Florida has a lot of self-inflicted wounds as a result of mindless devotion to rapacious developers. One of the most horrible is our lack of a suitable transportation system, both regionally and statewide. Not only is each major metropolitan area frozen with gridlock, but due to the peninsular nature of the state, it takes hours to get from one end to the other. (The strangeness of this last fact was brought to my attention by my recent visit to Cincinnati, where one detours into Kentucky as a short cut to get from one part of the city to another.)
Both the citizens and the tourism department are getting fed up with this, but high speed rail proposals keep getting shot down in elections. Last fall, though, a different approach was tried. Floridians amended the state constitution to require development of a state-spanning rail system, with ground to be broken by fall of 2003. That’s right—we changed to laws of the state to require better transportation, but neglected to add any clues as to (a) where it should go, or (b) how it should be funded.< ?p?>
Some days I am sure we get what we deserve.
Fortunately, one of Florida’s less well-known gubernatorial candidates has a proposal which will resolve this dilemma: a bullet train. No, not one of those slick European style diesel numbers. When W. Gauthier Marx says bullet, that’s exactly what he means.
