensible route for the high-speed rail project's first leg from Orlando International Airport would conveniently offer a stop at Orlando's large convention center and other area attractions before heading to Disney. But it is being vocally challenged by the Big Mouse. The corporation is proposing its own route, one that would whisk passengers from the airport directly to its property.
If the line is run along the Bee Line Expressway, which would take the train past the area's convention center, Disney threatens not to use it. Instead, it says it will continue to provide bus service, which is how it currently shuttles its 2.2-million annual visitors between the airport and its theme park. Adding to the company's take-my-ball-and-go-home attitude, Disney says if the route is not mapped out the way it wants, it will prevent the rail service from placing a station anywhere on its property.
The company's demands are selfish and should be rejected out-of-hand. The bullet train should serve the community's long-term interests, not the narrow concerns of a single corporate entity, no matter how much power the muscular mouse wields.
Disney's aggressive stance is designed to keep passengers from exposure to competing area attractions. A route along the beeline would stop only once between the airport and Disney, but it would give riders access to International Drive, including Universal Studios and Sea World. The alternative proposed by Disney would run along the Central Florida Greeneway, a road well south of the Bee Line. The High Speed Rail Authority has asked bidders to submit proposals for both routes by Feb. 10. In the meantime, rail officials are bending over backward to try and find some middle ground, even offering Disney executives to make every other scheduled run a nonstop to their theme park. But Disney's rejected every overture.
The high-speed rail system was controversial enough before Disney picked this fight. Florida voters passed an initiative in 2000 mandating the rail system as a way to relieve congestion on Florida's crowded roads and reduce pollution, but Tallahassee officials have been slow to embrace it. Construction of the first leg, which is to connect Orlando to the Tampa Bay area, must begin by November 2003. It is expected that a substantial public investment will have to be made to build the rail's infrastructure, but following the initial outlay, it is hoped that vendors would run the bullet train as a profitmaking enterprise without government subsidies. Because people-traffic to Disney's theme parks from the airport would generate an estimated $26.3-million annually, the few vendors expected to bid on the project will be tempted to promote Disney's demands.
But potential revenues should not be the only, or even the primary, interest at play as the state's high-speed rail lines are mapped. The authority should determine the train's routes based on the state's transportation needs, environmental priorities and projections for future growth. In the end, this ambitious project should serve the public interest, and not Disney's.