The controversial Orlando light rail plan, known as SunRail or the CSX deal to opponents, just won’t die. Today’s Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the city’s mayor, Buddy Dyer, is vowing that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to trying to figure out how to resurrect the twice-killed plan.
The leading idea?
For better or for worse (and there are some who say it bodes poorly for efforts to get rail transit here in Tampa Bay), but Orlando’s five-year effort for a light-rail system using CSX freight tracks appears finally dead.
A floor vote in the Senate yesterday that could have helped switch more votes to its side failed. From the pro-SunRail Orlando Sentinel:
SunRail proponents could try to bring up the measure again today – the last day of the regular session – but its chances of success are low because it would take 27 votes to do so.
“It’ll take some maneuvering to get it done. I think the forces of evil have won,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
He was among the dozens of supporters who tried in vain to corral the 21 votes necessary for SunRail to prevail. But he lost two members of the Central Florida delegation: Sens. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, and Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach.
And despite the support of Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and numerous Central Florida business leaders, 15 Republicans voted against the measure.
The Central Florida light rail plan known either as SunRail or the CSX deal remained alive in the Florida Senate, barely slipping by an important committee vote yesterday.
The Orlando Sentinel reports:
The $1.2 billion project may need to go before another committee, or it could end up on the Senate floor for a vote that would determine its fate. With nine days left before the session’s scheduled adjournment May 1, supporters want to go to the floor soon, though it is not certain they have the 21 votes necessary to win in the 40-member chamber.
The would-be train eked out a 4-3 vote in the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee, but the swing vote – cast by Sen. Chris Smith, D- Fort Lauderdale – was less than enthusiastic.
Smith’s vote came only after sponsors allowed him to attach a local-option rental-car surcharge, a $2-a-day levy that would require approval by a county commission supermajority and a county’s voters in a referendum. South Florida legislators are hoping the tax could raise as much as $40 million to support their Tri-Rail commuter system.
SunRail has been opposed by some because it would pay hundreds of millions to CSX for 63 miles of track. Some Lakeland residents oppose it because CSX would then re-route its freight traffic hub through downtown Lakeland.
The controversial SunRail proposal, called the CSX deal by detractors for its purchase of 60+ miles of freight track and rerouting that freight traffic through downtown Lakeland, is set for a climactic vote in the Florida Senate today.
The bill had been stalled in the Senate for weeks, but proponents hope they have secured enough votes to pass the Transportation and Economic Development Committee. The horse trade? A $2 surtax on car rentals to help fund South Florida’s own transit system, Tri-Rail.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
“I think we’re getting close,” said [Fort Lauderdale Sen. Chris] Smith, considered the swing vote on the committee, though it’s not certain how anti-tax Republicans will view the rental-car surcharge.
And even with committee approval, SunRail still must garner 21 votes in the full Senate. That could be difficult, according to Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, the train’s leading opponent.
“The true vote on the project will be on the floor, and it will not be close,” said Dockery, who has boasted that she has lined up as many as 26 votes against SunRail.
Here’s a counterpoint to Kelly Cornelius’ most recent post on SunRail, an op-ed from the president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Mark Wilson:
Commuter rail helps create jobs
America is in a recession, and Floridians have not been spared. Florida’s unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, higher than the national rate of 7.2 percent. It seems as if every day, newspapers throughout the state report layoffs by Florida companies. Last year, Florida lost 255,000 jobs.
Times are tough, and the full attention of our elected leaders should be given to economic recovery, transition and job growth. While Florida is faced with the same economic challenges as the rest of the nation, we are fortunate to have a governor who understands the need to invest in long-term transportation solutions even in these tough times.
By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist
This new CSX deal is so ugly it would make a freight train take a dirt road. It would cost taxpayers $1.2 billion, but according to this recent Orlando Sentinel article, that number could go up. According to a recent news release from Senator Paula Dockery, an opponent of the deal, the number is actually at $2.66 BILLION! She had the Florida Department of Transportation do a detailed cost estimate and this is what it produced.
Wasn’t this rotten deal only a paltry $649 million last year? I guess train track prices don’t go down in a recession, and neither did the number of disturbing details about this deal. Still present are the liability issues sticking taxpayers with the bill for negligence, the location issue (that send freight trains through downtown Lakeland) and, of course, there is that little matter of the cost. Not to mention the backroom way in which this scheme was originally cooked up. Taxpayers are getting totally railroaded. Some research finds that CSX is not a stranger to screwing Florida taxpayers; check out this article.
Lakeland’s biggest headache, the SunRail aka CSX rail deal is moving ahead in the Florida Legislature, passing a committee vote 14-3 in the House of Representatives.
From the looks of this story in the Orlando Sentinel, however, it looks like Official Lakeland is now OK with the re-rerouting of CSX’s freight lines through its downtown (part of the SunRail deal), or at least thinks the city has a shot at changing that routing.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
At a hearing loaded with lobbyists for Central Florida governments and companies supporting the deal, the project also won a tentative endorsement from Lakeland officials concerned that the plan would reroute freight trains through their city.
The officials said they were pleased with language in the bill directing the Department of Transportation to “work closely” with Lakeland and Plant City to “address the anticipated impact” of the trains.
“We are at a very different place than we were last year,” Lakeland lobbyist David Shepp told the House Economic Development and Community Affairs Council.
