The Senate unanimously signed off on a bill that was supposed to include a bail-out for South Florida’s TriRail commuter system.

But a controversial component that would have spent more than $500 million to create the controversial SunRail commuter rail system near Orlando ultimately threw TriRail under the bus.

A $2 rental car surcharge that would have gone to pay for TriRail was the carrot to lure opponents of the SunRail deal – where the state would pay transportation behemoth CSX more than $500 million to purchase track and make improvements on its rail lines – to support the measure (HB 1021).

But Sunrail backers did not have enough support and quietly withdrew amendments on a Department of Transportation package with no discussion this morning. Bye-bye, TriRail.

Watch for it to come up on other transportation bills. Backers have until the end of the day to push both or either rail deal through.

The package does include a provision allowing state transportation officials to pay losing bidders on high-dollar contracts, which they have been doing for years without the authority.

DOT says they need to pay the losers so they can use components of their plans in other projects.

Although they’ve spent millions of dollars paying losing bidders on “design/build” contracts, transportation officials have no record of how many of the “stipends” they’ve paid for have been actually used or for which projects.

“So as I understand the stipend is we pay the losing bidders?” Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico asked the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Andy Gardiner.

“I think that’s subject to interpretation,” Gardiner, R-Orlando, replied.

The Senate made a slight change to the bill and it goes back to the House.

Tags: state agencies, state budget, State House, State Senate

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 11:32 am and is filed under legislature, State House, State Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.