On Track for a “21st Century Transportation System

When Florida’s Legislature finally gave the OK last December to spending about $775 million for a Central Florida commuter rail project, one major point seemed especially hard to get across, says state Rep. Gary Aubuchon, who led the three-year battle for approval. “This is not just about a railroad,” says Aubuchon, a Cape Coral Republican. “The opposition framed it as all about a 61-mile stretch of track. That’s not the complete picture. This is about the future of Florida’s development, a transformational project that has great chances of success in creating new urban development.”

While the SunRail commuter project approved by the Legislature affects only four Central Florida counties—Volusia, Seminole, Orange and Osceola—Southwest Florida advocates for rail, and other mass transit that lessens dependence on cars, say Aubuchon is on the right track.

SunRail may bypass Southwest Florida, “but it sets the stage for the future,” says Bill Spikowski, a land planner and founding member of Reconnecting Lee County, a mass transit advocacy group. “Getting people to think and talk about rail service here is a positive thing. And with Aubuchon, we have a legislative leader right here who sees and understands the future potential of rail.”

Southwest Florida is an unlikely target for commuter rail in the foreseeable future, transit experts say, because of its sprawl and lack of concentrated business centers—with large bases of employees/potential transit users that accompany them. There aren’t enough places where workers could get off and easily reach an office to make commuter rail financially feasible.

Light rail could be more likely in Lee and Collier counties. It typically runs on a different schedule simply to get around a community throughout the day, and usually with different cars than commuter service. The tracks of most interest to Lee County are owned by CSX Corp. Seminole-Gulf Railway has a long-term lease on a route that goes through downtown Fort Myers and Bonita Springs and near the Coconut Point mall. Its most prominent use now is Seminole Gulf’s dinner train, although the tracks also carry some freight. But the current use is not intense, and CSX has said it’s open to discussion on developing other uses. Virtually all discussion focuses on those existing tracks. The cost of buying rights-of-way to lay new track makes that process prohibitive.

Few think even that light rail could materialize in the near future. Considerations such as ownership, lease agreements and funding, maintenance and improvements, new stops and stations, liability, shared schedules with freight lines and the unique intricacies of railroad law, any new use could take years. “If you’re talking sooner or later, I’d have to say much later, maybe 10 years,” says Lee County Commissioner Brian Bigelow, a proponent of creating more walkable communities and reducing cars on overcrowded highways.

Serious negotiations between state and local governments and the CSX Corp. for SunRail were well under way as early as 2004, and it took three years of intense debate in Tallahassee to gain legislative approval for funds.

“I could see us having light rail here along the dinner-train tracks some day,” says Spikowski. “But light rail that people could use to get around here and the commuter rail like they’re getting in Orlando are very different things.”

The densely populated areas around Orlando are far more suitable for commuter rail. SunRail proponents, including the elected leaders in the four affected counties, say they also expect that once the commuter rail is in place, private development and growth will be stimulated around the 17 stations on its route.

“It’s a 61-mile backbone from which new urban development can flourish,” says Aubuchon. “It’s not an overnight project. We’re talking over 30 years. But there has to be that involvement from the private sector to provide concentrated development, or it won’t work.”

Proponents say SunRail will attract new business to Florida, drawn by the ability to pull workers from a much larger area. Employees who refuse to battle I-4 traffic, for example, may be more likely to hop a train for an easy ride to work.