President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden come to Tampa this morning for a town hall meeting at the University of Tampa. As we all learned yesterday (and the President reiterated last night) Florida will be receive of the 13 grants being announced today for high-speed rail across the country.
Officials here in Florida had been hoping to get exactly $2.56 billion to build a Tampa-Orlando line.
Instead, we are learning that the sunshine state will get approximately half that amount, or $1.25 billion.
Although local rail officials like ConnectUs's Ed Turanchik are probably a bit bummed they're not getting their whole loaf, the fact of the matter is is that only $8 billion of these funds are being distributed at one time, and there were over 40 different agencies that had applied for the money.