SunRail Foes Fire Back at AIF Over Costs, Jobs

Responding to an industry group's call for Gov. Rick Scott to approve the $1.2 billion SunRail commuter train, opponents of the project say the numbers don't add up for taxpayers.

"Associated Industries of Florida has asked Governor Scott and every Florida taxpayer to support transferring $432 million in state funds to a very profitable private corporation, CSX, which is already getting plenty from Washington, while Floridians are being asked to endure cuts in Medicaid reimbursements for hospitals and nursing homes and further cuts for public school districts across the state by $1.35 billion," Veto SunRail said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

Beth Dillaha, a former Winter Park city commissioner who leads Veto SunRail, said CSX "doesn't need help. They made $395 million in profits in the first quarter of 2011 alone and $1.56 billion in profits for all of 2010."

Addressing AIF's projection of 11,500 SunRail-related jobs, Dillaha said that calculation "omits the fact that those 11,500 jobs are not immediate jobs -- they are the number of jobs projected over the next 30 years. Dividing 11,500 by 30 equals 384 jobs per year."

The Veto SunRail statement concluded: "It will not take long for voters to realize that the beneficiary of the SunRail project would not be the Floridians who would pay for it, as AIF claims; it would be CSX Railroad."

Scott has said he will decide soon whether to proceed with the commuter rail project that is envisioned to run on 61 miles of CSX tracks through parts of four Central Florida counties.