Florida Sen. J.D. Alexander, cousin of Katherine Harris and central Florida power broker behind the Heartland Expressway and the planned USF campus in Lakeland and the sweetheart CSX rail deal, might just seek another term in office despite appearing headed for political retirement. This from the Ledger’s political blog:
Florida Sen. J.D. Alexander, still has one four-year term to go before he would be prevented by term limits from running again, but he was tired of all the hours and the need to attend his business.
In fact other potential candidates had been waiting in line to see if he would decide not to run this year.
But Alexander is running again and he quipped at a recent Lakeland Chamber breakfast that it was the Tampa Tribune’s editorial stance that convinced him.
“Actually I wouldn’t be true to my promises to the constituents of my district if I didn’t continue on, but clearly there are some unfounded criticisms of USF Polytechnic that I feel must be addressed,” Alexander said.
Bonus cut: here’s the Trib editorial that so angered J.D. that he decided to stay in public service.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
Senate leaders announced late Wednesday they were stripping a transportation bill of the legal protections CSX Corp. says it needs to pave the way for Central Florida’s commuter rail deal.
Claiming the huge bill loaded with projects for other regions like South Florida was being weighted down by the controversial rail deal, Senate Transportation Chairman Carey ["Truck Nutz"] Baker, R-Eustis, said he would gut the CSX legal protections and framwork for the deal to buy the 61-mile line.
Pro-deal forces like the Central Florida Partnership had lobbied hard for the deal, including commissioning a poll that showed positive public sentiment for the generic concepts of more rail and more freight as green endeavors. In sheer anger at not getting his way, Polk Sen. J.D. “Related to Katherine Harris so you know he carries at least the recessive gene for nuttiness” Alexander, who has financial interests in opening up the heartland of Florida to more development, lashed out at his colleagues:
In retaliation, Sen. J.D. Alexander of Winter Haven had filed an amendment to strike the $45 million state subsidy Tallahassee sends to the Tri-Rail system in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — complaining that lawmakers who were fighting central Florida’s rail project were benefiting from the same legal protections in their region.
“At the end of the day I hope we build commuter rail first in Orlando,” he said. “Whatever our policy is, it should be the policy for the entire state. We shouldn’t have a South Florida policy and a Central Florida policy.”
(Photo by poohka)
A new poll obviously testing the waters for the pending Central Florida rail deal is being circulated behind the scenes but has not been made public yet. We snagged a copy, but more about the pro-rail results later. First, some background.
The proposed deal to lease back some of the CSX rail lines in Orlando started (very, very quietly if not exactly secretly) under Gov. Jeb Bush, and even today, it has received little attention in any local press except for the Tampa Tribune (whose coverage has been so strident it managed to really piss off the former gov recently). That means few have read the stuff or understand the importance of the issue to Tampa Bay and its own rail dreams.
In a nutshell, in the interest of getting a rail corridor for a commuter line from Orlando to here, the state has negotiated a controversial deal to pay freight hauler CSX $491 million to use its tracks in Orlando for commuter rail and to agree not to sue CSX for anything that happens on those tracks, even if it is the rail company’s fault. (Irking some folks is the fact that we, the taxpayers, gave CSX those rail rights of way for pennies back in the day.)
As part of the deal, CSX would shift some of its freight operations to other tracks and build a new hub in Polk County, and that has raised some eyebrows in Lakeland and Polk County as residents realized they could see a lot more freight train traffic coming their way as as result.
Two bills, HB 1399 and SB 1978, are set for votes this week as it comes down to the wire to see if the deal survives. Today, PoHo obtained a copy of a poll done on the issue of commuter rail and freight traffic that shows widespread public support for the concepts of more freight and commuter rail traffic but that pointedly doesn’t mention “the CSX deal.”
Lutz civic activist Dee Layne called the deal a “giveaway” in her latest legislative roundup, posted to this blog earlier today.
The poll — only some of which was given to this blog by two political operatives who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to release the results — was done by the Market Enhancement Group’s Barry Quarles. The polling presentation doesn’t reveal who paid for it.
UPDATE: On Tuesday, the patrons of the poll came forward — the Central Florida Partnership. From their news release: “”It’s very clear that residents of these two counties support more fuel efficient transportation and that they are concerned with the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from excessive traffic,” said Jacob V. Stuart, President of the Central Florida Partnership. “While we know there’s support in the seven-county Central Florida Region, policy makers should find it interesting that nearly three-quarters of the residents of these two counties – on one end of the I-4 corridor – think finding more fuel-efficient transportation should be a priority for state government.”
Here are the most interesting findings in the survey of 600 voters in Hillsborough and Polk counties:
What the market research shows, if it can be trusted, is that the concept of using state dollars to upgrade and use existing rails for commuter projects and more freight rail seems to be playing out a lot better with voters — if you don’t actually use specifics or the name of the deal or the name of the railroad, CSX, which has been pretty beat up in the Trib coverage.
Lost in some of the details (odious or not) of the CSX deal are the ramifications to Tampa Bay commuter rail. There’s no doubt that TBARTA, our regional rail authority, will be able to design and sell to the voters a commuter rail system with greater ease if hooking into an existing Orlando system is part of the equation. In fact, building a regional commuter rail here without an Orlando component seems downright stupid. TBARTA’s website, in fact, shows such a corridor to Lakeland and beyond to Orlando.
(Polling Methodology: A telephone survey of (self-proclaimed) registered voters in Hillsborough (300 respondents) and Polk (300). The margin of error is +/-5.8 percent in each individual county or +/-4.1 percent for the entire combined sample. That means that 95 percent of the time, you would get the same results within those margins if you conducted the same poll over and over again.)
