Bullet Train Backer Asks Lawmakers to Set Up New Agency to Build $10-Bil Rail System

TALLAHASSEE, FL-Politically-scarred from the presidential ballot debacle, Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of President-elect George W. Bush, faces a second thorny issue: a proposal to build a 200-mile, high-speed railway system that could wind up costing taxpayers $10 billion. The governor killed funding for a similar proposal last year.

This time, however, Lakeland, FL millionaire C.C. Dockery, the bullet train’s current banner-carrier, is using the Florida Constitution to press for the project. He argues the governor has no choice but to obey the results of a Nov. 7 constitutional amendment ballot approved by 2.9 million voters that urged the state to build a bullet train network. Anti-rail activists and numerous legislators, however, reply that most voters didn’t know what they were really voting on, not unlike the south Florida presidential ballot chad fiasco.

Commercial real estate developers, meanwhile, are undecided how much new product the train project would trigger around stations. Unanswered is how much passenger traffic the venture would attract to make it worthwhile for developers/investors to begin new enterprises.