QuoteBy Kimberly Miller - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The U.S. Department of Transportation has provisionally approved $1.75 billion in private activity bonds for All Aboard Florida, an unprecedented amount and a move that reduces a major financial obstacle for the express passenger rail line.
The private Miami to Orlando project had applied for the tax-exempt bonds in August to supplement or replace a Federal Railroad Administration loan it was also seeking, but which faced criticism from opponents who don't want taxpayer dollars used to pay for the train.
A final approval for the bonds is conditional on All Aboard Florida completing an environmental review process which closed for public comment earlier this month. If granted, it would be the largest amount of private activity bonds awarded any single entity.
"This authority enables All Aboard Florida to borrow funds necessary to complete their project from private investors at no risk to taxpayers," a statement released Monday by the Department of Transportation said. "Liability for full repayment of bonds sold rests exclusively with All Aboard Florida and its subsidiaries."
The notes have a low interest rate, but are attractive to investors because they don't pay taxes on their interest earned.
Full article: http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/business/feds-give-all-aboard-ok-to-issue-175-billion-in-ta/njYqr/#0baa8faa.2661246.735590
The PAB's did require approval in Miami Dade and Broward Counties becuase they were already at the limit of PAB approvals.
AAF did not attempt to get PAB approval in any of the Treasure Coast counties. They didnt need to as it means that the majority of the financing was needed in Miami and in Cocoa where a fly over across I-95 will be required.
Interesting finance tool.
AAF did their homework and were prepared for the politics.
BIG CHOO CHOO coming!
I wonder what the Treasure Coast's response will be?
Basically this is the beginning of the end of the process for obtaining funding for the project. Now AAF has two ways to proceed with funding. Or they can partially fund it using some of both (RRIF loan and PAB's). I do think they will indeed get an RRIF loan, considering that private investors are willing to finance it must mean that the financials of the project are healthy. I think it is important to note that the U.S. DOT approved this PAB amount as it has never allowed such a large amount ever before. Does this mean that they are inclined to support AAF? What does this mean for the parallel EIS process and how much the federal government will require AAF to mitigate impacts, especially on the boating interests? I truly believe that the only real obstacle to AAF remaining at this time is the maritime and boating impacts.
@spuwho this time AAF did their homework but IMO they failed with how they approached the Treasure Coast initially. Hopefully when they expand either to Jacksonville or Tampa, AAF will engage and get buy-in upfront from local governments along the route Especially in areas that will not initially see service.
@ock indeed Big Choo Choo is coming! I wonder what K C Traylor and her followers at FNAA think of this development? LOL
My guess is that the TC counties are probably now wondering if they made the right decision by being so opposed and uncompromising. Compare Martin, St Lucie, and Indian River Counties with Brevard County. Brevard was able to obtain concessions from AAF by working with them. And I predict that Brevard will get the first additional station. I think Stuart and Ft Pierce have poisoned the water too much at this time for them to get an AAF stop for a long time. Maybe they will get an Amtrak stop, that is if AAF doesn't run Amtrak out of Florida in another 10-15 years!
I have been informed to look for a new AAF construction update website to come online live in the next week. I hope it is similar to what Sunrail did during their initial construction phase.
@brian tampa
Actually AAF did do the right thing on the TC. They engaged the regional TPO first to discuss cross impacts. Then went to the respective county boards. What didnt happen prior to the EIS events is that nothing got communicated beyond that by any of the local politicos. This is what infuriated so many locals.
In fact most of the local representatives were actually for it at the beginning. It wasnt until NAAF raised the NIMBY dust that the politicos started shifting their positions. There are a couple that will probably lose their office over it in the next election.
Did AAF go far enough? They went as far as the laws permit them and bent only when it was to their advantage. And lets face it, railroad law grants them a lot of authority that people today dont understand very well. The EIS is really the highest level of public input possible for any rail activity.
Could they have put on a better face when it came to listening? In some cases perhaps, but they also know their rights and dont have to be lectured by posturing local politicos on how they should use their own ROW. I think they used adequate discretion in how they engagef the public.
Is there a lesson here? I agree 100%.
In fact this is why I have posting so much content on it. These are the questions, issues, and concerns people in Jax, St Augustine, Bunnell, Daytona, Ormond, New Smyrna will be asking if/ when they decide to expand.
It will be wise for us as a community to watch how AAF functions as a service, as a neighbor and as a business when they start up. These will be lessons we will need to be aware of.
Spuwho,
As I have seen here locally in Tampa Bay, what the local transportation planning organizations approve or want does not necessarily reflect the population in general. Whether a public or private project, to gain acceptance and approval (even if it's not legally required) is really based on how you market or present your project to both the governmental boards as well as the public at large. I believe that AAF finally hired a PR firm about two years after the project was announced. That probably should have been done as soon as they decided to go forward with the project in summer 2012.
