High-Speed Rail and Government Performance Art
When is high-speed rail not really high-speed rail? Plus, the week's weather and the Bay Area Navigator 25.
Commuter rail may be headed to Tampa, one decade and 50 miles per hour slower than it might have arrived if not for the budgetary performance art of a former governor. Plus, a cold snap arrives, and the week on Wall Street. First, Tampa Bay’s best news roundup.
CURRENTS
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TOP NEWS
CDC report: Across states, 626,000 abortions reported in 2021; Florida shows highest number. Florida Phoenix
When will the Gateway Expressway (finally) open? 2024, FDOT says. Tampa Bay Times $
Part of I-275 in Tampa reopens 7 hours after crash with serious injuries. News Channel 8
Ybor City business owner organizes training program to prevent violence. ABC Action News
Tampa father, daughter killed in Virginia crash known for their big hearts, family says. 10 Tampa Bay
New portal launches for principals of foreign countries of concern to register property. The Center Square
State of Florida seeks go-ahead for drag show law. Tampa Free Press
Colts overpower Buccaneers run defense, win 27-20. 10 Tampa Bay
What went right, what went wrong on defense for FSU in heart-stopping win over Florida. Tomahawk Nation
USF qualifies for a bowl game for the first time since 2018. WUSF
TODAY’S SPONSOR
The Navigator is sponsored by Mary’s Little Lamb Preschool at 7311 N. Armenia Ave. in Tampa. We are a nationally accredited preschool established in 1959.
Free Childcare and a paycheck. We are currently seeking a qualified toddler teacher or teaching assistant. The ideal candidate must be creative, energetic, dependable, nurturing, patient, have a passion about the growth and development of the children, and be a team player. Requirements: pass a level 2 background screening, high school diploma or higher, completed or willing to start and complete the DCF 45 training hours, get CPR/First aid certified.
Interested in sponsoring the Navigator? We should talk.
BRIEFS
CRIME
Tampa Palms Stabbings: The Tampa Police Department is investigating two homicides in the 14000 block or Riveredge Drive. Police responded to a call at 8:55 a.m. Sunday regarding a female teenager who had been stabbed multiple times. Police also found a second stabbing victim, a woman in her 30s, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The juvenile victim was taken to a local hospital where she died. Based on the preliminary investigation, the victims are related to each other and are known to the suspect. Detectives are working to determine what led to the incident. Anyone with information that could assist in the investigation is asked to call Tampa Police at 813-231-6130 or submit an anonymous tip by contacting Crime Stoppers at 800-873-TIPS (8477) or via TIP411.
NEWS
Road Closures: N. Florida Avenue from E. Zack Street to E. Cass Street and E. Polk Street from N. Franklin Street to N. Marion Street will be closed Dec. 3-10 for CSX maintenance.
Water Main Repairs: South Himes Avenue between Jean Circle and West Watrous Avenue will be closed through 4 p.m. Thursday, contingent on weather conditions, for repairs to a water main break. See all road closures at Tampa.gov/RoadClosures.
LEISURE
Florida Strawberry Festival Addition: Country music performer Cody Johnson has been added to the 2024 Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City. Johnson will perform on Sunday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. on the Wish Farms Soundstage and completes the festival's headline entertainment lineup for the 2024 season. Advance tickets for admission and for headline entertainment shows go on sale Dec. 7 and can be purchased online at FLStrawberryFestival.com, at the Amscot Main Ticket Office, 2209 W. Oak Ave., Plant City, and by phone, 813-754-1996.
Got news? Send it here.
WEATHER
A Short Taste of Winter But Warming Later
Lows fall into the 40s tonight through Wednesday with temperature rising for the rest of the week with possible showers Saturday, according to this week’s forecast from The Weather Channel.
MONDAY ⛅️ Cloudy early with peeks of sunshine expected late.
🌡️70° / 49° 💦 67% / 76% 🌅 7:00 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
TUESDAY ☁️ Cloudy skies become partly cloudy at night.
🌡️60° /43° 💦 49% / 62% 🌅 7:01 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
WEDNESDAY ☀️ Mainly sunny.
🌡️67° / 44° 💦 43% / 64% 🌅 7:02 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
THURSDAY ⛅️ Clouds and sun in the morning with more clouds later.
🌡️75° / 61° 💦 61% / 78% 🌅 7:02 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
FRIDAY ⛈️ Cloudy early with later scattered thunderstorms.
🌡️80° / 67° 💦 76% / 92% 🌅 7:03 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
SATURDAY ☁️ Overcast with a slight chance of a rain shower.
🌡️83° / 69° 💦 80% / 93% 🌅 7:04 a.m. / 5:33 p.m.
SUNDAY 🌥️ Considerable cloudiness.
🌡️83° / 70° 💦 81% / 94% 🌅 7:05 a.m. / 5:33p.m.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
When is High-Speed Rail Not Really High-Speed Rail?
