The fight over SunRail is switching into high gear as business interests and community activists square off on the controversial project.
The proposed 61-mile commuter line has the strong backing of Central Florida's legislative delegation, and, last week, the Associated Industries of Florida, reiterated its support.
Echoing economic-development claims made by advocates of the scotched high-speed rail venture, proponents say SunRail will generate employment.
Jose Gonzalez, AIF vice president for governmental affairs, estimated the four-county region served by SunRail would garner 11,500 related jobs.
Critics say the job-creation numbers are overblown, and that the cost to taxpayers will soar far beyond projections.
"The 11,500 figure is over 30 years," cautions Beth Dillaha, a former Winter Park city commissioner who heads VETO SunRail. Others contend that the figure is a wildly exaggerated urban myth.
Gov. Rick Scott, who was similarly skeptical about the bullish job projections for the Orlando-Tampa high-speed rail project, said he will make a decision on SunRail soon.
Opponents of the commuter project say it should be a no-brainer.
State Sen. Paula Dockery, who favored the high-speed train, calls SunRail a "sweetheart deal for CSX."
Noting that the cost to obtain rights to CSX's tracks has already jumped from $432 million to $650 million, the Lakeland Republican said the latest price tag is up to 10 times higher than the going market rate.
Though the high-speed rail venture that Scott rejected came with $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money, the $1.2 billion SunRail project depends almost entirely on state and local funding upfront.
VETO SunRail, whose membership list includes scores of former Central Florida elected officials, complains that citizens were never allowed to vote on the project.
In a resolution passed and forwarded to Scott, VETO SunRail stated, "on the four occasions that voters have had the opportunity to vote on plans that included partial funding for light rail and commuter rail, the voters of Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties have voted against such tax plans."
What's more, the Federal Transit Authority in its 2007 Evaluation of the Central Florida Commuter Rail project stated that the project is not cost-effective, nor will it serve the congested I-4 corridor.
There is a thicket of liability issues. Pointing to a recent crash involving a CSX train and a car at an Orlando railroad crossing, Dillaha said even though the motorist was clearly at fault, "Florida taxpayers would be paying for this accident under the language that will be enacted once the sale of the CSX corridor to the state is complete."
Still, the Florida Rail Enterprise Association -- a team of state, federal and local entities, including Osceola, Volusia and Orange counties and cities ranging from Orlando to Winter Park to Maitland -- has had the ear of legislators, all the way up to House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park.
And with business groups such as AIF firmly and vocally aboard, the CSX-SunRail venture remains on track, for now.
Urging Scott to buck Republican lawmakers, opponents want the governor to stop the project based upon the same two-pronged criteria he used to reject the so-called Obama Rail: that taxpayers will be on the hook for cost overruns, and a lack of return on investment.
The conservative CATO Institute has tried to puncture the "myth" that rail ventures boost local economies.
A research paper titled, "Rails Won't Save America," by senior fellow Randal O'Toole, found that "rail transport has not been a catalyst to economic development, but it has been a catalyst to subsidies to economic development."
O'Toole cited research from the University of California at Berkeley and the engineering firm of Parsons-Brinckerhoff that called light-rail systems "a zero-sum game for urban areas."
Studying Portland, Ore. -- which rezoned land along its light-rail line in 1986 for high-density, mixed-use, transit-oriented developments -- researchers found that, 10 years later, no new developments of this sort had been built along the line.
To kickstart activity, the city started to provide property tax waivers. Then the city offered below-market land sales and tax-increment financing to developers. TIF subsidies alone totaled more than $1.7 billion.
"Since tax-increment financing diverts money that would otherwise go to schools, police, fire and other services, those services have seen major budget cuts as Portland gives more subsidies to developers," O'Toole reported.
Functionally, SunRail would barely make a dent in Central Florida's traffic problems, says Matthew Falconer, an Orlando-based commercial real-estate owner who ran for Orange County mayor last year.
"It's a freight train pulling commuter cars at average speed of 17 mph," he says. "With 146 rail crossings and 50 trains that equals 6,000 gate closings a day. That's a traffic buster."
Serving a projected daily ridership of 3,200 passengers -- 0.002 percent of Central Florida's population -- SunRail would run at less than half the level of South Florida's Tri-Rail system, which requires heavy, ongoing government subsidies to break even.
In an e-mail statement last week, Scott spokesman Lane Wright said:
"Governor Scott is carefully evaluating the financial impact this project would have on Floridas taxpayers and he is meeting with stakeholders. He has asked the Florida DOT to lock in prices associated with constructing the SunRail system so he would have time to review the costs and the public concerns."
--
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
