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State Sen. Paula Dockery, the leading opponent of the state’s proposed $649 million commuter rail deal with CSX, says a poll she commissioned in what is supposedly the heartland of support for the deal shows residents there aren’t so favorable toward the deal when they learn about it.
Dockery, a Lakeland Republican, commissioned the poll of voters in Volusia, Seminole, Orange, and Osceola counties, where the commuter system would be built—and the home of many legislators who support it.
The poll used a technique common in political polling, but sometimes used to push the results in a specific direction: Giving respondents statements or information on a situation before asking the respondents’ opinions. The results, Dockery said, show that when the respondents were given certain details of the deal, a majority are less likely to support it. For example:
-- When told the negotiations for the deal were “conducted in private without public hearings,” Dockery said, 72 percent said they would be less likely to support the deal.
-- When told that it would take nearly two and a half hours to travel the proposed route from DeLand to Poinciana, 55 percent said they would be less likely to support the deal.
-- Sixty percent said the Legislature “should not approve a bill that removes CSX’s liability.” The deal was stalled this spring when the state Legislature refused to approve a key provision making the state liable for all accidents involving passenger trains on the line, even if CSX, which would still use the line, caused them.
-- By a 51 to 22 percent margin, respondents were less likely to support the deal when they learned that South Florida’s Tri-Rail “is considered a success but…it still receives almost $40 million in local and state taxpayer subsidies.”
Most respondents reacted favorably to statements that the rail system would take cars off I-4 corridor” and provide an alternative to driving between DeBary and Osceola County.
Dockery’s poll may be a response to a similar poll done by advocates of the deal in her home county of Polk, which they said showed residents favored the deal.
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