SunRail’s future: Who will keep trains running when state steps aside?

From nearly a decade ago when SunRail became reality for Central Florida, a vexing mystery has gone unsolved. Who would become the commuter-rail system’s permanent parent and keep its trains in good repair and on schedule after the state transportation department steps aside.

The stage is set to find out this year even as unfolding scenarios, said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, can seem “clear as mud.”

The parent may be the public-bus operator Lynx, Demings said, but Lynx likely would not continue to exist in its current form, especially if Orange County voters approve a penny increase in sales tax in November to pay for transportation improvements.

Demings said revenues of as much as $600 million would be transformational, allowing Orange County to fix a long and growing list of terribly crowded roads, but also to birth a sophisticated, multifaceted, public transportation system that surrounding counties could tie into and capitalize on.

Demings said with that vision he would be interested in consolidating Lynx, SunRail and perhaps – as an audacious and complex move – even the region’s toll-road agency, the Central Florida Expressway Authority.

“There’s even been some discussion about whether or not the expressway authority can play a role in this and, looking at models from around the country, to have a super agency,” Demings said.

While approval of an increase in county sales tax remains to be seen, there is a hard stop ahead.

SunRail was built with federal, state and local money, and the Florida Department of Transportation operates, maintains and upgrades the system at state cost.

The original plan was for DOT to turn SunRail over to Central Florida governments last year, but they were far from ready, the pandemic was disruptive and there was squabbling over whether the transportation agency had met its contractual obligations.

DOT did a reset, announcing it would hand off SunRail in 2024.

“We want to be a partner,” said Jared Perdue, secretary for the DOT’s Central Florida region, emphasizing during a recent meeting of SunRail partners that his agency plans to support the system’s success even while exiting from its current role.

“We are very interested in moving forward with the original agreements and honoring the spirit and intent of those because regional transit is very much something that is championed by local agencies all across the nation,” Perdue said.

With the 2024 deadline looming, and considered a blink of an eye away relative to the pace of local government, SunRail’s local partners – Volusia, Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties and the city of Orlando – must stay on track to pick a SunRail parent.

The partners hired an infrastructure consultant, WSP, to evaluate the condition and needs of SunRail, and to figure out how to identify a future home for the system.

WSP reported that SunRail trains and track are in very good condition. But a recommendation for the agency that will run the commuter system remains preliminary.

“We have surveyed every single commuter rail in America,” said Alan Danaher, WSP’s deputy project manager for writing a transition plan for SunRail, adding there are 31 such systems. “To a ‘T’ pretty much, all of them are managed by public entities.”

Danaher said WSP analysis estimated the SunRail could become: its own, fully staffed agency with nearly 200 employees; it could exist as an organization of 50 executives and managers paired with a workforce of subcontractors; or it could become a system of 10 leaders who contract for all services to be done by another agency, such as Lynx.

In considering a parent best suited for SunRail, WSP compared Lynx against a pair of straw candidates, the Central Florida Expressway Authority and the privately owned Brightline Trains, which is extending upscale passenger service from South to Central Florida, and plans to reach the Tampa Bay area.

While the expressway authority and Brightline were not serious contenders for the job of running SunRail, Lynx outscored them overall in WSP’s evaluation.

Seminole County Commissioner Bob Dallari on Thursday urged SunRail’s local partners to also look at the Florida Department of Transportation as the hired agency that operates the commuter system in the future.

Demings, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Osceola County Commissioner Viviana Janer pushed back at that suggestion as a potential window for state government and the legislature to jeopardize local say over SunRail’s operations and evolution.

“It is not in our control whether we can get the legislature to do something, or the leadership of DOT,” Dyer said. “I’m a little hesitant to go down that road, knowing that the political whims are something that we don’t control.”

This spring and summer, WSP will report back to SunRail commission of local partners with final recommendations.

Demings said he “leans toward Lynx personally and professionally” as the agency for adopting SunRail.

“But keep in mind that under a new governance structure, it wouldn’t be Lynx anymore,” Demings said. “It would be this regional authority that should be working in the best interests of all of us.”

kspear@orlandosentinel.com