ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Tampa officials and the Hillsborough County Delegation made a stop in Orlando on Thursday to get an idea of how the high-speed rail could work in the Tampa area.
Among those who came by for the tour was Hillsborough County Commissioner, Michael Owen.
“We’ve got to find different ways in Hillsborough County and Tampa to move people rather than just moving vehicles,” Owen said.
Owen saw for himself how Brightline could eliminate some traffic problems on his way to Orlando on Thursday morning.
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“I had two 25-minute delays, and it was raining, and there were about two wrecks on the way here,” Owen said. “So the Brightline would probably avoid all that. So it’s a real problem. I-4 from Hillsborough County to Orlando, whether you’re going to Orlando for fun or work, it’s just a very difficult thing to traverse.”
Owen said both Orlando and Tampa have a lot to benefit from a potential Brightline expansion between the two cities.
“There’s a lot of tourism in Orlando, but I think there’s a lot of folks in Orlando who would love to go see a hockey game in Tampa, right,” Owen said. “I think they’d love to go see the Bucs play in Tampa. This would be an opportunity not only for Orlando to benefit from Tampa, but for us to benefit from Orlando’s residents doing tourism in Tampa.”
State lawmakers are also hoping to clear the way for more public transit options like Brightline. State Sen. Nick Diceglie filed Senate Bill 1226 on Wednesday, which would set aside a 44-foot-wide rail corridor within the right of way of I-4 from Orlando to Tampa if passed in the 2024 legislative session.
The bill also says the Florida Department of Transportation would cover the cost of the infrastructure needed to build the railway — but FDOT is authorized to recover those costs in any future lease agreement of the rail corridor.
To read the full bill text, click here.
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