Rick Scott Puts Breaks On SunRail Commuter Train

The Palm Beach Post:

Gov. Rick Scott has put the brakes on the $1.2 billion SunRail commuter train in Central Florida by freezing $235 million in contracts for the project until July while he decides whether to allow it to go forward.

Read the whole story: The Palm Beach Post

Comments

[John Granger]

03:45 PM on 04/20/2011

Hear is the deal with Gov. Scott. I am a Floridian and I have worked as a city planner for many years in Central Florida.

1. Gov. Scott is an ideologue. Ideologues do not compromise; they destroy what exists in order to create their utopia.
2. Florida is really two states, northern Florida north of Orlando - i.e. the "Redneck Rivera" - and the more modern and cosmopolitan southern Florida. The TeaBaggers are from the northern part of the state, and they are his electors and constituents. Scott will be reelected because the north holds the political power.

3. The high-speed rail was the best thing to happen to Florida since Disney World, but getting it to pay for itself was not going to happen. Like dams and other great public projects, the benefits do not exist solely as "profit." The inter-city infrastructure in Tampa and Orlando (more so) stinks. But, the HSR would have been a great incentive to bring it up to par.
4. The commuter rail is ridiculous. I personally worked on this one. It will run through the bedroom communities of Central Florida, which are now part of the foreclosure disaster. The commuter rail relies on 1920s or earlier technology. We had these trains in Florida in the 1930s and 1940s, but affluence killed it after WWII. The difficult part is that almost all of the local municipalities have expended a lot of labor, some money, and a lot of hope, on it.

[FLRealist]

10:54 PM on 03/12/2011

Local cities have spent a lot of money on the SunRail. It would help alleviate a lot of the traffic issues in the Orlando area.

And Rick Scott doesn't like the idea. Well, he can bite my @ss!

[John Granger]

03:51 PM on 04/20/2011

As a city planner and consultant in urban planning (PhD) who has worked with municipalities in this area, I can tell you it will not work. I want high-speed and commuter rail, but this is a disaster in the making, The main issue that I have is that the technology sucks (1920s) and the bedroom communities of Central Florida are losing people due to foreclosures. I would like to see most cars, especially stupid gas guzzling behemoths, disappear, but that won't happen here in Florida. There are just too many idiot rednecks and Teabag fogies espousing stupid libertarian ideologies. Let them destroy themselves.

[artist-53]

01:03 PM on 03/12/2011

Wasn't able to post to Rick Scott's FaceBook.Unfortunate, because I sure had a lot to tell him.

http://www.facebook.com/scottforflorida?v=app_4949752878

[BPCentrisAmerican]

07:36 PM on 03/11/2011

Why dose this man alsways look like he's high?

[artist-53]

01:05 PM on 03/12/2011

Because he is?

High on Greed
High on Power
High on Corruption
High on Misinformation
High on etc..

Can you get high on Botox?

[Appleton]

07:11 PM on 03/11/2011

I believe that I've finally discovered Rick Scott's plan for reducing the 12% unemployment rate in Florida:

1. Eliminate all long-term infrastructure projects and the thousands of skilled positions that go with them.

2. Reduce property taxes, further starving the public school system and eliminating thousands of teaching jobs.

3. Impose draconian cuts on government agencies and the services they provide, eliminating thousands of public service jobs.

4. Slash Medicare and Medicaid benefits and other programs for the elderly, children in poverty and the disabled.

If properly implemented, the governor's plan will substantially reduce the population through higher mortality rates and the emigration of workers and families with children to other states.
The result will be a population consisting of financially comfortable retired people who are not seeking employment, illegal agricultural workers who are forced to remain below the radar screen and temporary tourists. Voila! A massive reduction in the unemployment rate through tax reduction.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

07:40 PM on 03/11/2011

Christ sign a law that would restore ex-con's voting rights after they did there time, Scott just revoked it, I guess he's not the forgive and forget Christian.

