The Miles Files: Not the Right Time for High Speed Rail

Mixed feelings on Gov. Scott putting the kibosh on the High Speed Rail plan for Florida. I grew up taking the train into New York from Long Island and hopping aboard a subway. There’s no better way to get around a big city than by mass transit, when it’s functioning. But Florida isn’t New York and the proposed plan just doesn’t fit the timetable right now.

There is nobody who would like to see a modern rail transportation system here in Florida more than myself. How great it would be to be able to take a train from Sarasota or Bradenton and be dropped off thirty minutes later at the Trop in St. Pete to catch a Rays game. How about a 45 minute trip on the FIRR (Florida Independent Railroad, ”I should copyright that“) to downtown Tampa?

The two hour plus trip from Tampa to Orlando could be cut nearly in half with a high-speed rail line. The jaunt from Orlando to Miami could be a much more pleasant venture sitting in an air-conditioned train car while reading the newspaper (probably on your laptop or phone). It all sounds great and it would be, but I don’t believe the cost justifies the project, at least not now.

The promise of thousands of jobs that would be created right here in Florida is no doubt appealing. Somebody has to build the system and that would bring a positive jolt to the state’s economy. My concern is that the ridership levels would not be high enough to financially sustain a railway system.

Look at New York which has the largest mass transit rail system in the United States and serves a population of 15 million or more people. It loses money. It has lost money for decades and will probably always lose money. Fares barely cover half of the system’s operating costs. The rest is subsidized by government funding.

While Florida’s population is up there, it is not as concentrated as the New York, tri-state area. There just simply aren’t enough riders to make the system self-sustainable and with budgets being slashed in every county and municipality in the state, do we really want to tack on the burden of having to kick in funds to keep a railroad moving?

Another challenge is selling the idea of commuting by train over driving. There just aren’t enough people, I believe, who would be traveling to work in a concentrated area to justify the costs of the system. Leisure travelers would not make up the difference needed to keep it financially viable.

Gov. Scott is right in rejecting the $2.4 billion in Federal dollars earmarked for high speed rail. There is no way to guarantee the state would not eventually have to pick up some of the tab down the line.

On Monday, backers of the railway were still scrambling to put a plan together that would divert the federal money to a group of cities or regional planning group to keep it in Florida. Again, why should local municipalities be getting involved in this when they already have budget juggling acts to deal with?

Gov. Scott, to his credit, is open to creative ideas to keep the plan alive as long as the state isn’t left holding excess baggage. I don’t see that happening. Now is the time to clean up thefinancial mess. Once the fiscal house is in order, we can revisit high speed rail. It has been in the planning stages since the mid 1970’s. A few more years isn’t going to hurt.