|
On Monday, the Tampa Tribune reported what many high-speed rail supporters already knew, but wanted confirmed: Florida high-speed rail would have made money.
According to the Tribune, the Florida Rail Enterprise study estimated high-speed rail between Tampa and Orlando would make $4.3 million in 2016 and carry three million riders. By 2026, ridership would be five million and the surplus would reach $38 million. (See chart below. Estimates based on "low" and "high" estimates by Steer, Davis, Gleave and Wilbur Smith Associates, the two firms tasked by the Florida Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of the line. The final estimate is the "mid-range" between the "low" and "high".)
| Ridership/Revenue |
2016 Estimates |
2026 Estimates |
| Ridership |
3,021,750 |
4,991,000 |
| Revenue (Income) |
$56,922,250 |
$101,140,500 |
| Expense (Outlays) |
$(52,647,000) |
$(63,165,000) |
| (+) Surplus/(-) Deficit |
$4,275,250 |
$37,975,500 |
In the Tampa Bay Times that same morning was an article about how Florida is creating low-wage, low-skilled jobs that pay 25 percent less than the high-wage, skilled jobs that were lost during the recession. In the article, the Times spoke to a civil engineer and community designer that had lost their jobs following the collapse of the construction and real estate industry.
The articles are related to each other. At a time when Florida is in desperate need of high-paying jobs and private investments, the opportunity created by high-speed rail was rejected. Instead of our engineers and builders working on rail stations or transit oriented developments, Floridians are taking jobs that barely pay the bills.
There is nothing wrong with low-skilled jobs. But they do not compare with building the first true high-speed rail line in the United States. The number of construction workers, welders, electrical linemen and support staff building the line from Tampa to Orlando would have been staggering. (See chart below. Estimates in job years, which equate to one person working full-time for one year.) This doesn’t include commercial and residential developments attracted and built near the stations. The total effect, including suppliers in Lakeland and technology staffers in Orlando, would be 30,240 job years. Annual operations would create 650 total job years and 300 for the direct operation of the line.
| |
Construction Period (cumulative, in job years) |
Operations-Maintenance Period (annual, in job years) |
| Direct Effect |
13,650 |
300 |
| Total Effect |
30,240 |
650 |
Think of construction workers building stations, rather than collecting unemployment. Or consider office staff processing financial records for the line, instead of working as a cashier. The increased purchasing power of our residents would become a catalyst for Florida’s economic recovery. How much cash would Florida have had to invest to create those rail jobs? Possibly nothing.
With $2.4 billion of the expected $2.65 billion budget for the line provided by the federal government, Florida was seeking private investments to cover the funding gap and build and operate the line. The study states that eight multi-national consortiums were expected to respond to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and, “several teams had expressed willingness to absorb ridership risk and invest in the system.” The consortiums would “Design-Build-Operate-Maintain & Finance” the line, according to the study. The consortium would have a 30-year contract, operate the line, collect revenues, and possibly have “right of first refusal” for the Orlando-Miami leg. 
But the project was shut down before the RFQ could be released. These consortiums were never given the opportunity to bid for the project, invest in Florida and create high-wage jobs. The median of Interstate 4, where the train would run, is empty. The site of downtown Tampa’s high-speed rail station is an overgrown lot. There are no jobs in those places.
Governments seek transportation projects because they know the economic development that each project creates. Governor Rick Scott knows this, as he told U.S. Department of Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood that Florida would take the $2.4 billion for high-speed rail, if the federal government paid for dredging the ports at Jacksonville and Miami.
Yet, Gov. Scott’s office told the Tampa Tribune that Gov. Scott decided to reject high-speed rail funds after being “verbally briefed” on the feasibility study. The Tribune also noted that Gov. Scott’s office had admitted in 2011 that Scott used a criticized and flawed paper by the libertarian Reason Foundation as his opposition to high-speed rail.
The rejection of federal money to build high-speed rail will live on in Florida. It will live on in each traffic jam on I-4, in each unemployment check a construction worker cashes and in each machine shop barely surviving. It will not be easy overcoming the decision to end 30 years of progress from the initial idea of Florida high-speed rail to the RFQ.
Floridians who desperately wanted high-speed rail and those who desperately needed the opportunities high-speed rail would have created, will have to wait for another day to seize those opportunities. But, they will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that they were right about Florida high-speed rail being the right plan for our state.
|