Fifty years after the decline in America's passenger rail service that left Tampa with one daily train, President Obama will award $1.25 billion in federal stimulus funds to help build a Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail line. The project is expected to create 23,000 construction jobs and energize business development, along with improved mobility planned by late 2014.

Obama and Vice President Biden will discuss jobs creation at a town hall meeting today on the University of Tampa campus, a symbolic venue where Plant Hall commemorates the role of a 19th century entrepreneur who built the railroad that transformed Tampa into a major trade center.

The $8 billion in Recovery Act grants will go to 13 potential U.S. rail corridors.

Although the award to Florida is about half of what the state requested, State Sen. Paula Dockery, a Lakeland Republican who has concentrated for the past several sessions on rail matters, said she doesn't think the state will have to make up the difference.

"It's not my understanding that Florida will have to backfill the rest," said Dockery, who is married to C.C. "Doc" Dockery, a member of the state's High Speed Rail Authority until last April. "It's a multiyear project, and the $8 billion in stimulus funding was for this year, and then there's supposed to be $1 billion a year for five years. But the devil's in the details; we'll see what they announce."

That extra $5 billion is high speed rail money that had been previously budgeted.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor was optimistic on Wednesday. "The president and vice president don't make minor announcements, they make major announcements," said the Tampa Democrat who is scheduled to fly with Obama from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., to MacDill Air Force Base on Air Force One this morning.

Even at less than what the state requested, she said, "it means thousands of jobs. Then the investments in the project will ensure we don't get into a crazy real estate bubble again."

While Obama and Biden are in Tampa, half a dozen other Cabinet members and senior administration officials will make the announcement in other cities at the same time.

Florida has been the odds-on favorite along with California and the Midwest to win high-speed stimulus fund awards in part because the state was farther along in planning and land acquisition. California tops the list of recipients with $2.34 billion; the Midwest receives $1.13 billion.

Financing for the Tampa-Orlando line could enable the Obama administration to reap political benefits from creating more than 20,000 construction jobs in a swing state with an 11-plus percent unemployment rate. An additional 1,100 permanent operations and maintenance jobs would be created along the Tampa-Orlando route, Florida said in its stimulus fund application.

Rail advocates think high-speed trains carrying passengers at speeds up to 160 mph between Tampa and Orlando could help reshape Florida's economy and land use for years to come, not unlike Henry Plant's successful vision more than 100 years ago.

The Orlando-Tampa route with stops in Lakeland, Disney/Celebration and the Orange County Convention Center could be followed by a $10 billion Orlando-Miami high-speed corridor by late 2017 if an as-yet undetermined source of funding becomes available.

That would forge a network planners think will provide the full benefits of a high-speed initiative, shrinking Florida and creating a culture of rail use and local transit feeder lines in a state reliant on the automobile.

Critics, however, argue a nationwide high-speed program could cost $500 billion and question whether it's just a costly boondoggle. They are likely to play a role in a tax-averse state since Obama is awarding Florida some but not all of the $2.56 billion needed to build the Tampa-Orlando line and state officials have to turn to taxpayers for the rest.

Still, advocates point to high-speed rail performance in Europe and Asia, along with Amtrak's Acela that has taken market share from airlines in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor.

"This will be a very significant transportation improvement for our region and will link two key metropolitan areas by something other than interstate," Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said this week.

"It will also provide an added boost to our plans to ask the voters of Hillsborough County if they want to fund a modern transit system within our county �€” better buses, roads and light rail �€” which will link to the high-speed rail."

Since Obama took office with an agenda including high-speed rail, a bipartisan group of Florida's elected officials, a broad segment of the business community and rail advocates hopped onboard the high-speed proposal.

Longtime Tampa area rail advocate Ed Turan�€�chik created a grassroots effort called FastRailConnectUs that galvanized support via the Internet.

Florida's high-speed rail initiatives appeared moribund in 2004 after voters overturned the pro-high-speed rail constitutional amendment voters adopted four years earlier. Since then, the Florida Department of Transportation has maintained planning behind the scenes, providing a head start for the state's stimulus fund application.

Florida will provide property worth about $560 million in the median of I-4 and State Road 528 in the Orlando area, which covers most of the proposed double-track rail route. That boosts the total capital project to build and equip the Tampa-Orlando route to beyond $3 billion in value.

The 14 to 22 daily round-trip trains between Tampa and Orlando are projected to create revenue sufficient to cover operational costs and would, by 2040, turn a $126.5 million surplus, two investment grade studies subsequently reviewed by University of South Florida's urban transportation department. Investment grade reports are conducted under guidelines to provide some degree of assurance for banks to provide financial backing. Possible fares between Tampa and Disney could range from $8.75 to $25.

Central Florida's high-speed train, which the state envisions as being powered by overhead electric wires and capable of carrying 250 passengers, would leave the Tampa station in the vicinity of the former Morgan Street Jail just east of the Hillsborough River and south of I-75.

It would hug the northbound portion of the interstate until it reaches a point near 15th Street in Ybor City, where it would move to the median of I-4 eastbound to Lakeland and Orlando. Five small historic Ybor City houses are in the rail path and a limited amount of land at the Perry Harvey Sr. Park would be required.

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