In the report, the nine-member High Speed Rail Authority tells the governor and his Cabinet the first Orlando-to-Tampa leg of the line will have to be built either along Interstate 4 or on a railway company's rights of way to meet the mandated November 2003 construction start deadline.

The legislature and the governor need to sign off on the authority's recommendations before construction can begin. Bush was a Miami developer before entering politics.

Commercial real estate developers have been monitoring the bullet train project, hoping to spot new development niches either at the train stations or along its route. Voters in fall 2000 approved a constitutional amendment instructing state lawmakers to get the project moving by fall 2003. C.C. "Doc" Dockery, a wealthy Lakeland real estate investor and industrialist, used personal funds to spearhead the bullet train movement two years ago.