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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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.

Yes, there was something richly ironic about taping our very “new media” political podcast in what used to be Creative Loafing’s morgue, or where we kept all our newspaper print back issues. I should say, keep, because they are all still in there, some bound in red leather collections.

Ahh, the good old days.

But I love this podcast biz. For my first, I invited WMNF’s Mitch Perry and Democratic consultant Ana Cruz to throw around three of the biggest issues of the week: the economic recovery and whether the Florida Legislature will try to reject some stimulus dollars; Barack Obama’s timetable for withdrawal in Iraq, which has not pleased some on the far left; and Mayor Pam Iorio’s rail-transit dreams running into a bit of a buzzsaw at the Hillsborough County Commission. Plus, we listen to the sound clip of the week. I’ll give you a hint: it is from a well-known prescription drug abuser.

Listen and enjoy, and we’ll have a new one for you every week.
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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.

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.

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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.

Today is investiture day for county commissioners on both sides of Tampa Bay. The contrast between what these new additions to the county boards means is stark.

In Tampa, where the Hillsborough County government has veered irresponsibly to the right over the past decade, the election of one man is going to make a huge difference. Kevin Beckner beat Brian Blair, who had formed a bloc with commissioners Ken Hagan and Jim Norman, often picking up votes from Democrat Kevin White and GOP colleague Al Higginbotham to approve pro-business, pro-development and anti-tolerance measures. Already, however, that power seems to have shifted, if only on certain issues. Beckner would vote with commissioners White, Rose Ferlita and Mark Sharpe to put a sales tax increase for rail transit on the ballot in 2010, a progressive move sought by Mayor Pam Iorio that the conservative bloc on the board fought against for years.

The new additions to the centrist Pinellas County Commission move that board further to the right, with one bringing a strong fiscal conservative bent (Neil Brickfield) and the other bringing social conservative credentials (Nancy Bostock). Don’t expect to see the Pinellas board ever become as intolerant or destructive as the 1996-2008 Hillsborough boards were, but an inexorable shift toward less government is definitely in the cards.

Investiture details after the jump.

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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:

• 73 percent of Polk voters and 68 percent of Hillsborough believe that “finding more fuel-efficient ways to transport people and goods should be a priority for state government in Florida.”
• 69 percent of Polk registered voters think there should be a “greater use of freight rail” if it “reduces greenhouse gas emissions.” 81 percent of Hillsborough voters agree with using more freight rail to cut trucking emissions.
• Two-thirds of the registered voters in both counties said they would support government investments in rail infrastructure “if railroads are the most fuel-efficient form of ground transportation.”
• Voters in both counties would supporter greater state investments in rail infrastructure if railroads would reduce highway congestion. The support was higher in Hillsborough (77 percent) than in Polk (67 percent), while the idea’s negatives were twice as high in Polk (17 percent said no to the question).
• 62 percent of the voters in both counties said they would supporter a commuter rail line in Orlando if it “would help Tampa secure its own commuter service in the future.”

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.)