JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL
Gov. Rick Scott this morning gave the go-ahead to SunRail, the long-delayed Central Florida commuter train project.
Ananth Prasad, secretary of the state Department of Transportation, made the official announcement during aTallahassee news conference heavily attended by public-relations staffers working for local governments and business groups backing the project.
The $1.2 billion train was put on hold in January by Scott, who has made it clear that he is no fan of the project.
"SunRail is a project that the Department, previous governors, legislatures, local elected officials, and tens of thousands of Floridians have spent years working on to move forward," said Prasad, who toured the region this week. He said local government partners "supported a commuter rail system and the local governments will participate in any cost overruns."
Prasad said the six-month delay in the project didn't unearth any new facts but was needed for the governor's "due diligence." He said the state was committed to making it work with minimum cost overruns.
"We're going to deliver this project with the least amount of cost overruns," Prasad said. "This project is going to be sort of a judgment day project. If we cannot make SunRail successful, probably there will be no more commuter trains in Florida. … we have to make this train, SunRail, successful."
The decision sets the stage for SunRail to begin operations as early as May 2014, running between DeBary in Volusia County, downtown Orlando and the south edge of Orange County. Within another couple of years it supposed to go to DeLand in Volusia andPoinciana inOsceola County.
The approval ends the region's 30-year struggle to come up with a transportation alternative to cars and buses. Previous attempts that included magnetically levitated trains and light rail have failed.
Close to 50 Central Florida leaders gathered at the offices of MetroPlan in downtownOrlando to await Prasad's announcement. But since there was no television linkup, they had to rely on cell phones to get the final word.
"Needless to say, this is a great day for Central Florida," said Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs. "We can all breath a lot easier now, literally and figuratively."
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, a staunch SunRail supporter who is on vacation, issued a statement saying, "Securing this once-in-a-generation project has not been easy. As the saying goes, nothing worth doing is ever easy."
