(Washington, DC) Congresswoman Brown delivered the following statement:
“Congresswoman
Corrine Brown is ecstatic to announce that she received a call from the
Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, and was told that the federal
Department of Transportation will re-bid the $2.5 billion in high speed
rail funding returned by the state of Florida. During this new bidding
process the inter-local agreement developed by the cities of Orlando,
Tampa, Lakeland and Miami will be eligible to apply. Amtrak and other
eligible transportation operators will be able to apply for the funding
individually, or in conjunction with the cities that make up the
inter-local agreement. However, it is extremely important to note that
this extraordinarily competitive bidding process will be open to every
state throughout the nation, including California and the states in the
North East Corridor, who have been more than supportive of high speed
rail in the past.
Beyond
a doubt, a high speed rail line would be of tremendous benefit to the
state of Florida, both for the state’s infrastructure as well as for job
creation. As was clearly demonstrated in a study released earlier this
week, the Tampa – Orlando rail line would have had a more than
$10 million operating surplus in its first year of operation alone. The
study also went on to say that this line would have operated at a $28.6
million surplus by its 10th year; and an estimated 3.3 million riders in
just the first year of operation.
With
the unemployment rate in our state just under 12%, an investment in our
state’s infrastructure of this magnitude would come at a most critical
time, and serve as a tremendous boost towards getting Floridians back to
work. As I always say, federal transportation and infrastructure
funding is essential to job creation; and according to the Department of
Transportation, for every $1 billion invested in infrastructure
projects, over 42,000 well paying jobs are created.”