By Stephen Buel
Jane Castor recently led a delegation to Miami to inspect the Brightline commuter railroad service. Tampa’s mayor and her posse met area officials and toured a station. Then they boarded the train and did it again in West Palm Beach and at the line’s Orlando terminus. News coverage of the tour crowed about the possibility that Orlando might soon be just another stop on the way to Tampa — thus fulfilling the long-discussed dream of bringing high-speed rail to Cigar City.
There’s only one problem. Brightline is not really high-speed rail.
Florida’s best chance for genuine high-speed rail was killed by Sen. Rick Scott back in 2011. Shortly after he became governor, Scott famously refused $2.4 billion in federal funding for such a system.
That wasn’t the first disappointment for Florida rail aficionados. Back in 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment designed to set in motion construction of a high-speed rail system connecting the state’s major cities. Then Gov. Jeb Bush waged a campaign against it, and voters changed their minds four years later.
In 2011, the Obama Administration made Florida one of the centerpieces of its plan to build a U.S. high-speed rail network. That’s when Scott, the state’s new governor, declined to accept the money, infamously angering concerned Floridians of both parties.
The federal funding was designed to cover 90 percent of the costs of bringing high-speed rail to Florida. The idea was that Florida would kick in another $280 million in state aid and the feds would pay the rest.
Scott wasn’t buying it. He warned that Florida taxpayers could get stuck with a $3 billion tab if the system cost more to build than expected — which he called a realistic fear based on the experience of other states trying to build their own rail networks.
The governor’s decision produced a wave of genuinely bipartisan head scratching, since critics pointed out that several corporations had already agreed to assume all the additional costs and liabilities in exchange for the right to operate such a system.
The Republican chairman of Florida's Senate Transportation Committee, Sen. Jack Latvala, said Scott’s decision "cut off our nose to spite our face." Latvala’s GOP counterpart on the House Transportation Committee, Rep. John Mica, said the decision "defied logic." Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, a Democrat, said, "This is one of the worst decisions that I have ever seen in my 26 years of public life. This is a decision that is clearly based on ideology and not on the facts.”
Here in the third phase of Florida’s long dalliance with high-speed rail, the verdict is in. Brightline’s willingness to cover most of the costs of bringing a commuter rail system to Florida reveals that Scott’s critics were right about the short-sightedness of his 2011 decision.
Scott had indeed emphasized ideology over facts. His decision was a pioneering act of budgetary performance art, a tired genre born out of Newt Gingrich’s 1995 government shutdowns and stretching all the way to the very real threat of another such shutdown early next year.
Ten years ago, a Republican-dominated panel in Florida’s senate rejected $51 million in federal funding to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. More recently, under the DeSantis Administration, Florida was one of just two states to decline a federal waiver that would have kept Floridians from being terminated from Medicaid following the pandemic. Due to those actions, hundreds of thousands of Floridians now lack health insurance.
But Florida’s junior senator is in a class of his own when it comes to budgetary performance art. Scott originally opposed Medicaid expansion, only to change his position and tepidly support it in the run-up to his 2014 reelection campaign. After he was re-elected, it was back to his old ways, denouncing efforts to expand medical coverage to more Floridians.
Just this March, Scott voted against a bill containing $13.6 in funding for Ukraine, only to demand that the president send Ukraine more support just a week later.
Back in 2018, as Gov. Scott was seeking to move on to the U.S. Senate, he actually had the nerve to tweet that "Florida hasn't received its fair share of federal transportation funding for decades. That's wrong, and as your senator I'll fight to secure real results for our state."
Had the man actually governed by his words, Florida would probably now have a commuter rail network extending from Miami through Orlando to Tampa, and quite possibly up the East Coast to Jacksonville. And it would be genuine high-speed rail, with speeds of up to 170 miles per hour, rather than the 125 MPH maximum that we can hope for if Brightline expands its service to Tampa. The average speed of Brightline’s Miami to Orlando line is 69 miles per hour — not quite the speed that I could make in my trusty 2006 Pontiac Vibe.
The rail system we never got would probably also be a lot safer than the one we seem likely to acquire. Brightline is the nation’s deadliest rail line by a factor of almost three to one over Caltrain, the second-deadliest. To be clear, the vast majority of those deaths have been suicides or people who took a stupid risk at a railroad crossing. But the for-profit railroad initially resisted efforts by federal officials to make it invest more in safety features designed to prevent such fatalities. The company has since committed to do so in the future.
Just to be clear, despite these issues, I am an enthusiastic supporter of Brightline’s expansion, and look forward to the day when I can take the train to visit friends and family in Broward County.
And Brightline is doing some things very well. Not only is it the country’s first new private intercity passenger rail service in decades, but its brand-new Orlando rail station is the only intercity rail station located at a U.S. airport.
Brightline is considering Ybor City for the terminus of its Tampa line, and has been in discussions with developer Darryl Shaw about a suitable location for the station — which seems likely to be within walking distance of the TECO streetcar and the Amtrak terminal at Union Station.
