Submitted by Bradley Robertson on Fri, 03/04/2011 - 10:51am
Well the Governor of Florida has turned down the High Speed Rail plan for the 3rd and final time and a lawsuit to prevent that has failed. The St. Petersburg Times reports that the governor had "concerns about saddling state taxpayers with construction cost overruns, operating losses due to low ridership and returning the $2.4 billion to the federal government if the project failed." To me this makes perfect sense. The money being allocated is for the construction of the rail only and not the maintenance of it. If the President really wanted the US to move forward on high-speed rail for the country he should have included funding for maintenance just like is done today for highways. Now, since I am not a resident of Florida and wouldn't have to bear any burdens of cost overruns, I will admit I am disappointed this isn't going forward. I liked the idea of being able to go to Tampa from Orland without having to drive. I have made that trip a few times and it is a long drive after spending the day at the beach, the zoo, or one of the theme parks. Oh well. Maybe some of that funding could be sent to my neck of the woods so we could get some decent public transit here.
