Rail Project Took Long Time to Get on Track Mass transit plan was initially rejected by Orange County Voters
Mass transit hasn't been an easy sell in the Orlando urban area.

It has been high on the wish list for Orlando area politicians and business leaders for two decades, but it was always controversial among the public, resulting in several false starts.

A referendum for light rail - an entirely new system - was defeated by Orange County voters in 2003, but U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, and others continued to press for commuter rail as a cheaper alternative. Unlike light rail, commuter rail could run on existing tracks.

In recent months, The Ledger has examined hundreds of public documents, recordings, memos and other material in an effort to determine how the half-billion-dollar-plus project managed to get state approval without undergoing even a single public hearing.

According to a chronology compiled by the Florida Department of Transportation late last year, formal studies of commuter rail were done in the 1990s, but the idea was kick-started in 2004 when CSX told the DOT about its plan to refocus its rail operations in Florida. That same year, the DOT published its own Florida rail plan that took CSX's efforts into consideration. The negotiations between the DOT and CSX began in December 2004, according to the DOT account.

Seven months before that, however, internal DOT notes referred to "$500 million purchase for 'A' Line (CSX indicated several years ago)" - suggesting that state officials were long aware what the ultimate cost of a deal with CSX might be. That cost was far in excess of the $150 million listed as the purchase price in Gov. Jeb Bush's August 2006 announcement of the $491 million deal that included commuter rail and a new Integrated Logistics Center, or ILC, on property owned and annexed by the city of Winter Haven near State Road 60.

The notes, written by DOT rail chief Fred Wise, also referred to "Liability and capacity for the CSX issues" as being "worked on" at the federal level - a harbinger of the liability protection bill under consideration in the current session of the Florida Legislature that could make or break the deal.

The liability issue, which would hold CSX harmless for mishaps even if the company were at fault, has been attached to an omnibus transportation bill that seems likely to pass the Legislature before it adjourns early in May. It also would extend the protection to other railroads operating in Florida.

There was a negative implication for the Lakeland area in the commuter rail deal other than the increased rail and truck traffic through Lakeland and Bartow.

The commitment of so much of the growth management money to the rail project meant that local road projects already in the DOT's tentative work program had to be postponed in six of the seven transportation districts throughout Florida. The most - 17, totaling $158 million - were in the Bartow-based District 1. Three of those were in Polk County, including the In-Town Bypass in Lakeland.

One transportation district was spared any of those cuts: District 5, which includes the commuter rail site. The Orlando area was twice blessed at the expense of the rest of the state.

TAFT RAIL YARD IMPACT

Even with its district road money intact (at least, prior to the current state revenue shortfall and resulting budget cuts), the Orlando area has cause to fear a negative as well as a positive effect from the removal of the Taft rail yard from Orange County.

One of the selling points for the overall project was to have commuter rail operating by the time Interstate 4 through Orange was being widened beginning in the 2008-10 biennium.

However, a report from the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council published last September projected a different result: "The announced relocation of the massive Taft rail yard in Orange County means less global connectivity and a huge increase in heavy truck traffic on already congested I-4."

Although Winter Haven officials and business leaders have touted the new ILC as a magnet for economic development, state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, the most prominent legislative opponent of the deal, had another take on the relocation late last year: "The (Orlando) area has been trying to get rid of the Taft yard for years because the truck traffic has blocked all of the roads in that area, so they're not that interested in keeping that great economic development engine there in Orlando, and they are very happy to have it relocated."

Thus far, Dockery has been outgunned in the Senate by Senate Majority Leader Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden, who has made the commuter rail project a top priority, and Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, whose district includes most of the eastern part of Polk and only a portion of the Lakeland area. A Dockery motion to redirect some of the CSX funding to other purposes was defeated by a 16-22 Senate vote last week.

The potential benefits of the commuter rail project have long been a subject of intense debate. The Federal Transit Administration, while giving the project an overall "medium-high" rating, has ranked it "low" for "making the case" and "medium-low" for "cost-effectiveness." The "low" rating wasn't figured into the overall assessment.

According to an FTA summary on the "making the case" issue, "I-4 is described as congested and getting worse, but the 'case' for the project provides no justification that it will effectively serve I-4 travel markets, or why a significant investment in rail operating at 15-minute peak frequencies is necessary in a corridor in which existing bus transit service is described as 'limited.'"

As for the "cost-effectiveness," the FTA noted, "Due to the unique nature of the project, its travel forecast carries significant uncertainty."

The FTA is supposed to chip in more than $300 million as its share of the project, but the money isn't in this year's budget, largely because of the lower-than-medium estimates. (Rep. Mica is trying to override the FTA's decision through a congressional resolution.)

DRI STUDY STILL PENDING

Meanwhile, the plans to bulk up the use of CSX's "S" line for freight trains seemingly will have an additional adverse effect: making the existing lines less likely to be available to carry future passenger traffic in the Tampa Bay area. Central Florida's bonanza could be an albatross for its neighbors to the west, including much of western Polk County.

Following an FTA mandate, the Florida DOT is conducting an impact study to determine how the additional freight trains on the "S" line will affect Lakeland and other cities along the route. But Sue Nelson of Lakeland, a private citizen who has emerged as a major critic of the project, recently complained to the FTA that the study doesn't take into account the increased freight train traffic on the "A" line that goes east and west through downtown Lakeland. "You have given the citizens of Florida a false sense of security," she wrote.

Also pending is a development of regional impact, or DRI, study of the Winter Haven ILC being conducted by the Central Florida Regional Planning Council. CSX tried to break the project into two parts to avoid a DRI study of the first phase, but protests from Dockery and local officials prompted the state Department of Community Affairs to require the study, which could be done by late spring or early summer.

So how did such a massive undertaking get this far without the apparent knowledge of the Legislature?

NO EARMARKS

Tom Lee, R-Brandon, who as president of the state Senate presided over the passage of the growth management law that contained the money to be used for the rail deal, says the idea of so much going to commuter rail never occurred to him. But, he says, there is a good reason why the Legislature didn't specify precisely how all that money should have been spent.

"We made a concerted effort not to discuss it," said Lee, who left office in 2006 and returned to his family home-building business in Brandon. "A lot of people wanted to tag that money like Congress does with earmarks. We thought those decisions should be made in the department (DOT) and at the local level. ... I never had a conversation with anybody about CSX being the beneficiary."

Since that time, Lee says, he has heard about "all kinds of layers of intrigue to it." In retrospect, he said, "the unfortunate part is that somewhere along the way there ought to be a public process."

It seems obvious that then-Gov. Jeb Bush was fully conversant with the situation, but he's not talking about how much consideration was given to Polk County and Lakeland in the behind-the-scenes decision-making. Bush refused to answer reporters' questions on the matter last month.

His successor as governor, Charlie Crist, says he supports the commuter rail project, but won't comment specifically on the negative aspects of the freight train diversion.

On that issue, according to a Crist spokesman, the DOT "is working with Polk County and the city of Lakeland to look at short- and long-term options that address traffic concerns in downtown Lakeland."

Categories: Economy, Life, Politics...