Southwest Florida considers bringing back commuter trains

If you're waiting on a train in Southwest Florida, you might have a long wait - and when it does arrive, it'll be murder, reports the Naples News. The most consistent rail service south of Arcadia is on the Seminole Gulf Railway Murder Mystery Dinner Train. Those trips run a loop north from a station near Colonial Boulevard and Metro Parkway to about the Charlotte County line five nights a week.

Seminole Gulf does run
about one freight train a week as far south as Alico Road. The company runs
freight trains into Fort Myers from the north two or three times a week.
Service, when demanded, reaches as far south as Railhead Park near Wiggins Pass
in North Naples.

At one time there were
competing tracks, one running as far south as downtown Naples and another all
the way to Marco Island. There’s been no passenger rail in Southwest Florida
since the old Seaboard Coast Line halted service in 1971.

Some say that’s a shame,
and with gas prices high and economic times tough, they could be right. Both Lee
County and Charlotte County have asked for federal stimulus money for rail. When
the Lee Metropolitan Planning Organization voted to apply for a $48-million
stimulus grant, members talked glowingly about alternate forms of
transportation and mass transit.

"We’re talking about a
paradigm shift," Fort Myers Councilman and MPO member Warren Wright said. "I
feel like this is a special and unique opportunity."

Maybe. The grant would
come through the so-called TIGER program, which stands for Transportation
Improvements Generating Economic Recovery. Criteria call for outside-the-box
projects and mass transit. Nevertheless, the MPO hedged its bets and asked for
$20 million for Interstate 75, too.

And not everyone was
behind the rail. Florida Department of Transportation District One Secretary
Stan Cann said he hates encouraging rail projects because there’s been no
full-blown feasibility study in Southwest Florida and the federal government
has been reluctant to give money without one.

"I know how the federal
government works," he said. "There’s a lot of planning that goes into deciding
what corridor serves an area, and a lot of questions about what we’re doing
here. Is this the rail corridor? Is 75? 41? Something closer to the coast?"

MPO Director Don Scott
said he’s talked to federal railroad officials about a possible grant for the
study, which he said might cost $200,000. The study isn’t included in the
current grant application.

The existing rails are
owned by Seminole Gulf, but the land beneath is owned by CSX Transportation.
The companies are in the middle of one 20-year lease, Seminole Gulf vice
president Mike Curley told the MPO, and have already executed the option for
another 20. That means the tracks are leased to the railroad for the next 48
years.

The lease covers 65 miles
of track from Arcadia to close to Wiggins Pass. Along the way, it passes
through downtown Fort Myers, hugs heavily commercial Metro Parkway and passes
close to the Coconut Point mall.

Harry Neeves, vice
president for real estate and public projects for Seminole Gulf, said even the
limited service the company provides now keeps 50,000 trucks a year off I-75. Neeves
said the railroad has nine locomotives working in Southwest Florida and over
100 boxcars on the rails around the country. He said the railroad would welcome
a feasibility study.

The grant money would be
divided between track improvements – $10.3 million to replace aging tracks
between Colonial and Charlotte County and repair the bridge over the
Caloosahatchee – and public purchase of rail right-of-way.

It may be moot, however.
The TIGER program is funded to the tune of $1.5 billion nationally. The Florida
share works out to about $30 million.

"This may not get us to
where most of us feel we need to go," Bonita Councilman John Spear said. "But
it’s an unmistakable first step."