Amtrak said on Friday that there’s not enough time for it to work as a partner with some local governments in Central Florida to use federal high speed rail money, dashing the hopes of working around Gov. Rick Scott’s opposition to the project.
In a letter to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor and U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown pm Friday, Amtrak said it can’t meet an April 4 deadline to apply for $2.4 billion from Washington. The rail company added that, “it still would like to work with Florida cities on reviving the project in the future, because it believes in building a nationwide system of high-speed rail.
Reacting to Amtrak, Sen. Nelson said, “In essence, that means a bullet train linking Orlando, Tampa and Miami is, for now, gone. And so are the 24,000 jobs it promised to bring to the state.”
Scott, on three occasions rejected the $2.4 billion that was awarded to Florida for the Tampa to Orlando rail system and which had earlier been approved by lawmakers, saying he believed the train wouldn’t have enough riders and thus pose a risk to the taxpayers of Florida.
Last week, further proof came in an updated ridership study that Scott’s claims were bogus. The study showed that the rail line would have had a $10.2 million operating surplus in its first year of operation in 2015, and a $28.6 million surplus in its 10th year. The rail system had been 90 percent by federal dollars, with the remainder expected to be financed by the private sector.
Earlier this month, Scott also put the brakes on SunRail, another rail project estimated to generate 4,200 jobs in the near term.
