Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Things go slow

Henry Flagler would have put this plan on the fast track
By Howard Goodman | Commentary

We need Henry Flagler back.
In his day, when an industrial magnate could be king of all he surveyed, things got done in the state of Florida.
Once the right-hand man of John D. Rockefeller, Flagler moved here in the 1880s and basically built the town of St. Augustine.
Bringing civilization to the hinterlands of Florida gave Flagler a second career and a new self-image. No longer a grasping oil baron, he was now a far-seeing railroad man, conqueror of wilderness, futurist.
Heading where it was even warmer. So, he extended his railroad 200 miles south, where he envisioned virgin land becoming the luxury resort of Palm Beach and a commercial adjunct, West Palm Beach.
When his tracks reached the shores of Lake Worth, he built big hotels for the Social Register's "400" and the Palm Beach mansion for himself that's now the Flagler Museum.
When a frost hit West Palm, Flagler was persuaded to take his rail line even farther south -- to the sweltering little frontier outpost of Miami.
When he got to Biscayne Bay, he built an electric plant, water works, sewage system, churches and a golf course.
The grateful citizenry wanted to rename the town in his honor.
But he begged off, and that's why the Miami Dolphins are not the Flagler Dolphins.
Extraordinary stuff.
And what's truly astounding is how quickly Flagler did it all.
It took, for example, just two years to build that rail line from Fort Pierce to Miami.
Flagler's train line reached Fort Pierce on Jan. 29, 1894. Even with a three-month hiatus, it hit Miami by April 1896.
Now Flagler's old line, the Florida East Coast Railway, is being seriously considered for passenger travel in metro South Florida, population 5 million and counting.
This is a wonderful idea. You could board in downtown West Palm and hop off in the middle of Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami or any number of increasingly urbanized spots along Dixie Highway.
It would be a great alternative to traffic jams and a better bet than Tri-Rail, where most stops don't leave you within walking distance of anywhere.
But even the most optimistic rail buffs don't see passenger trains rolling on those FEC lines until, ahem, 2015.
That's eight years from now. Four times as long as it took Henry Flagler to build the thing in the first place.
It will take that long because the FEC's owners say they might share their tracks with passenger trains,
but only if their freight cars get priority. That means adding two or three more tracks, an expensive proposition. To get the federal money we'd need, South Florida as a region would have to apply for competitive grants, first proving we can pay our half of capital costs. Which means a new local tax.
We're talking environmental studies, local land-use decisions, and on and on.
Flagler didn't have to deal with red tape. Of course, in the 1890s he didn't have to treat workers humanely or worry about the manatee.
The state was happy to see the rich guy take control of a project and go at it.
"To build infrastructure in the state, there was no tax base. So he was a hero. They couldn't do enough for him," says Les Standiford, author of Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean.
Just look at the way we've complicated our world.
The Empire State Building? It took a little more than year to build it in 1930-31, the depth of the Depression.
The Pentagon? It took 16 months during World War II.
Florida's Turnpike? Just two years to build the 110 miles from Fort Pierce to Miami.
Now, it can take two years to redo an interchange.
In an age when everything from communications to courtship is faster than in our grandparents' day, it seems that getting big things done takes longer and longer.
What's missing, maybe, is the will.
I'll bet if Flagler were still around, he'd find a way to get this baby finished.
"I guarantee, if he thought there was a dollar in putting passengers on that line, I doubt very much it would ake him until 2015 to get it done," Standiford says.