Railroad passengers defend Florida high-speed rail against Reason Foundation’s inaccuracies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#11-01)
January 7, 2011

Contact: Sean Jean-Gail – 202-408-8362 [cell: 202-320-2723]

Governor Rick Scott is currently considering whether to continue the forward looking Orlando to Tampa high-speed rail line.  Unfortunately, the new governor’s deliberations are being hindered by long-time rail opponents, spewing familiar half-truths and outright falsities in hopes of killing the project.

The Reason Foundation this week attacked the Orlando-Tampa corridor in an attempt to drum up fears about Florida taxpayers being saddled with unspecified annual operating costs.  However, Reason’s ambiguously formulated fears are baseless.

“The seven international private-sector groups bidding to win the right to operate high-speed trains on this corridor have indicated they are willing take the ridership and revenue risk,” said NARP President Ross Capon. “There would be no state subsidies required for operations, the state of Florida will still own the system, and the travelers will have access to a world-class travel choice—this is the definition of a win-win for the public.  This is the first segment of the State of Florida’s plan to extend the line to Miami, where it can operate at its maximum 220 mph speed potential.”

“This project—as the nation’s first, true high-speed rail line—will attract visitors to Florida” Capon added.  “Its ability to be first is one reason Florida won the federal grants.

The report also attempts to raise the specter of massive cost overruns.  However, the federal commitment to the project is now almost $2.4 billion, and federal and state officials have both endorsed the $2.6 billion final-cost estimate.  Florida already owns most of the land that the line would use, and the environmental studies required for construction have been completed—so a 2015 service start-up date is realistic.

Reason’s report also ignores that this is an opportune time to initiate construction.  Less than a year ago the U.S. DOT revealed that “due to heightened competition among contractors for recovery construction work, Transportation agencies across the nation are receiving project bids substantially lower than engineers’ initial estimates.”  Contractors in Florida are eager to begin work, and would bid at levels favorable to Florida’s taxpayers—creating much-needed jobs in a construction sector that has seen heavy losses due to the recession.

Reason authors Wendell Cox and Robert Poole long have been “hired-guns” to kill passenger rail projects.  They refer to unrelated, past projects to conclude that rail construction “often” sees budget overages of 45%, and ridership projections are “often” optimistic.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution once summed up Cox’s plan to build a grid of double-decked, 10-lane freeways in Atlanta as a “regressive hallucination” by an “untrained transportation expert who makes his living writing propaganda for pro-road causes” (July 6, 2000).

Floridians can only hope that the Scott Administration and the Florida Legislature are able to see through Cox and Poole’s shoddy reasoning, as well.

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