Published: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 11:56 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 11:56 p.m.
LAKELAND | Florida transportation officials should consider both the USF Poly and Kathleen Road locations as possible sites for Polk's high-speed rail station, the Polk Transportation Planning Organization board unanimously recommended Tuesday.
The decision came at the end of a 3 1/2-hour special meeting of the 19-member board at The Lakeland Center. It drew about 100 spectators.
Little discussion followed Auburndale City Commissioner Jack Myers' motion to ask Florida Department of Transportation officials to consider both sites. Under the motion, the site adjacent to the USF Poly campus would be the number one priority and the Kathleen Road site would be the second priority.
The motion defused a potentially divisive debate over the station site between Lakeland officials and officials in several eastern Polk County communities.
Although the Lakeland City Commission had taken no official position on a station site during the current discussion, commissioners had passed a resolution in 2003 favoring the Kathleen Road site.
Officials in Auburndale, Haines City, Lake Alfred and Winter Haven had passed resolutions favoring the USF Poly site.
The DOT ultimately will decide where the station will be placed, and DOT officials had been pressing the TPO to make a recommendation to allow transportation officials to proceed with planning of the 84-mile rail line between Tampa and Orlando International Airport.
The urgency came after the announcement of the award of $1.25 billion in federal funds by President Barack Obama to encourage high-speed rail development. The project is estimated to cost $2.6 billion and federal officials have pledged to appropriate the rest.
The project is totally funded by federal dollars. There is no state-required match, according to DOT officials.
TPO's selection of two possible sites wasn't a problem, Kevin Thibault, interim executive director for DOT's Florida Rail Enterprise, said after the vote.
"This gives us some direction and narrows down the choices," he said.
He said the next step will be to examine more closely the two sites in terms of potential ridership and any engineering issues, and to come up with a recommended station site.
Thibault said the DOT hoped to have a decision by this summer.
He said it's possible DOT officials could send out proposals for both sites and get input from potential private operators of the line.
He said the operator will have "quite a bit of input" on the ultimate station site selection that DOT officials recommend.
The two proposed sites are quite different and advocates for each made arguments to the TPO board that emphasized their respective benefits.
Tom Cloud, an Orlando lawyer representing the Williams Acquisition Holding Co., argued that the site next to the USF Poly campus is the best location because of its links to the college's high-tech curriculum, its location along the "Interstate 4 high-tech corridor" and its location between the two major population centers in the county.
"This could change the face of Polk County," Cloud said.
Cloud said the earlier decision to put the station in a more urban location in 2005 didn't anticipate the establishment of the new college campus or the millions of dollars in infrastructure that and other projects in the area have attracted to improve the road network.
Lakeland planner Chuck Barmby argued that putting a stop near Kathleen Road provides links to existing transit, is centrally located between Tampa and Orlando and is near major medical, employment and sports venues.
He said the projected ridership numbers for the USF Poly station were lower than for the Kathleen Road site.
Access to the transit was a major issue during the debate.
Transit serves the Kathleen Road site, but not the USF Poly site and unless voters approve a sales tax referendum in November, it's unlikely the area will be served for a long time, Danny Ours, interim director of the Polk Transit Authority told board members.
Despite the board's unanimity, not everyone was happy with the choice.
Brenda Nestor, president of Victor Posner Enterprises, argued for consideration of a stop at I-4 and U.S. 27 near Victor Posner City Center.
"This is the crossroads of Polk County," she said.
County Commissioner Jean Reed said she favored giving the U.S. 27 site a look, too, but ended up voting for the motion.
[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. His blog on county government is at county/blogs/theledger.com. ]