(The following story by Isaac Babcock appeared on the Observer website on January 1.)
WINTER PARK, Fla. — Central Florida Commuter Rail may be on the back burner for some politicians during the holidays, but for Florida Congressman John Mica, all railroads lead through him these days.
The chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met with Gov. Charlie Crist and other state officials Dec. 18 to outline a new plan to bring commuter rail — which was recently named SunRail — to Central Florida.
Now he says Crist and the Florida Department of Transportation are ready to move on securing funding and solidifying a rail deal.
“He’s committed to help, and they’ve pledged to help,” Mica said of Crist and the FDOT.
That could be seen as a change from the most recent push for a 61-mile rail system spanning counties north and south of Orlando. Crist had stalled in his support of the rail over concerns that too much liability for accidents on the rails used by the commuter trains would fall on the state, rather than CSX, which also uses the tracks.
“It got into trouble at the end of the last legislative session,” Mica said. “We’re trying to make sure we don’t find ourselves in that position again. They’re all on board.”
That change may have come from a clarification of the language used to address accident liability, which may have painted the deal in a worse light, he said.
“The last time, there was confusion about the terms of it and who has liability and who doesn’t,” he said. “We surveyed all of the commuter rail deals in the country and most were more favorable to CSX than our deal.”
Now Mica said he’s pushing to get as much funding sent toward the rail system as possible. Time will be of the essence, he said. He wants the rail system to be first to draw from more than a billion dollars to be earmarked for Florida transportation projects.
With the rail system only needing to clear one more hurdle, it should stay at the front of the list for that money, Mica said.
“Hopefully it’ll come at the beginning of this session,” he said. “I’ve been pretty aggressive to make sure this gets done. We don’t want to leave anything to chance.”