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JEAN HELLERVoters reversed field on the bullet train, but the High Speed Rail Authority is forging ahead with plans that could keep it alive.
Florida voters made it clear last week that they didn't want big chunks of their tax money paying for a statewide bullet train.
But instead of walking away, members of the High Speed Rail Authority decided Wednesday to make an aggressive effort to save the project.
They voted to give the train a new route and a possible new contractor who brings private financing to the table. And they decided to spend another $250,000 to ensure that the option to build the first leg from Tampa to Orlando endures for at least three more years.
"We have no mandate," said Fred Dudley, the authority's chairman. "But we still have a good idea."
And the idea might now sit better with Gov. Jeb Bush and others who led the successful vote to strip the high-speed rail amendment from the state Constitution because of its potential cost in tax dollars.
At its meeting in Orlando, the authority heard a new proposal from the rail contractor it rejected last year, Global Rail Consortium, which now offers $400-million in private money to pay upfront infrastructure costs.
"It's a long-term commitment to the state for high-speed rail," Katherine Beck, Global Rail's managing member, told the authority.
The proposal initially accepted by the rail authority, from the Canadian transportation giant Fluor-Bombardier offered no private funds. Bush and Tom Gallagher, Florida's chief financial officer, said this plan would have left the state on the hook for at least $75-million a year for the next 30 years.
But before last week's vote, Gallagher said the state would agree to shoulder some cost, just not that much for that long.
"Under the new proposal, the state's share might be closer to $20-million a year for maybe 20 years, and I think that's doable," said state Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg and chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
Federal money would be another key element in making a bullet train a reality. It remains to be seen, Sebesta said, whether Congress approves any money for high-speed rail in the new federal transportation bill, and if funds are there, whether any are assigned to Florida.
In addition to financing, the two proposals use different equipment. GRC has proposed a dual track design with an electric train that is capable of traveling more than 200 miles an hour. The Fluor-Bombardier proposal was for a single track and a diesel train with top speeds of 125 mph.
In a related action, the board snatched the train from Disney World interests outside Orlando and rerouted it past Orange County's convention center and the entertainment interests on International Drive, including Universal Studios and SeaWorld.
Ironically, the I-Drive entertainment interests financed a large chunk of the bullet train repeal effort after initially losing the route battle to Disney.
The route at the Orlando end had been a major fight. Disney pledged to shift 2.2-million of its visitors from bus service to the train for travel between the amusement empire and Orlando International Airport, ridership that went a long way toward making the train operationally viable. But critics said it made the rail line into a tourist train, offering little to Florida residents who would pay for it.
"I think the position we're going to take is not to comment right now," said Bill Warren, spokesman for Disney. "It's a lot to digest, and it took us completely by surprise."
In any event, the route was doomed. It required agreement from the Orlando/Orange County Expressway Authority, which owns right of way along the Central Florida GreeneWay, over which the train would have traveled. But it became clear the Expressway Authority would not agree.
The rail board also voted to spend about $250,000 from its existing budget to complete environmental studies of the train's proposed route between Tampa and Orlando down the median of Interstate 4. Once the studies are completed, the authority can apply for a federal permit to build the train, a move that would keep the project alive for at least the next three years.
"Basically, they had to ask themselves if they walk away from about $8-million in work they've already done, or spend another $250,000 to give the project a shelf life of about three more years," said Gary Brosch, chairman of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of South Florida. "They opted to give the train a future chance."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.