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Here’s an email sent to Nelson from my husband - we’re FL residents.

Senator Nelson,

I received you email regarding the Governor’s action to stop the High Speed Rail (HSR) project.

First, you should know that I spent my working career in the planning, design and implementation of public transportation projects with the majority of the time spent on rail projects. My forty-plus years of experience encompasses both domestic and foreign projects.

My initial comment on your email is you have not listed the primary purpose and justification for a transport project (transit or roadway). The primary purpose of any transportation project must be to satisfy a travel need and the solution should be sized to resolve the transportation issues. The justifications you listed in your email are more attuned to development projects. And, even so, your research on the number of jobs the project would create (and, I assume it only refers to the development phase since the number is grossly overstated when the project gets to the operations phase) are not Florida jobs. In fact, most of the jobs are not even domestic. If you review the previous studies, going back to the Fluor proposal, you will find that all proposals have relied primarily on foreign products and foreign technology.

The most significant deficiency in the project is the lack of ridership. I have personally reviewed the ridership estimates over the several studies and I have yet to see a credible forecast that would justify the expenditure. Under the best of circumstances, the potential forecast market for the service in its design year is about 5,000 trips per day – a far cry from reaching a threshold value for an expenditure of the magnitude proposed.

A major prerequisite for an intercity HSR project is an adequate local public transport system at the major termini. Neither Lynx nor HART has the investment in place or the plan to get the investment in place to meet that requirement. Hence, in my opinion, the investment focus needs to be in the urban areas (Lakeland, too) in order for a HSR project to even be considered in the future.

As an aside, I have been an admirer and supporter of John Mica and his efforts to get high quality transit service into the Orlando area. And, I support his commuter rail project as an element of that plan. It is unfortunate that the light rail project was not carried to completion – it would have been even more valuable to the public transport system of the area. It is these types of projects that should be receiving moneys.