Commissioner Mariella Smith's response to the Tampa Bay Times

The Times wrote, “There is no reason local taxpayers should be paying for express service to MacDill” — by ferry. Yet they have never said that we should stop funding the express service to MacDill by bus, and ferry service is quicker and more efficient. HART’s 3 express bus lines from South County to MacDill transported 121,926 riders last year. These are the only express routes to see consistent increases in ridership, with a combined 10.5% growth in the past year. The demand for commuter transit services to MacDill is great.

Every day 18,000 people stream into MacDill Air Force Base. Most of them have no other choice but to drive a car alone to the base. The Ferry will not only provide a quicker, more direct route for commuters to MacDill, it will also remove thousands of cars from the roads during rush hour, from South County to Bayshore, making commutes easier for other drivers and reducing pollution and wear and tear on our roads.

I don’t understand why the Times singles out the workers of MacDill as any less deserving of public transit options than any other commuters. We should strive to provide mass transit wherever we can identify any large group of commuters regularly traveling from one area to another, regardless of whether those people are working at a private company, a public agency, or a military base. The MacDill route is a great place to start commuter service by ferry.

Meanwhile, the evening and weekend service connecting South County to Tampa and St. Pete will provide transit service to South County — an underserved area that has so far not seen much benefit from the tax dollars they contribute to our transportation system. This is why I constantly hear a lot of enthusiasm expressed for this ferry service in South County. And the high ridership numbers from the Cross-Bay Ferry Pilot Project definitely justify increasing ferry service on the Tampa – St. Pete route.

We have been working on this high-speed ferry transit project for 6 years now. No one has come up with a better plan, and no ferry company has offered us a better deal than the current offer by HMS Ferries’ commitment to pay all the operating costs for 20 years.

If we proceed with this ferry project, it can be the start of more robust ferry service in our future. But if naysaying and foot-dragging finally sinks this ferry project, odds are we will not see another opportunity to have ferry transit crossing Tampa Bay for decades to come.

Mariella Smith