[mrtutto]

05:50 PM on 03/11/2011

Scott put the brakes on because he doesn't own shares in the company who will be building it.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

07:41 PM on 03/11/2011

Yea, if he could steal something it would be different.

[mrtutto]

05:48 PM on 03/11/2011

Come on guys, you don't even know how to spell brakes ?

[VikingQuest]

01:27 AM on 03/12/2011

LOL, nice catch.

Breaks or Brakes.

The liberal elite say breaks.

[omobob]

05:44 PM on 03/11/2011

A modern infrastructure seems to be out of the reach for the ingenuity America. While other nations have speed rail not dependent on oil. I thought the idea was to come up with alternatives to foreign oil and ween America away form oil. And yet there is still no high speed rail on the East or West Coast. The logical place to start. If not now, then when?

[VikingQuest]

01:28 AM on 03/12/2011

The logical place to start is not Tampa to Orlando . . .

Yet that was the President's plan.

[omobob]

02:28 PM on 03/12/2011

> The logical place to start is not Tampa to Orlando

Correct. Its Miami to Boston in the East and SF to LA and San Diego on the West Coast. Just taking the short ho aircraft out of the air would be a start towards using less foreign oil. If not now, when? cheers

[FLRealist]

10:53 PM on 03/12/2011

The SunRail isn't from Tampa to Orlando. It's a commuter train for the Greater Orlando area.

[mothergrace]

05:39 PM on 03/11/2011

The oddest thing about this story is that Republicans are arguing with each other.

Usually they don't. I am glad to see some people speaking their own minds and daring to disagree.

[SYR]

05:31 PM on 03/11/2011

Bald, buggy eyed serial.......? Only Stephen King knows for sure.

[sigotter]

05:30 PM on 03/11/2011

Lookin' for answers.... How could the citizens of this country allow so many meglomaniacs to become governors at this important time. People who have no interest in producing jobs or helping the voters. No interest in protecting the weak, old, or ill? No interest in keeping the air, water, and land clean and healthy?

Oh..... maybe it has to do with the money? Never mind....

[rich24h]

05:34 PM on 03/11/2011

no S2#$#TY its like a cold to some people they just go out and get it
never mind the warnings

[ampdem]

06:46 PM on 03/11/2011

Lots and lots of TV ads and lots and lots of people that are incompetent and incapable of making up their own minds as to what's right and wrong. Good going T-peers, Repubs and so called Christians, these people would not know morals and values if it bit them they may as well be a cult they have all the makings of one, starting with brainwashing en masse.

[msblynne]

05:20 PM on 03/11/2011

He hasn't invested his ill gotten gains in rail yet. Give him time to set that up and he'll sing a different tune.

[artist-53]

05:19 PM on 03/11/2011

Scott broke the news on his Facebook page, and invited people to comment to his office.??

Is that how CEO's usually make headliners, on their FaceBook Page?

Guess this way he could "befriend" anyone that disagrees with him.

As opposed to a press conference .

Gov.'s are making poor decisions for America, but good decisions for Corporations.

America, it's time these guys needed an intervention.

We could even do it on their FaceBook page.

These pseudo Gov's, where did they come from?

FaceBook Press releases? Rick Scott's a chicken.

[artist-53]

01:00 PM on 03/12/2011

I just tried to comment on RickScott's Facebook. I can't. Which is unfortunate, because I had a lot to say to him. So how do people get to write a comment? I also see that he's got many positive notes up. I think he writes them all by himself or his staff does.
http://www.facebook.com/scottforflorida?v=app_4949752878

[Captain Hindsight]

05:14 PM on 03/11/2011

He must have found a way to channel the interest on the "Held up funds" to his own account. This snake doesn't do a thing that doesn't benefit Rick Scott.

[whatthel]

05:13 PM on 03/11/2011

Gov. Numbskull.

[mixnmatch]

05:17 PM on 03/11/2011

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