TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A bill requiring Florida’s Department of Transportation to preserve a corridor between Orlando and Tampa for future Brightline expansion has been filed for the state legislative session that begins next week.
The Brightline requirement, preserving a route along Interstate 4, is just one provision of SB1226, filed by state Sen. Nick DiCeglie (R-Indian Rocks Beach, Fla.), chairman of the transportation committee, on Wednesday. It also deals with such matters as administrative costs for public transit agencies and funding for landscaping on highway projects.
The Brightling portion requires a 44-foot corridor along Interstate 4 be preserved, along with minimum vertical clearance for rail traffic, and would require that future work along I-4 include grading and placement of drainage and other improvements for that future corridor. The Department of Transportation will track the costs for these improvements and would be authorized to recover them in a future lease of the rail corridor.
Brightline has long planned an eventual expansion of service to Tampa; the state received an almost $16 million federal grant to begin preliminary engineering on that extension in 2022 [see “Florida receives $15.875 million engineering grant …,” Trains News Wire, June 2, 2022]. The most challenging part of the project is likely to be the connection between Orlando International Airport and I-4, the so-called “Sunshine Corridor” project, where no clear right-of-way path exists. That could take up to 10 years to build [see “Brightline, SunRail ‘Sunshine Corridor’ project could cost $6 billion …,” News Wire, Sept. 6, 2022].
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