Nov. 19, 2009
By Isaac Babcock
Observer Staff
Sen. Paula Dockery is coming to Winter Park on Monday to update the City Commission on renewed plans for commuter rail, with rumors swirling that she may try to dissuade the city from helping push a modified SunRail plan forward.
Meanwhile Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer is talking up a commuter rail deal patterned after one that passed this year in Massachusetts.
But a Winter Park city commissioner says that the deal has no teeth to stop cities and counties involved in SunRail from being hit with large liability lawsuits if an accident occurs.
That deal in Massachusetts between the state and CSX included stricter liability provisions that would place more of the financial burden for rail accidents on CSX than the company had attempted to negotiate in Florida earlier this year. But that would only leave CSX liable if it were found intentionally negligent in causing an accident.
That's difficult to prove, said Commissioner Beth Dillaha, and if the SunRail plan follows similar language, it could be functionally nearly identical to the old commuter rail deal, which broke down earlier this year.
"It's like Groundhog Day," Dillaha said. "It's just the same thing over again."
The panel pushing the development of SunRail met Friday to discuss plans for a special legislative session on Dec. 7. Dyer, the panel's chairman, has long been a proponent of commuter rail in Central Florida. He estimated that a supermajority could be possible in a potential upcoming Senate vote on a deal between the state and CSX to buy up rail tracks and help move CSX's rail routes.
But Dillaha said that positive talk could be hiding the truth behind the renewed push for SunRail. She said the plan is too similar to past plans, and too flawed to work.
"Why should there be a special session for a project for the third time in a row with the same bad terms?" she asked, calling the project expensive and risky. "If a project is so bad that it's been defeated twice and they have to misrepresent a lot of the facts to the public, you've got to question the motivation behind it."
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