Amend Sunrail Deal: This train has too much baggage

[Ocklawaha]

[FayeforCure]

OCK, in the GAO report I see 20 freight rail no-fault deals like sunrail, and 11 better deals.

Page 47: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09282.pdf

the report also points out that the liablity insurance costs can consume quite a bit of a commuter rail agency's budget, which would seem to be an incentive to get a better deal.

http://county.theledger.com/default.asp?item=2359754

There was plenty of time to hammer this out earlier.........Now we are faced with this:


Rail plan still a bad deal


Published Tuesday, April 14, 2009


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The commuter rail proposal for metro Orlando goes before another Florida Senate committee today with the same flaws that have made the deal indefensible from the start. The state would pay CSX too much for the tracks and provide the company too much immunity from liability in the case of accidents â€" even those caused by CSX's own negligence. The Senate needs to change these provisions or kill the deal.

The issue has never been whether commuter rail for the Orlando area makes sense. It is time to start building a transportation alternative in Central Florida before its growing suburbs require more massive spending for new roads and interstate lanes. But the deal for the 61-mile rail line is too costly in up-front costs and long-term exposure.

Under the plan, the state would convert an existing freight line from DeLand south through Sanford and Orlando to Poinciana. The state would pay CSX $150 million for the tracks and make an additional $496 million in upgrades to CSX facilities and to a CSX freight line west of the commuter system. Beyond the up-front payout of $646 million, multiple governments would spend another $615 million to create the commuter rail and its amenities. That money would double-track the line to accommodate both freight and commuter traffic. The federal government would pay half the capital costs, the state would pay one-quarter and the five local funding partners â€" Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Volusia counties and the city of Orlando â€" would pay one-quarter.

It would be irresponsible in the best of economic times for the state to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on rail work for CSX that has nothing to do with commuter service. At the very least, the transaction should include a clear price for the tracks. The roughly $10-million per-mile price tag under the current proposal would make the CSX deal one of the costliest rail purchases in history. Given the modest ridership projections, and the choices lawmakers must make in this recession, it is not clear the price is anywhere close to fair.

The deal also makes taxpayers responsible even if CSX were to cause an accident. In single-train accidents, the state and CSX would be responsible for losses their trains would cause. But the state would pay for any damages to passengers or anyone at the station or along the rail corridor regardless of whether its train, or CSX's, was involved in a single-train crash. In crashes involving multiple trains, the state would still be responsible for travelers and others hurt along the rail line. The state would protect CSX from liability even if it caused an accident out of negligence or misconduct.

The public policy of Florida, in other words, would be to create a disincentive for a for-profit freight carrier to put safety first. The state would purchase $200 million in liability coverage to protect against any damages by CSX, and it would charge, among others, rail vendors for the price of the insurance policy. The vendors selling magazines at the station, for example, would be taxed to cover CSX's liability. Charging the little guy to protect the big rail company is fundamentally unfair.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Central Florida legislators and other rail supporters are lobbying hard for the project, but they are overselling their case. This is not about a stimulus for the economy. Federal funds are not guaranteed. The success of the Orlando project has no real bearing on rail proposals in the Tampa Bay area. They are throwing out these arguments because the CSX deal cannot stand on its merits. Senators need to pare back the costs and the liability protections when the proposal comes up today in the Senate's transportation appropriations committee. Or they should move on and try again next year.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article992271.ece

[thelakelander]

OCK, in the GAO report I see 20 freight rail no-fault deals like sunrail, and 11 better deals.

Page 47: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09282.pdf

This thing is much more complex than this, when you start to factor in line background information heading into negotiations (ex. ownership, amount of freight being shipped on them and who's in the driver's seat, etc.).  In situations similar to Sunrail, the provision being debated is common place and in many cases, commuter rail carries all liabilities.

At this point, I'm still searching for a system based off a similar situation that differs.  To be specific, I'm looking for a case where the public agency wants to take over a private company's main line and reroute that company's freight traffic around a major metro (in this case one with +2 million residents).

For example, when factoring in freight need, traffic, line ownership, etc. TRE's (Dallas/Fort Worth) provision is really an apples and oranges comparison with Sunrail.  I guess no one is interested in looking at the examples with too much detail, but background information like this, further validates my view about picking and choosing our fights wisely from a holistic point of view.

Imo, if the provision agreement is really the main issue (which I don't believe it is), then don't have Sunrail dispatch limited freight traffic during the day.  That would resolve the issue.

From article:

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Central Florida legislators and other rail supporters are lobbying hard for the project, but they are overselling their case. This is not about a stimulus for the economy. Federal funds are not guaranteed.

Correct.  Without the state investing their half, there is no need for federal funding.  That's standard procedure.  By the same token, there is no Sunrail without federal funding.  The state will not be buying the corridor and upgrading CSX's S line without federal funding being officially committed.

The success of the Orlando project has no real bearing on rail proposals in the Tampa Bay area. They are throwing out these arguments because the CSX deal cannot stand on its merits.

CSX owns the rail corridors in Tampa.  The same provision issue will pop back up if any of Tampa's plans involve CSX ROW.  Screwing the Orlando deal will also be a big hit to Florida for funding at the federal level.  Opportunity is once again knocking and time is of essence right now with a rail friendly administration in Washington. 

Senators need to pare back the costs and the liability protections when the proposal comes up today in the Senate's transportation appropriations committee. Or they should move on and try again next year.

