http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-03-1... Real reason behind decision to derail high-speed rail
March 19, 2011|By Curt Levine
Rick Scott's decision to reject federal funds to construct Florida's high-speed rail project was no surprise to observers who knew Scott's game plan. When Scott appointed Robert Poole as his transportation advisor, it sounded the death knell for any type of non-highway-based mass-transit public transportation projects in Florida during Scott's administration.
Poole is director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, a right-wing lobby group of road-based transportation industrial interests, including petroleum, asphalt and rubber-tire manufacturers. And, not coincidentally, Reason receives substantial funding by the ultraconservative billionaire Koch brothers. David Koch serves as a Reason trustee.
Scott claimed he was rejecting federal funding for Florida's high-speed rail project based upon a Reason Foundation report of Jan. 6, 2011, authored by Wendell Cox, head of the Wendell Cox Consultancy. Cox claims to be a disinterested, independent transportation consultant, but has long been known as an opponent of rail transit projects and on the roster of the Reason Foundation and other highway promoters such as the American Highway Users Alliance, a pro-highway construction lobby group.
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The Reason Foundation report urged Scott to cancel the high-speed rail project "as Wisconsin and Ohio have recently done." Scott complied. Will Florida be the next Wisconsin?
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One of the paragraphs snipped out there is about Jeb Bush, who "relied on Poole and the Reason Foundation as cover" when he derailed plans for a bullet train after Floridians had voted for it. His decision to do so makes much more sense when you know who's behind the Reason Foundation.
Curt Levine, who wrote this piece, is a former Florida state representative.
