In our view, Connect Us believes that we should take the President and Vice President at their word that the $1.25 billion this represents a down payment and get on with building the first leg of the system, going as far as $1.25 billion will take us.  Right now , Florida is in the pole position in terms of readiness.  We also are the poster child of the national High Speed rail program, so we will carry substantial weight and preference if there is any competition for funds with the other twelve corridors.    Further, the Administration and Congress are presently prepared to invest at least another $6 billion into HSR projects around the nation over the next four years.   Connect Us plans to stay engaged in this process so that you stay informed and so there is a positive voice for disciplined progress and continued funding.       

It is our observation that FDOT is powering up to meet the challenge.  FDOT Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos has appointed FDOT Deputy Secretary Kevin Thibault as Interim Executive Director and Nazih Haddad as the COO of the Florida Rail Enterprise Fund.   Both are strong appointments who will provide capable and experienced leadership.   The Department has its legal and financial consultant teams selected and will shortly select the general consultant for the High Speed rail project.  The bottomline is that FDOT will have its project team in the saddle within thirty days or so.  

These preliminary steps are vital because Florida plans to structure a competition to select private sector teams to design, build, operate and maintain the system.   The goal is to select the most competent, experienced private sector team that will build the best project at the lowest guaranteed maximum price.  Florida also desires to secure guarantees from private operators that they will cover all operating expenses.  Florida knows that there is vast private sector interest in Florida HSR as it held a vendor conference in early December, 2009, which over 600 industry representatives attended. 

Here are how things may unfold from a timing perspective.

Some preliminary corridor work like land clearance, drainage improvements and safety barriers may get built this year in order to create immediate work while the more complicated portions of the project are being bid.

The bigger task is the creation of detailed bid documents, which will involve undertaking necessary design, engineering and other study efforts to put together a great bid package.  This will likely take six months. 

We anticipate that bid packages will be sent out to prequalified project teams in the fall of this year.   Bids will probably be due on a relatively truncated time frame, and a vendor team selected by spring of next year.  It is entirely possible that FDOT will separate the civil construction side of the work from the final stages of construction and selection of the system operator. 

In any event, it is likely that major construction will commence late in the second half of 2011.   How far it gets is subject to a lot of variables including financing.