As we await the end of a 2-year planning process at TBARTA to see if we will get a rail plan for Tampa Bay, Amtrak may move ahead on its own, according to a tbo.com story:
The rail agency hopes Florida will embrace intercity rail as roads become clogged and gas prices soar.
Amtrak would like to eventually see trains running back and forth between cities such as Tampa and Orlando, or Jacksonville and Miami.
Rail officials are in the midst of a weeklong swing through the state to meet local officials and tout the advantages of rail.
On Monday, Amtrak officials met with state Reps. Ed Homan, R-Temple Terrace, and Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, and state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. Tuesday, they met in Tampa with Mayor Pam Iorio.
The catch? They ain't giving it away:
Fourteen states have deals with Amtrak for intercity rail. The largest is California, which pays the rail agency $84 million a year to run 16 daily roundtrips between Oakland and Sacramento and 10 daily roundtrips from Los Angeles to San Diego.
On the low end is Vermont. It pays $4 million for a single daily roundtrip from New York to Montpelier, the state's capital, and to St. Albans near Lake Champlain and the Canadian border.
Amtrak officials stress that no routes or station stops have been decided in Florida, though they hope their tour will drum up support for the idea.
Full story here. Info on current Amtrak travel deals within Florida here. Fact Sheet on Amtrak in Florida here (.pdf download). Want to weigh in with the quasigovernmental train company about this idea, one way or the other? Contact the Amtrak Customer Advisory Committee.
(file photo: John Mueller/some rights reserved)
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2008.