High-speed rail plans bypass Tampa's Union Station

For nearly a century, Tampa's Union Station has been a hub for rail transit.

The two-story, Italian Renaissance revival-style station, at 601 N. Nebraska Ave., helped shape this port city, bringing in northern speculators, citrus and Cuban tobacco essential to Ybor City's cigar makers.

When it was renovated a decade ago, officials hoped the station would return to its former glory - serving as a catalyst that would usher in a new age of rail travel.

But as plans for a regional high-speed system serving West Central Florida begin to take shape, it's becoming clear that the landmark terminal will be bypassed.

Under the Florida Department of Transportation's plans for a high-speed rail line between Orlando and Tampa, the trains would run along the Interstate 4 corridor and stop at a yet-to-be-built station at the former Hillsborough County jail on Morgan Street, not at Union Station.

"It's very shortsighted," said Jackson McQuigg, head of Friends of Tampa Union Station, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the station's legacy. "Everywhere in the world, there's at least some connectivity between high-speed and conventional rail systems."

McQuigg said the DOT's plans would create a "disconnect" between Union Station, which is served by Amtrak's Silver Star line between New York and Miami, and the proposed station more than six blocks away. He said there are no plans to connect them.

"As far as I can tell, they DOT haven't even considered it," he said. "It's puzzling."

Don Skelton, DOT's District 7 secretary, said the new station would connect with 26 existing bus routes, the in-town trolley and possibly a light-rail line to Union Station.

"You'll be able to catch a bus or light rail to other destinations in the city," he said.

The DOT recently bought the 4.6-acre former county jail property for about $3.9 million.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and members of the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority are mapping out a proposed light-rail system that would link downtown with the West Shore area, Tampa International Airport and the University of South Florida.

They want to put a question on the ballot in 2010 asking voters to back a sales tax for transit, which, if approved, could help win federal funding to construct the system.

Elaine McCloud, Tampa's transit manager, said the city hopes state transportation officials will incorporate Union Station into the high-speed rail system.

"There has to be connectivity," she said. "It can't just be a train to nowhere."

In 2002, a consulting firm hired by the DOT to study potential routes and stations for the Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail line concluded that Union Station was not a good fit.

PBS&J Consulting determined DOT would need 5 to 20 acres for the new station and parking, and that there wasn't enough available near Union Station.

It also concluded that using the I-4 corridor would save the DOT, and state taxpayers, tens of millions of dollars in land acquisition costs and for obtaining right of way over tracks to Union Station, which are owned by CSX Transportation.

Florida is considered by some to be a leading candidate for a chunk of the money that President Barack Obama wants to spend on 10 inter-city, high-speed rail corridors.

The state has already reserved right of way for a rail corridor along I-4 and spent more than $30 million on environmental studies connected with the proposed project.

Even if the federal government decides to fund Florida's high-speed rail system, it could be years, possibly decades, before the trains start running between Orlando and Tampa.

Union Station, which was built in 1912 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was in decline until city and local historic preservationists got involved.

The station underwent a $2.6 million face-lift in 1998 and expects to get $1.6 million in federal funding to improve the aging canopy over the tracks and upgrade the platform to comply with Amtrak and Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

McQuigg doesn't want to see those investments go to waste.

"This is a piece of Tampa's legacy," he said. "We don't want to see it marginalized."