SunRail, Brightline and Central Florida have landed a small but vital federal grant for early environmental, construction and cost studies needed to install rail service from east of Orlando’s airport to the International Drive and theme park district and on to Tampa.
Receiving bipartisan congressional support, the grant of up to $15,875,000 will be matched with an equal amount by Brightline to evolve a concrete plan for Orlando-to-Tampa rail. That plan will be the basis for seeking grants for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional federal money.
“The federal government providing the grant is a good indicator that they like our project,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings. “The grant will help us determine the details to submit applications for grants later this year, including routes, stops, costs, ridership, environment and economic impacts.”
The heart of the initiative is the Sunshine Corridor, which refers conceptually to a span of tracks from east of Orlando International Airport to the south International Drive and Walt Disney World area.
“The Sunshine Corridor is a comprehensive, ambitious transportation solution for Central Florida,” said Brightline’s chief executive officer, Michael Reininger. “It represents the missing link in Brightline’s plan to connect Orlando and Tampa.”
The east-west Sunshine Corridor envisions that tracks in Central Florida would be owned and operated by a government entity supporting the SunRail commuter train system. Brightline would then lease usage of the Central Florida tracks as part of its extension from Orlando to Tampa.
That cooperative arrangement would make local government and the private rail company connected at the hip in seeking grants for extending track from Orlando to Tampa.
What the privately owned Brightline brings to the Sunshine Corridor is its own capital to cover significant portions of matching amounts required for federal grants.
The region’s existing SunRail commuter train system runs north and south from Volusia through Seminole and Orange to Osceola counties.
Though long anticipated, the system did not have a plan, funding or even a proposal to connect its main line to Orlando’s airport – until Brightline began its push to connect the airport to a Tampa station and intersect SunRail tracks along the way.
“Innovative transportation solutions will provide an economic boost to Central Florida,” Reininger said.
Brightline has invested several billion dollars in tracks and stations between Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and, in the final stages of construction, from that South Florida segment to Orlando International Airport.
The stretch from South to Central Florida is to be completed this year and opened for passenger traffic next year.
The $15.8 million “Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements,” or CRISI grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation was announced by U.S. representatives Darren Soto, Stephanie Murphy and Val Demings, Democrats from Central Florida, and Republicans Dan Webster of Central Florida and Gus Bilirakis of the Tampa Bay area.
“Thrilled to see that Brightline’s proposed Tampa to Orlando intercity passenger rail project will receive funding thanks to the Department of Transportation’s CRISI grant,” said Soto in a statement.
Webster said that as a senior member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure “ensuring our state has the resources needed is one of my priorities.”
A month ago, local governments backing SunRail, Brightline and Universal Orlando announced a preliminary agreement to work as partners toward the Sunshine Corridor.
That appeared to resolve a dispute involving Brightline’s preference for a different corridor, which it would pay for with private funds, that did not include the International Drive area but would stop at Walt Disney World.
As part of the Sunshine Corridor, Universal and other International Drive would commit to $125 million for track and station costs, 13 acres to build a station, guarantees of $13 million for annual ticket sales and $2 million annually for maintenance.
While federal grants, thanks to the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed last year, could make it possible to build rail service along the Sunshine Corridor and to Tampa, ongoing operational costs will remain a challenge.
Demings is championing a penny increase in sales tax, which voters will decide in November, to generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for public bus, rail and other transportation needs, setting up the nucleus of a Central Florida network able to support population growth for decades.
He said he visited federal transportation and White House officials in Washington, D.C., recently.
“One of the things they said was that in order for us to compete effectively with other geographical regions around the country, having a dedicated funding source would be essential to receiving federal infrastructure grant dollars,” Demings said.
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