I wonder, what would be an acceptable cost, given the situation?  This is "next year." Miss the boat this time and the federal money will be on its way to Charlotte, DC or another progressive community and things in Florida will remain the same. 

[mtraininjax]

If Jax was posed with the question, "Would you self-insure a rail system with 200 million of your own tax dollars, if the feds gave you $X for us, CSX to move our main line and allow commuter rail on it?" Would the citizens jump up and down and demand it? Some people who live at the beach NEVER see a train and could care less.

Many people out here need to realize Jacksonville is bigger than just Mandarin, San Jose, or Downtown, its Atlantic, Neptune, Jax Beach, Sandalwood, Kernan, and places that never see a train. What do they stand to gain with rail over existing rail lines? That is a harder sell than the BJP!

[FayeforCure]

Kind of a funny take on the Central Florida Commuter Rail:

Tracking the CSX Rail Journey


Published: Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 11:34 p.m.
The Coffee Guzzlers Club members were waiting for our waitress, S. Lois Molasses, to clear the table. Meanwhile, Nevermore, the club's pet raven and mascot, had been going through the archives and had found a CGC column from a year ago this month.

It was about the ongoing battle in the Legislature to win approval for a $1.2 billion commuter-rail project that would bring a SunRail system to the greater Orlando area while paying hundreds of millions of dollars for CSX Corp. railroad tracks.

In addition, the state would have to agree to be financially responsible for any accident involving CSX equipment - whether the railroad caused the accident or not.

That April 2008 column cited a quote from Mike Thomas, a columnist for The Orlando Sentinel. He wrote … oh, wait, Nevermore wants to recite it.

Quoth the Raven: According to Thomas, "It's not surprising that the leading foe of our commuter rail is state Sen. Paula Dockery from Lakeland. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, because our Sen. Dan Webster can beat up their Sen. Paula Dockery."

At the end of the session, I summed up the outcome of the railroad deal this way: "When anyone last looked, Webster had ended his 28-year legislative career flat on his back, with little birdies twittering above his head. Isn't that 'our' Sen. Dockery, in the red trunks, looming over 'their' Sen. Webster?"

At least Thomas was fair enough in another column last week to admit the CSX supporters had come up against a formidable opponent who had some perfectly valid objections to the deal.

As it turned out, this is not a boxing match. It is tag-team wrestling - at least for the CSX team. The railroad simply pulled Webster from the ring and brought in U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. "The project is alive and well," he said.

It has, however, began to look a little sickly recently. Oh, it has managed to get by some committee hearings - but those have been stacked with the project's supporters.

The upcoming budget has a $5.5 billion hole in it, programs are being slashed around the state, and the House version is handing education a 20 percent cut in many programs. So the CSX deal creates a pretty big blip on anybody's radar screen.

Moreover, Dockery has done some fact-checking on claims made by CSX supporters. And the answers she obtained from the Federal Transit Administration have been at variance with those statements.

And in just the last 10 days, something really strange happened. The Lakeland Chamber of Commerce came out in support of the CSX/SunRail commuter project.

Say what? It's backing a plan that will greatly increase the number - and substantially increase the length - of freight trains coming through town?

Yep. "In an e-mail sent Wednesday [April 8]," The Ledger reported, "Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce's Katie Daughtrey asked members to pressure lawmakers for passage of the bill."

Daughtrey said she was "asking/begging everyone to contact the members of the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee and voice your support of SB 1212."

That bill was heard by committee on Wednesday where it stalled. "Members, I don't have to tell you that from a local standpoint this is important," the sponsor, Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs told the committee. "But from a statewide perspective it's incalculable how important this is … "

Now that's funny: The entire deal was negotiated in secret. Executive directors of planning agencies in Polk County and other areas of the state had no idea that the commuter-rail system was being proposed until it was announced. Now it is supposedly part of some sort of statewide grand plan?

Chamber President Kathleen Munson said that the promise of money in the budget to study and plan alternate freight routes around Lakeland and the promise of commuter rail through Lakeland made it advantageous to support the bill.

Surely the chamber folks must have nodded off when CSX officials said they weren't interested in looking at a new railroad path from their standpoint. And they added that even if such a thing would be paid for by state and federal dollars, getting it permitted and rights-of-way acquired could take much more than a decade.

Did chamber officials miss out on the fact that CSX is demanding the taxpayers of Florida take financial responsibility for ANY accident caused on the tracks, even if CSX employees were negligent? Do they know state officials in Massachusetts have refused to approve such an agreement with CSX because they don't want their taxpayers on the hook for such an expense?

Billy Townsend, a former Ledger editor who now writes opinion pieces for the Lakeland Local (www.lakelandlocal.com) Web site, had this take on the chamber speaking up at the last minute and literally begging for the bill's passage:

"Well, you know what that means: Break out the champagne, my fellow deal opponents. If you've lived here for a while, you know that every Lakeland political imbroglio has its chamber stage, the point at which the chamber rushes in on the losing side."

They sure can pick 'em.

[ Lonnie Brown, The Ledger's associate editor, is interlocutor of the Coffee Guzzlers Club. The club motto this week is: "Sen. Dockery may just be The Little Engine that Could." ]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090419/COLUMNISTS/904195007?Title=Tracking-the-CSX-Rail-Journey