True, AAF may have received initial approval by most government organizations when it was first announced back in 2012, however my point is that AAF should not have relied or expected the local politicians to be out there promoting their project. This whole process to me is very much like a political campaign. IMO, AAF let the NIMBYS define what the impacts of AAF would be. for example, the impacts on grade crossings caused by AAF trains: for many months there was silence in the media from AAF while the opposition was out there repeating their lies and false stories. Finally, AAF released a video showing a typical train causing about a minute of delay. By that time, it was too late as the opponents had already spread the lie too often so that public opinion believed that big delays and traffic tie ups at railroad crossings were coming because of AAF. Then it turned into a public safety issue when you even had the director of a hospital near Jupiter, I believe, come out in opposition because he thought that patient safety would be impacted due to having to cross the tracks near his hospital!
Another take away from this is that for future expansion, AAF needs to do a lot more marketing directly to the public. They can setup as many meetings as they can with commissions and councils but let's face it, most people who attend public meetings like that will be the ones whose opinion has already been made up.
I do wonder what made Brevard County different than the other counties north of WPB. I am more familiar with Stuart and ft Pierce than I am Brevard. Did AAF approach them differently than Martin or Indian River Counties? Or was it because the opposition was not as strong there? If that was the case, why was it not as strong as it is further south?
QuoteCould they have put on a better face when it came to listening? In some cases perhaps, but they also know their rights and dont have to be lectured by posturing local politicos on how they should use their own ROW. I think they used adequate discretion in how they engagef the public.
I agree with that assesment. Coming from someone that bemoans the fact that the TPOs and DOT's of the world do not do an adequate job at all of engaging with the public... AAF is a private entity that holds pretty far reaching rights (upheld by the Supreme Court on almost every case) on the land that they already own. Why placate a radical group of people with their heads in the sands. AAF won the PR battle overall. Treasure Coast just lost a big redevelopment opportunity by cowtailing to local political pressure.
QuoteIMO, AAF let the NIMBYS define what the impacts of AAF would be. for example, the impacts on grade crossings caused by AAF trains: for many months there was silence in the media from AAF while the opposition was out there repeating their lies and false stories. Finally, AAF released a video showing a typical train causing about a minute of delay. By that time, it was too late as the opponents had already spread the lie too often so that public opinion believed that big delays and traffic tie ups at railroad crossings were coming because of AAF.
You have a point, but AAF knew the hand they held much better than NAAF did.. and AAF had a better hand than NAAF could ever dream of (their arguments were pretty assinine overall). You lose your advantage when you play down to your opponent. If you have a full house, you better not lose to somone that holds a pair of 3's in a game of poker.
@fieldafm
I would disagree with the statement that AAF won the PR battle. The evidence points to a lot of opposition, much of it misguided and based on lies I will agree, that has formed in the past 12-18 months on the TC. From what I have been reading, it appears that the opponents will now take the issue to the courts. I expect them to challenge the Final EIS as being inadequate on the area of impacts to the maritime industry. I don't think the TC lost a big redevelopment opportunity since nothing was going to happen there anyways besides construction of a second track.
As far as engaging the public, in my opinion AAF did not do enough early on especially in Martin County. That county as well as St Lucie has a well known reputation for opposing growth or things that impact the environment. Going in to the project, that should have been taken into consideration as to how to inform the public of the projects impacts. One other thought. Maybe the NEPA rules did not allow AAF to publicly challenge or refute what was being said by the opponents while the Draft EIS report was being prepared. If that is the case, maybe the rules need to be changed to prevent the NIMBYS from influencing public opinion so much with their lies and misinformation campaign.
QuoteAAF did not do enough early on especially in Martin County. That county as well as St Lucie has a well known reputation for opposing growth or things that impact the environment. Going in to the project, that should have been taken into consideration as to how to inform the public of the projects impacts.
But I think they did take that into consideration. Sometimes, the better battle choice is to not fight in the first place. I think NAAF has very little legal precedance to rely on if there are legal procedings.
QuoteI don't think the TC lost a big redevelopment opportunity since nothing was going to happen there anyways besides construction of a second track.
See, the smarter play would have been to use the opposition to get something (anything) built so the counties could benefit financially from AAF. That's the lost opportunity IMO. The 'all or nothing' negotation tactic rarely works.
