Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday the state would cancel a planned high-speed rail line linking Tampa to Orlando, a signature project of President Barack Obama's high-speed rail initiative.
Mr. Scott is the third Republican governor elected in November to turn down a portion of the administration’s national rail system, joining John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Each of the three replaced governors who had lobbied for the funds.
Mr. Scott’s move comes a little more than a week after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called for spending $53 billion on passenger trains and high-speed rail projects over the next six years as part of the administration’s goal of making high-speed rail accessible to 80 percent of Americans within 25 years.
The Tampa-to-Orlando segment, one of two high speed lines in which trains would travel as fast as 225 miles per hour, was to be the showpiece of that initiative — in part because the government already owned much of the right-of-way along the route, which would allow it to be built relatively quickly, and because the fast-moving train would contrast with slow-moving traffic along Interstate 4.
But critics — including the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, which has questioned the White House’s rail strategy — say the need to link Tampa and Orlando, separated by about 84 miles, pales in comparison with the need for high-speed rail serving places that have received relatively little in federal economic stimulus funds for transportation projects, including the busy Northeast rail corridor between Washington and Boston.
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