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TAMPA — A Coral Gables passenger rail company intends to build a privately owned and operated rail service that would connect Orlando to South Florida, with a potential addition to Tampa.
The company, Florida East Coast Industries, says the rail service could be operational by 2014. The service will be called All Aboard Florida, according to a press statement released late Thursday.
The project will cost about $1 billion, the firm says, and there are no plans to seek public funding for any phase, from construction to future maintenance. The past few large-scale rail service projects in the state have failed to get traction, in part because the proposals included taxpayer-funded elements. Florida East Coast officials say the project could create 6,000 construction jobs, and another 1,000 jobs to operate the system.
The service will initially use 200 miles of track between Cocoa and Miami that Florida East Coast already owns, according to the release. The company says it will build 40 miles of new track to connect Cocoa to Orlando. The firm hopes to eventually extend the Orlando tracks northeast, to Jacksonville, and west, to Tampa.
Florida East Coast, which conducted a feasibility analysis for the project, estimates 50 million people travel on Florida roads between Central Florida and South Florida every year. It expects passengers who ride the service will be a mix between leisure and business travelers. A train ride from Orlando to South Florida, the company says, will take about three hours. The train cars have Wi-Fi Internet capabilities.
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