Scott Pulls a Christie

Newly elected Florida Governor Rick Scott made headlines today in pulling a Chris Christie, by killing the high speed rail project to be built between Tampa and Orlando. His reasoning consists of the Florida taxpayers being on the hook for cost overruns and the potential for low ridership.

These two reasons are fair, as cost overruns are common in public work projects; just look at the "Big Dig," the years long Boston Public Works project that had extreme cost overruns. (along with substandard construction that caused death). In Florida, when looking at the length of the first stage of the High Speed Rail, it is only going to be in a 70 mile region of central Florida, is not even reaching Tampa International Airport (ends in Ybor City) and the potentially busiest stops, Orlando International Airport and Disney World, are only a distance of 25 miles and are easily accessible by road in the largest car rental market in the world. The building of the Central Florida Greenway has alleviated much of the traffic on the Beach Line, and also takes driving on I-4 out of the equation for those going from MCO to Disney. Furthermore, I-4 between Orlando/Disney and Tampa is now 6-10 lanes, and when I drove this route in December, observed many improvements in movement since the last time I drove that route over ten years ago.

Despite Governor Scott's call, Republican members of Congress in Central Florida are working with the Department of Transportation to attempt to go around Scott and keep the rest of Florida outside of the I-4 Corridor on the hook. This is unfortunate because they are pretty much flipping the proverbial bird to the voters that elected them with the false premise those Representatives will be liked because they bring home the Federal bacon.

Rick Scott should be respected for this decision, along with giving clear reasons to his constituents, as Christie did a few months ago, and I believe he has the will and resolve to see it through.