The Political Whore

I was on Rob Lorei’s Florida This Week last Friday and was asked to lead off discussion of Florida’s chances of getting high-speed rail. I was taken by surprise, because I had studied Barack Obama’s stimulus plan extensively, especially its engineering aspects, for a freelance piece I did for the UF Engineering College alumni magazine and didn’t remember any money being set aside for high-speed rail in Florida.

It turns out that even Obama himself mentioned Florida as a possible recipient in a recent speech. But I’m guessing that it’s more of a hope than a reality, and a South Florida Sun-Sentinel story lays out the problems with Florida being competitive for some of $8 billion set aside in stimulus dollars for a Miami-Orlando-Tampa high-speed train:

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Barack Obama’s commitment to reshape the U.S. transportation system in the stimulus bill has its limits, despite putting aside $8 billion for rail.

Once that money is split up between 11 regions in the U.S., it won’t go very far to create bullet-train high-speed rail that progressives envision.

The Ledger reports:

That money will not be enough to pay for a single bullet train, transportation experts say. And by the time the $8 billion gets divided among the 11 regions across the country that the government has designated as high-speed rail corridors, they say, it is unlikely to do much beyond paying for long-delayed improvements to passenger lines, and making a modest investment in California’s plan for a true bullet train.

In the short term, the money – inserted at the 11th hour by the White House – could put people to work improving tracks, crossings and signal systems.

That could help more trains reach speeds of 90 to 110 miles per hour, which is much faster than they currently go. It is much slower, however, than high-speed trains elsewhere, like the 180 mph of the newest Japanese bullet train. (The Acela trains on the East Coast are capable of 150 mph, but average about half that.)

That includes the I-4 corridor, which is envisioned for a high-speed system shuttling folks between Orlando’s theme parks and Pinellas’ beaches.