June 19, 2018
After winning approval Tuesday from Orange County commissioners, the company planning a high-speed passenger train linking Orlando with Miami expects to start laying rail in Central Florida later this year, a project executive said.
The 235-mile rail service includes a 22-mile stretch through Orange County that runs parallel to State Road 528 beginning at the St. Johns River and running to Orlando International Airport, mostly through protected wetlands.
The plan to ease the direct impact on 106 acres of wetlands required a permit approved by commissioners.
Michael Cegelis, executive vice president of rail infrastructure at Brightline Trains, said the proposed rail route from the airport terminal isn’t the shortest or most direct through the county to the east coast but it is “the path of least disruption.”
The company could have gone south from the airport, which would have been a shorter route to the coast.
“But that would have been all virgin territory,” Cegelis said.
The company chose to run through wetlands along the toll-road bed, which accommodates cars and trucks.
“To make public transportation work, there are times when you have [to accept] impacts,” Orange county Mayor Teresa Jacobs said, crediting the effort to minimize effects on wetlands. “They could have carved a whole new path and created a great deal more impact.”
Commissioner Emily Bonilla, who was elected on a conservation platform, concurred.
“Of all the options, this is the best,” she said.
There are no scheduled stops on the segment between Orlando and West Palm.
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