WASHINGTON: Port Canaveral Commissioner Bob Harvey has raised new questions about the port’s efforts to pursue cargo rail. Port commissioners last month unanimously approved designating a route through Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as the only one they would consider for a rail project linking the port’s cargo area to the Florida East Coast Railway tracks on the mainland, just west of U.S. 1. That route would cost an estimated $75.48 million, according to a feasibility study completed last month by port consultant TranSystems Corp. of Jacksonville. Commissioners said they no longer wanted to consider two more controversial and more expensive proposals — one over the Banana River and through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and another one that would run parallel to State Road 528. But, in a Facebook post this weekend, Harvey sparked questions about whether other port cargo rail proposals are dead — or just on the back burner.
The post included a copy of a Nov. 9, 2015, letter to another port consultant from the Victoria Rutson, director of the Office of Environmental Analysis at the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that has jurisdiction over the construction of rail routes. Rutson’s letter indicated that “the final scope of study will identify the alternatives being carried forward” in a draft environmental impact study “for detailed study and the alternatives being dismissed, based on all the information available at that time.” Harvey and others who have been opposed to the proposed route over the Banana River are concerned that is an indication that the Surface Transportation Board might continue to consider the Banana River route, despite the objection of port commissioners. “Over a year ago, the port received the attached letter, clearly stating that the STB was going to study all routes, regardless of what the commission said about the Air Station route,” Harvey said in his post. Harvey also sought community feedback on the issue, including whether the port should approve more money for TranSystems to continue working with the port on the Air Force station route.