@fieldafm
Regarding lawsuits, I was thinking more of the Marine Industries Association of S Florida (MIASF) or maybe CARE more so than the Florida Not All Aboard (FNAA [sic] NAAF) group run by K C Traylor. The MIASF does have a "dog in this fight" so to speak. I understand that they have been actively working with AAF to compromise and resolve their issues. CARE, on the other hand is the group that has already hired a DC attorney and has produced several laughable videos by certain retired rail execs (Mr. Harry Bruceof old Illinois Central Gulf fame of the 1970's and 80's comes to mind). CARE I think represents the pleasure boaters (as well as certain HOA groups) while MIASF represents the businesses that could be impacted such as marinas and repair facilities.
You are right about the comment on the "all or nothing tactic rarely works". I believe that is the main difference between the TC and Brevard County. I have been amazed at so many comments made by TC politicians about AAF that have been complete lies or fabrications.
I am not saying AAF should have fought the anti-growth and environmental minded people of Martin County, just that AAF had a window of about 12-18 months to get their message out in a positive manner before the NIMBYS took control of the conversation. When the TC planning and governement agencies gave their initial approval, not many details were known about the impacts. Between fall of 2012 and end of 2013 AAF did have the opportunity to begin a full scale PR campaign to explain the benefits of AAF to the TC, such as possible quiet zones and sealed corridors. The local paper there, TC Palm has been the agitator in all of this with what I consider to be very biased reporting over the past year or two. They seem to report anything that FNAA or CARE says as fact, without any investigation.
As another example of not being on top of the PR game, when the FRA field engineer memo regarding his concerns about AAF not wanting to implement sealed corridor safety measures came out last spring, there was no official acknowledgement that AAF would indeed incorporate the sealed corridors. IIRC, the way I found out was the state of Florida DOT made the announcement, not AAF, several months later thus allowing that issue to simmer far too long. And more importantly, this made AAF look like they were being forced to do this and they really were putting financials considerations over safety, when in fact that was not the case.
@Brian_Tampa.
I agree wholeheartedly on the local press reporting. I have reached out to the reporters at the TC Palm and Palm Beach Post and have politely asked them to please research similar impacts in California, Europe and Japan. I even emailed the editorial director at Scripps asking them to be more objective in their perspective with regards to reporting and do (at a minimum) some basic investigation. How many responses did I get?....none. The editorial rants continued.
This pre-disposition to simply report rants and press releases and consider posting a weblink to the EIS at the FRA a journalistic "scoop" is puzzling. The TC Palm has been the worst at playing up to the crowd.
Fred Frailey at Trains Magazine who would represent the opposite view on the project, is some what in full shoulder shrug mode about it. He has seen and covered too many similar events where people get riled up about some rail effort, raise a big stink, list the gimmes when they can't stop it, and quietly go away.
There are still some skeptics in the rail community that believe this is an effort by FIG to make FEC look "pretty" before selling the asset off. FIG could certainly do it, but when they sold off Rail America, they had a chance to roll FEC with it and they didn't. They decided to keep it and invest in it.
Quotejust that AAF had a window of about 12-18 months to get their message out in a positive manner before the NIMBYS took control of the conversation.
Certainly, they could have been better... your point is not lost.
My position is simply... what did AAF really lose? Nothing that I can see. There is very little to gain by simply yelling louder (figure of speach) than someone that is bound and determined to yell at you at all costs. That's what I mean when I say that the best fight sometimes is to simply choose not to fight. Why engage a group that will be unreasonable from the start? What do you really gain versus the time and money (lots of it when lawyers and PR professionals collect billable hours) spent by engaging these NIMBYs?
I'm certainly no expert on this subject (there are people on this board that are), but ITE has volumes of standards on railway crossings (and federal courts and state courts have pretty much upheld these standards all throughout case law) and railways have some pretty sovereign rights in regards to their ROW. If a carrier can prove they meet the standards and mitigate for dangers (which reading all of the reports produced so far, AAF pretty much does), then spending an extraordinary amount of time having to defend your technical data to non-technical people that want no real rational solutions anyway is a fruitless endeavor.
Recreational servitude is certainly granted to boaters throughout railway case law, but how that servitude is granted is limited in scope. One needs to look no further than our own FEC bridge in downtown Jax. That thing can (and often is) be in the down position for (sometimes very) long periods of time. It's obviously in AAF and MIASF's interest to reach an amicable compromise in a relative short period... especially given that AAF has fairly good leverage. I can't see that ending badly (nor can I see that going to court). CARE/NAAF on the other hand are just spinning their wheels at this point.
I think AAF has very little reputational risk outstanding at this point. Their biggest risk now is getting their first legs built, achieving sustainable ridership and making money. Otherwise, any PR done or not done now will be worthless in the end anyway.
Looks like the AAF construction update webpages are live now. They have sections for grade crossing info as well as for each South Florida station. Here is the link to the WPB station webpage:
http://www.allaboardflorida.com/construction/westpalmbeachupdates.html
Another link to their construction homepage:
http://www.allaboardflorida.com/construction/construction.html