Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasonhouse
So who all exactly is trying to get FL's money, now that Rick Scott has proven to be a knee-jerk ideologue? And what exactly are they going to do with it? (upgrade to 110mph? do some real HSR?)
I know that NY, IL, CA and WA have specifically expressed interest in a cut of the money FL gave up. Who else?
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The Florida HSR situation is still in play because a number of Republicans are mad at Gov. Scot and want the federal money to spent in FL. LaHood is giving a week to work out a deal. But it can be difficult to work around a obstinate Governor who could refuse to cooperate on signing documents, and work to delay and stall the project.
if the FL HSR is killed, then it is up to the FRA and LaHood to figure out what to do with it. There are 2 pots of money that was awarded for the FL HSR project: around $1.6 billion of HSIPR stimulus and $800 million of FY2010 HSIPR which requires a 20% state match. To reallocate the funds quickly they will have to go to applications that were submitted. But there were a lot more applications for the HSIPR funds than were available.
I would expect CA HSR will get a good sized chunk of the funds as it has become the only true HSR project that has the EIS work in place. But there a lot of other projects out there that would make significant improvements in passenger rail in the next few years, not the 10+ years it will take for CA HSR to start LA to San Fran operations.
Good candidates for more funding are:
Chicago to St. Louis corridor
Chicago to Detroit corridor, specifically Kalamazoo to Detroit
Keystone East corridor in PA - PA applied for $490 million to upgrade it to 125 mph speeds and got only $26 million.
NY State Empire corridor
CT for the New Haven to Springfield MA corridor
NEC - maybe for the Portal bridge project or several smaller projects
NC and VA - could make a bold move and fund much of the Petersburg VA to Raleigh NC part of the Southeast HSR corridor which is close to finishing up the Tier II EIS.
Cascades corridor - might get more but WA state has already done well.
However, the H.R. 1 bill that was passed by the House late Friday night had in it language to rescind ALL of the FY10 HSIPR and Tiger grant funding and all of the unobligated HSIPR stimulus funds. There were a bunch of amendments passed which may have changed the rescissions. Of course, this all goes to the Senate, but rescinding the funds is not out of the question.