(The following editorial appeared on the Tallahassee Democrat website on April 21.)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s population is past 18 million and growing. The price of oil is at a stunning all-time high. Cars spew out pollutants as they idle on the state’s most crowded roads.
It all points to the need for commuter rail service. But at what cost?
That’s the question legislators are wrestling with this session, as they consider a deal with the national transport company CSX that would free up 61 miles of existing freight-train track leading into Orlando for a commuter rail line serving four counties.
There is much to recommend this public-private partnership.
# It would alleviate congestion on the busy Interstate 4 corridor.
# The commuter service can be delivered quickly by using existing rail lines, with the first phase completed by 2010.
# It would move a busy freight rail hub from downtown areas in Orlando and Tampa to a more rural area in Winter Haven, making it easier to truck products from the trains to all of us throughout the state.
# At a time when the state’s economy is hurting, this infrastructure shift would pump a lot of money into construction in a very short time.
# The local governments along the commuter route have bought into the plan.
Of course, if that’s all there was to it, Floridians would be riding the rails by now.
Naturally, there are also problems. Many of them are voiced by state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, a vocal opponent who insists the deal hasn’t been properly aired. Objections include:
# There’s a price tag of more than $640 million for taxpayers, federal, state and local. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this corporate welfare,” Ms. Dockery said. “If Publix wants to grow, they don’t ask for a warehouse; they build a warehouse.”
# CSX wants government-type immunity from lawsuits from accidents on the commuter line (a similar request by CSX in Massachusetts also has hit opposition).
# Residents in places such as Lakeland worry about the impact of increased freight traffic passing by their homes, blocking intersections and such.
These pros and cons are all part of the down-and-dirty process of providing transportation of any kind.
Tallahassee residents need only look back to the Blair Stone Extension to see how the desire for transportation improvements can run up against land-use issues, neighborhood preservation, environmental concerns and cost. It took over 10 years to resolve those.
And then there’s the state’s ill-fated high-speed rail effort.
In 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment that mandated high-speed rail system to link the five largest urban areas in Florida. Ms. Dockery’s husband was a chief proponent of the high-speed rail, which was to get under way by November 2003. But not a single railroad spike was driven. An estimated price tag of $20 billion made lawmakers and especially Gov. Jeb Bush blanch, and in 2004 voters OK’d an amendment to repeal the mandate.
Perhaps the CSX deal isn’t the perfect way for Florida to begin its journey toward more commuter rail service. But that doesn’t mean it’s a journey we shouldn’t take; the market will demand it. And it doesn’t mean that a public-private partnership isn’t the way to go.
Legislators will need all the statesmanship they can muster to improve rail service in Florida, but it’s an effort worth making.