And the company’s business model wisely includes real estate development. Castor noted with approval that Brightline stations in other markets are now flanked by condos, malls, restaurants, and senior-living facilities. Transit encourages density, and thus helps minimize future traffic congestion even for the people who don’t ride it.
Scott has defended his decision to reject that federal funding, having said in 2018 that “private intercity passenger rail service has been constructed and is currently being operated in Florida at no cost to taxpayers.” But that’s a lie.
All Aboard Florida has received a wide range of government assistance for its Brightline rail line, from state permission to issue $1.75 billion in tax-exempt bonds, to a $15.9 million federal grant for work on its expansion to Tampa. It also benefits from a state policy allowing rail lines to use right of way alongside highways. Republican Rep. Karen Gonzalez Pittman of Tampa recently introduced a new state appropriation request for $50 million to be dedicated to Brightline’s expansion into Tampa.
And good for her. Rail service is a public good that deserves government support — just like roads and highways. After all, according to the Urban Institute, gas taxes and toll fees only accounted for 27 percent of the $205 billion spent in the United States on roads and highways.
Gov. Rick Scott himself ended up approving state funding for Brightline’s rail system — albeit after he and his wife invested at least $3 million in a credit fund run by the parent company of All Aboard Florida’s, companies the Miami Herald revealed had also donated more than $200,000 to his 2010 campaign and inauguration. The paper reported:
“By 2014, Scott signed a budget that included $214 million for the train station to be located at the Orlando airport, and another $10 million for crossing improvements. Scott declared it ‘the right thing for the state,’ and announced that his 2015 budget would have another $75 million. For the next four years, as All Aboard Florida worked to obtain the taxpayer-backed financing from state and federal coffers, the Scott administration provided regulatory and financial support for the project.”
Think what you will of our state’s hypocritical junior senator, but let’s admit that he is nothing if not a smart businessman. After all, Scott built the world’s largest health care company from scratch in less than a decade, before he was ultimately pushed out by the company’s board amid a vast federal investigation into the company’s rampant Medicare and Medicaid fraud. But I guess Scott was less concerned with the taxpayers back when he worked in the private sector.
Based on its early performance, Brightline looks like it may also be a good investment. Last year’s total ridership was up by 113 percent over the line’s 2018 debut, and that’s with almost two years lost to the pandemic.
So probably around the beginning of the next decade, we may all be able to finally realize a vision that Florida voters first endorsed back in 2000. Whenever you do finally set foot on your first “higher-speed rail” line, be sure to take a moment to stop and consider what might have been.
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OTHER NEWS
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BAY AREA
Nation's largest private company to destroy Tampa grain facility. Tampa Bay Business Journal $
Court weighs if Tampa rapper’s jury should be unanimous on death penalty. Tampa Bay Times $
44 arrested during Hillsborough County Sheriff’s ‘Operation Get Stuffed’. Tampa Free Press
Tampa-St. Pete ranks low in charitable giving among large metros. Tampa Bay Business Journal $
Animals at Florida Aquarium now dining on restaurant-quality veggies. Patch
2 convicted felons arrested for gun, drug possession in Tampa: Police. Patch
This Pinellas town banned shark fishing on its beaches. What’s next? Tampa Bay Times $
Pro Palestine supporters hold rally, march outside Tampa Premium Outlets. Spectrum Bay News 9
FLORIDA
Florida bankers want Supreme Court to backtrack on big funding boost for legal aid to needy. Florida Bulldog
Florida's storm season ends, but recovery to take time. Tampa Bay Business Journal $
Florida ranks No. 1 in U.S. for population migration, where most New Yorkers moved. Orlando Business Journal $
DeSantis faces critical decision on cruise ships in Key West. The New York Times $
Hurricane Idalia washed sea turtle nests in Pinellas away, but the season was a success. WMNF
Some Florida residents puzzled by string of lights in sky. News Channel 8
When Peter Antonacci was stricken in governor’s office he lay in hallway 24 minutes before anyone noticed. Florida Bulldog
POLITICS
8 Republicans — including a surprise candidate — make Florida primary ballot. Politico
‘This guy is a charlatan’: University of Florida turns against Joe Ladapo. Politico
What would a DeSantis presidency look like for health care? WUSF
Hannity wants a red vs. blue state debate. Newsom and DeSantis have other plans. Politico
Donald Trump claims he’s not ‘cognitively impaired’ in response to Team DeSantis trolling. Florida Politics
Off-road: Bill would ban UTVs from high-speed highways, require licenses and insurance. Florida Politics
Can DeSantis’s presidential campaign even survive until Super Tuesday? The Capitolist
LEISURE
Where to get a live Christmas tree in Tampa. Patch
Gaither stuns Jesuit in overtime rematch, advances to Class 3M state semifinals. Tampa Beacon
COMMENTARY
Florida’s voter suppression crucial to GOP edge in 2024. Florida Phoenix
Be thankful for Florida whistleblowers like Ron Magill. Florida Phoenix
ABOUT US
Editors: Judith M. Gallman and Stephen Buel
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