Here is an article on Florida Governor Rick Scott’s position on Florida HSR. Prior to Scott being elected governor, the plan was to partially fund Florida HSR with $2.6-billion contributed by the state of Florida. Scott is opposed to any funding coming from the state of Florida, and wants the federal government to fund the entire project. Otherwise, he is not interested in going forward with the project.
Previously, Governor Crist had been telling Floridians not to worry about coming up with the $2.6-billion because they would just get another grant from the federal government.
Here is an elaboration on the above article in which Scott says he does not want to build half the HSR system with the federal grant, and then wait for somebody to show up with the funding needed to build the second half:
Note that the drummajorinstitute is a “progressive” outfit. Their word, not mine. That means they are even left of the liberals. Note their complaint that the HSR stop in Lakeland will reinforce its bedroom comunity nature and thus contribute to urban sprawl.
Well that is rich. HSR needs all the riders it can attract, but progressives don’t want riders that will use it to grow suburbs. The Florida HSR will link Orlando with Tampa, and pass through Lakeland about midway. And yet, the progressives don’t want it to stop in Lakeland because that would grow Lakeland, causing it to become a commuting suburb of Orlando and Tampa.
Progressives hate suburbs and love so-called “Livable Communities.” Livable communities are high density cities without suburbs that are set up encourage the use of public transportation, bicycling, and walking; and discourage the use of private automobiles. In case you might think that progressives are a minority in the HSR movement, note that the FRA says one of the purposes of HSR is to foster livable communities. I
Then again many ‘suburbs’ got their start as planned communities from the get go.
We have had talk of a high speed rail link between Detroit/Windsor ON through to Montreal QC for some time. Nothing has changed here—and we still had urban sprawl–so-called.
The idea of a Livieable Community stemmed ironically from the nostalgiac ideals of certain planners who wanted cities like Bruges or some cities that had actual communities within them–such as Kensington Market in Toronto ON—or Wortley Village in London ON.
From what I’ve seen of Lakeland FLA is seems almost large enough to warrent a stopover there–whether these proponants like it or not…
Not that FLA’s budget can withstand this type of thing mind…
I suppose that Governor Scott is adopting a bargaining position by saying he does not want any Florida state funds going into the Florida HSR. The federal government has granted some funding, leaving it up to Florida to fund the balance of the project, but the fed has no clear commitment from the state of Florida to do so.
Scott knows that this will be the prototype demonstration of HSR, and whether it succeeds of fails will be the test of whether to go ahead with the national rollout. Therefore, because there is so much at stake for the federal government in the Florida project, Scott knows that Florida is in a strong bargaining position to get the fed to pay for the whole thing. Why spend $2.6-billion of Florida’s money if you don’t have to?
Well, well, another turn-down for HSR in the U.S. this is getting to be commonplace on this forum, I, and many others speculate there will be no HSR in the U.S. for 20 to 30 years, the reason, try your car for example, the whole U.S. is governed, controlled, manipulated by the auto industry and until this mentality is overcome and more thought put into mass transportation than in making changes to new autos every year and automakers making 53 different models of the same make, there will never be a trend toward mass transit. Remember the referendum San Francisco had when initiating the BART, most of the population voted FOR it, then upon completion no one used it, the consensus was to vote YES in the hopes everyone else will use BART, and I can still drive my car to work.
There will be a sort of HSR between major cities if they are not too far apart but there will also be incentives for cities to give grants for the construction of more larger parking lots and parking garages.
It appears that both on this forum and in the real world of many states, the anti-passenger, anti-HSR rail crowd has won this battle, for now.
Some observations: One - HSR should only be undertaken where the conditions are ideal, with existing passenger service that is fairly well-patronized in relatively short corridors with large metro areas as endpoints. Two - For a number of reasons having a shared RoW with freight railroads is a non-starter. Three - In several other corridors that are short and have a market, train service that is not HSR but that would be frequent and have a good average speed (fewer and shorter stops, fewer slow track sections) might be workable.
I would not oppose HSR if there were a market for it, even if it were a public sector endeavor. But the problem is that the public sector will build it where there is no market. They believe that they are to change everyone’s behavior in a way that will produce a market for HSR. And the desire to change how people travel extends outward to include how and where they live.
The FRA says that we need HSR to stop climate change, foster livable communities, and create an oil-free society. The people that share those objectives are all about forcing society to change its behavior. They want HSR to be electric,
One thing to keep in mind about HSR is that it is not just a rail line connecting the dots on a map. Rather, it is a whole re-ordering of the future development priorities and objectives in the areas that the line will pass through. Here is an article that discusses the bewildering array of development and routing strategies surrounding the Florida HSR project. It also touches on the worries about the line creating new sprawl, and the difficulty of accommodating existing sprawl:
Bucyrus: Whomever told you that was misled somehow. Lakeland is on the Orlando - Kissimmee - Tampa line (old ACL). As such service is provided twice daily at Lakeland by the Silver Stars Tampa - Lakeland and then either to/from Miami (SAL) or Orlando (ACL) at Auburndale. The Silver Meteor does not serve Lakeland as it goes Orlando to/from the Miami route at Aurburndale (east of Lakeland) onto the old SAL. When the Palmetto went to Miami one of the three Florida trains came from Jacksonville