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Rail News Home High-Speed Rail

1/17/2011



Rail News: High-Speed Rail

Florida DOT official updates state Senate committee members on HSR


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Last week, Kevin Thibault, executive director of the Florida Rail Enterprise (FRE), provided an update to the Florida State Senate's Commerce and Tourism Committee on the proposed high-speed rail service between Tampa and Orlando, as well as on the state’s proposed SunRail commuter-rail system.

The Tampa-Orlando line would run 84 miles from downtown Tampa to the Orlando International Airport. The majority of the line is expected to be built in the median of Interstate 4, where a 44-foot envelope has been preserved for the project for years.  

The project is expected to cost about $2.6 billion to build. The federal government has said it will pick up about $2.4 billion of the cost, leaving about $280 million in costs yet-to-be covered.  In response to committee members' questions, Thibault has been quoted by several Florida media outlets as saying the FRE plans to ask the private companies interested in building the project to cover those construction costs.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has not yet decided whether the project will move forward. He has said he is waiting for a report scheduled to be issued in February to determine whether the state will accept federal funding for the project.

Click here to link to Thibault's Power Point presentation.