Obama Announces Huge Plan

Last week President Obama paid a visit to the University of Tampa to deliver an important speech to students and faculty there. The speech came a day after his State of the Union address and many felt it was another chance for him to detail his plans going into the future. It was also a great opportunity for the president to get some feedback and questions from many young people.


The line to purchase tickets was upwards of a four hour wait and many weren’t even lucky enough to acquire one. Others who actually purchased a ticket weren’t allowed into the event due to Tampa’s fire marshal closing the doors because of brimming capacity.

The highlight of Obama’s speech however, was his announcement of a new high speed rail system that will eventually span 31 states and be a new mode of transportation going forward in the 21st century. The rail is an effort to relieve pressure on national highways and on our environment due to carbon emissions.

Why the announcement here at the University of Tampa? The President announced that when all research was said and done, the corridor between Orlando and Tampa was best prepared to handle such a rail and that construction of the massive project would begin here.

I asked UT senior Dale Killa, a native of both England and South Africa for much of his life, what his thoughts were on the impending project. “I think it’s really good for the community cause there’s no real rail transport system here in the U.S. Florida is lacking in it’s own rail public transport system so the new project can only help that situation.”

I also wanted to find out from the younger people at UT, who might get to see a portion of this rail function in the future, how they felt about it. To get a younger perspective on the situation I went to UT freshman Jess Bernard. “I think it’s a great idea especially for like travelling and stuff because it’ll save a ton of money and it’ll seriously shorten the trip between Tampa and Orlando. It’ll probably help out tourism too for people travelling to or from Orlando.”

Clearly many are excited for this new rail coming to Florida. However it looks as if it will be many years before we get to see the new project in working fashion.