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Tale Of Two Cities: How Lakeland And Ocala Have Dealt Differently With CSX Project

Posted Apr 12, 2007 by Billy Townsend

Updated Apr 12, 2007 at 02:02 PM

I spoke today with Fred Wise, manager of the Florida Department of Transportation’s rail office.

He is one of the point men in the ongoing negotiations with CSX over the proposed $491 million deal that would reorganize freight rail traffic in the state, create an Orlando commuter rail corridor and bring the giant CSX integrated logistics hub to Winter Haven.

Wise, like CSX, emphasizes that the deal isn’t done yet. It’s a highly complicated agreement, running to hundreds and hundreds of pages. There’s no formal timetable for cementing it.

But what I found particularly interesting about the conversation was the difference in how the state and CSX have treated Ocala and how they’ve treated Lakeland. Both cities can expect extensive and comparable increases in train traffic.

Lakeland civic and business officials next week will hold their first meetings with CSX about the ILC and rail realignment.

By comparison, Ocala had a visit in July from a top CSX executive. In August, the Ocala/Marion Transportation Planning Organization grilled Denver Stutler, the former DOT state secretary. Here’s an account from the Ocala Star-Banner newspaper.

In addition, the state and CSX have carried out a “diagnostic review” of the Ocala rail corridor. It studied the impacts of the rail deal and possible approaches to easing them. An overpass will replace at least one rail crossing in the area.

So why has the state and CSX paid so much more attention to Ocala than to Lakeland and Polk County generally?

There’s a simple answer: State and local officials in the Ocala area see the plan as damaging to their city, and they have demanded attention.

“The Ocala area really got vocal,” Wise said.

The Polk TPO – made up of local elected officials - has not discussed the possible impacts of the CSX project. But its staff has worked with CSX on possible access roads, according to Tom Deardorff, the TPO’s staff director.

In fact, while I was asking Wise about this, he said it was the first he’d heard about Lakeland impacts or any related concerns. And he asked me if I was representing the city of Lakeland. For the record, I am not.

He said a similar process to the one Ocala has gone through “needs to happen” in Lakeland.