(The following article by Katie Campbell was posted on the Vero Beach Press Journal’s website on June 26.)
VERO BEACH, Fla. — Amtrak’s derailed proposal to expand passenger rail service to Florida’s East Coast still is stopped dead on its tracks, transportation officials said Monday.
“It’s on hold, but it’s not off the table,” Amtrak spokeswoman Karina VanVeen said.
The expansion project, first proposed in 2000, would reroute the New York-Miami Silver Star train connecting it to the Florida East Coast Railway, establishing a twice-daily circuit with stops in most cities from Jacksonville to Miami, including Vero Beach, Fort Pierce and Stuart, VanVeen said.
Mayors from Treasure Coast cities, Department of Transportation officials and Gov. Jeb Bush supported the proposed project, but when Amtrak hit a financial crisis last summer the plans chugged to a virtual standstill, Florida Department of Transportation Passenger Rail Department Manager Nazih Haddad said.
To keep Amtrak from having to cut its existing routes, a $100-million federal emergency loan was issued June 2002.
The conditions of that loan prevent the rail company from funding any type of expansion project until the loan can be paid back.
“We didn’t get enough funding from Congress this year to pay back the loan. Now any expansion depends on what we get in fiscal ’04. We won’t know that until the end of the summer,” VanVeen said.
For fiscal 2003, Amtrak officials requested $1.2 million in federal funding from Congress, but received $1.05 million. For fiscal 2004, they’re asking for $1.8 million.
Even if Congress granted their request, VanVeen said the FEC expansion project would be far from back on the rails.
“We would look into all the expansion projects that we had to put on hold,” VanVeen said.
The projected $82.5 million needed to upgrade the rails and build new stations and platforms in cities along the route would be funded largely by $60 million from the state, Haddad said. Amtrak would foot the rest of the bill and furnish the trains. Cities could be expected to contribute about 20 percent to the cost of building local train stations.
“Amtrak is never going to be self sufficient. They’re always going to require federal dollars,” Stuart City Commissioner Charles Foster said. “It would be nice (to have service extended to the East Coast), but I just don’t believe the ridership would support it. People are married to their automobiles and nothing really replaces that.”
Vero Beach Mayor Sandra Bowden disagreed. “It would be very beneficial to the residents of Florida as well as being a money-maker for Amtrak. It would be a fun, scenic thing to do. It would be a win win for everyone.”
If built, the FEC project would be geared toward tourist travelers because of its low-speed nature, VanVeen explained.
Since trains on the proposed FEC route would use upgraded existing freight lines instead of building new high-speed tracks, the FEC trains could travel no faster than 70 mph whereas most high-speed commuter lines run between 110 and 115 mph.
“We would try to lure the leisure traveler, but business travelers could definitely use the service,” VanVeen said.
The local support for this expansion project in the last few years, Haddad said, shows the importance of having this alternate form of transportation through Florida’s East Coast.
“It’s an important project. We haven’t had passenger rail connecting these communities since the ’60s,” Haddad said. “This is something we need to pursue.”