Florida High Speed Rail Option and Elimination

[peestandingup]

Its always a bad idea to through the baby out with the bath water and turning down $2.4 billion in funding without even exploring modifications to the plan to make a more efficient end product is a horrible way to do business.

You're right. It needs thrown out, but he's doing it for all the wrong reasons. And the people who are against it are against it for all the wrong reasons.

Everyone's trying to turn this into a political debate. Typical arm-chair politics at work here from the uninformed public. What's new.

Aren't these idiots only supposed to come out of hiding during a presidential election?? Tell them to go back into their holes there in Bumblefuck Nowhere USA & shut up.

[mtraininjax]

Ock - Something in the air, we are actually agreeing, and I am finding myself agreeing with Lake, wow. Stephen, well, its a work in progress. :-)

[tufsu1]

Scott's "half truth" statements ...


http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/feb/16/rick-scott/rick-scott-cites-amtrak-ridership-numbers-announci/

One has to wonder if Scott understands transportation at all.    

If you want to read half truths and outright deceptions, read the Florida High Speed Rail Application. Shades of "The Skyway will carry 60,000 daily passengers."

OCKLAWAHA

Ock...why aren't you willing to let the private sector partners do their own due diligence...I'm sure they will be very conseravtive in their ridership forecasts and if doesn't add up, they won't bid.

So far, they've all shown interest....in the case of the Outer Beltway they all looked over the FDOT reports and then said, this won't work.

In the end, I'm willing to bet that folks like TGV, Virgin, Siemens, and Mitusbishi know a bit more about high speed rail than any of us!

[Mattius92]

What we needed is some Japanese or French guy to come here and tell us what to do. Regardless as long as the oil business and car manufacturing business is heavily supported I don't think we will see anything. Lastly the public needs to stop thinking about that car and think of alternatives, a car is nice, but there is better ways.

[thelakelander]

Ock...why aren't you willing to let the private sector partners do their own due diligence...I'm sure they will be very conseravtive in their ridership forecasts and if doesn't add up, they won't bid.

So far, they've all shown interest....in the case of the Outer Beltway they all looked over the FDOT reports and then said, this won't work.

In the end, I'm willing to bet that folks like TGV, Virgin, Siemens, and Mitusbishi know a bit more about high speed rail than any of us!

I would think that someone like Ock would be in favor of letting the private sector put in their own money and structure the final product in a manner that makes it workable.  I'm mean, for all of you guys claiming that improving an Amtrak operated system may be a better solution, you'll need that cash to remain in Florida instead of being redistributed to California, New York and Illinois.

From Washington to Tallahassee, Florida lawmakers scrambled Thursday to save $2.4 billion in federal money for high-speed rail that Gov. Rick Scott rejected.

In Washington, members of Florida’s Congressional delegation met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who gave them one week to cobble together a complicated deal that would give the money to a private entity such as Amtrak or a regional planning organization.

“The cart’s in a ditch right now and we’ve got to figure out a way if we can all pull it out together,” said U.S. Rep. John Mica, an Orlando area Republican who is chairman of the powerful House transportation committee.

[finehoe]

I'm sure they will be very conseravtive in their ridership forecasts and if doesn't add up, they won't bid.

That depends on if they are bidding to build it or bidding to run it.

If they only want to build it, then it is to their advantage to inflate the ridership numbers, take the money from the state and then move on.  After they've made their money during construction, they couldn't care less if their ridership numbers were accurate or not.

[RiversideLoki]

TRRRAAAIIIIINNNNSSSS

[thelakelander]

I'm sure they will be very conseravtive in their ridership forecasts and if doesn't add up, they won't bid.

That depends on if they are bidding to build it or bidding to run it.

If they only want to build it, then it is to their advantage to inflate the ridership numbers, take the money from the state and then move on.  After they've made their money during construction, they couldn't care less if their ridership numbers were accurate or not.

From my understanding, they will be bidding to build and run it.  This has been the deal for a while now and has been covered pretty well by the media...(well media outside of Jax). 

[mtraininjax]

My last post on this, but this may provide perspective...From the St. Petersburg Times

Sure, Gov. Rick Scott has expressed concern all along that high speed rail would end up being a drain on Florida taxpayers. But could there be something else behind the high-profile announcement he made two days after President Barack Obama released his budget? Multiple sources have offered up this theory: Scott was irritated Obama's budget didn't include money for dredging the Jacksonville and Miami ports or a container transfer facility at Port Everglades. Scott has repeatedly said he talked to U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood about the importance of Florida's ports. And in remarks both yesterday and today, he mentioned the need to improve those facilities to take advantage of trade opportunities when the Panama Canal is expanded, when the free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama are ratified, and as the economies of Central and South America expand.

From his news conference yesterday: "By capturing a larger share of containerized imports entering our seaports, expanding export markets for Florida businesses and emerging as a global hub for trade and investment we can create up to an additional 143,000 jobs according to a recent chamber of commerce study."

[Garden guy]

Rick Scott is a liar and a thief and cannot be trusted...every word from his lips are full of idiocy and i can't believe my fellow dems were so lazy and let him win....i can't wait to get him out....he's going to take this state back about 50 years. Help us all.

[thelakelander]

Lol, Scott's plan is to convince Obama to spend HSR money on Florida ports?  Good luck with that one.  My guess is that HSR money will go to other HSR projects.  I base that on Scott saying the same exact thing as Governors in Wisconsin and Ohio did and we see how that turned out.  The money was taken from them and redistributed to other state's HSR projects.

[JeffreyS]

I would agree ports should be a very high priority now with Panamax coming. However I do not see how Governor Scott could leverage that rejection of the Administration's pet project into a more favorable funding situation for our ports.

[Lunican]

So Rick Scott thinks that the ports will get funded by rejecting high speed rail funding?

[mtraininjax]

More like tit for tat, since his port initiatives were not included in the funding that came from the DOT in January. Miami, at the least, should have received 75 million to help them dredge and get ready for Post-Panamax. The fact they got nothing was probably too much of a slap in the face to the 3rd largest state in the union's governor. And we think that these leaders all act like grownups.....

[thelakelander]

But going political tit for tat gets us no where.  We just end up sucking at everything.