Brand GOP: Victor Crist and Al Higginbotham

Two years ago hundreds of people demanded that we start the conversation on transportation, the commissioners responded by creating Go Hillsborough to find out what the public wants. 
The number one selection of 16 categories: transit.

Yet, two Commissioners 

Victor Crist and Al Higginbotham 
told the Tampa Tribune they intend to derail the Go Hillsborough public input process before it’s over. What's worse the public proposal isn't line with what citizens have already asked for: there is ZERO transit included.

County Commissioners, We join others in asking you do three things:

1) Keep your promise and listen to the public: they want a balance including transit

2) Work with other leaders to come up with a transportation proposal for all citizens 
& for future generations

3) Stop trying to derail the process by making proposals before it is over

here

Vote Yes on Greenlight

Hillsborough County Transportation Overview for a Comprehensive Mobility Proposal

Hillsborough Poll Shows Support For All Ttransit Options

Do Hillsborough County residents prefer their taxes be spent on better roads or do they want a more diverse array of transportation options, including rapid bus routes, light rail 
and a high-speed ferry?
It turns out they want all of the above

here

Connect Tampa Bay Transportation Proposal

WHEN: Thursday, January 30 at 6 PM

WHERE: 120 W Gasparilla Plaza, Tampa Museum of Art, Downtown Tampa

INFO

Tampa Growing Up

Hillsborough County residents predictably ranked traffic congestion, job creation and availability of bus or rail as top-priority planning issues in an interactive survey conducted over three months that planners have begun to analyze......more

The Westshore Multimodal Center

All roads lead to Westshore. One day, all train tracks could, too
The Westshore Business District is the nexus where Interstate 275, the Howard Frankland Bridge, the Courtney Campbell Parkway, the Veterans Expressway and Tampa International Airport all connect. State planners also think it's the perfect area to build the transportation hub of the future — be it light rail, bus rapid transit or a combination — that could one day link Pinellas to Hillsborough and eventually Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.
more
Let's keep the pressure on!
 Hillsborough County Commissioners
here
Tampa City Council
here
Pinellas County Commissioners
here
VoteTransit
Connect Tampa Bay

Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City

Hillsborough County's decision to convene a summit on transportation this spring holds some promise if it aims high. The idea is for county commissioners and the mayors of Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City to embrace a priority list of transportation projects and a strategy to pay for them. After 15 years of talks that have gone nowhere and a flawed transit referendum that failed in 2010, the last thing the county needs is another conversation on transportation that wastes time and fails to address the major challenges. Officials should bring a transit package back to the voters that seriously addresses the county's needs and improves the region's ability to compete.

more

Mayor Bob: Darn Sure Means Rail

In a speech filled with talk of teamwork and cooperation, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn delivered this don't-mess-with-us challenge: "We can be a region with a first-class transportation system," Buckhorn said during his second State of the City speech on Tuesday. "We need mobility options now. That means bus rapid transit, that means (high-occupancy vehicle lanes), and it darn sure means rail. He went on to allude to Gov. Rick Scott's decision to turn away $2 billion from the Obama administration to build high-speed rail from Tampa to Orlando. "Don't tell me that I have to listen to the mayor of Detroit thank me because he's building his light rail system with our money.

more
If he can pull this off he could make people forget about the 6 foot lap  dance rule 
and go down as the greatest mayor this city has ever had.

If You Build It They Will Come

Ruth: Stop Talking And Build A Rail Line
In 1973, I arrived in Tampa to start my career as an ink-stained wretch. I was 23. One of the big issues facing the greater Tampa Bay area was whether to spend the money to begin development of a light-rail system stretching across the Howard Frankland Bridge eventually linking Tampa to St. Petersburg and Clearwater. It was decided by the powers that be there should be extensive discussions on the subject before moving ahead.It is now 2013, 40 years later. I am 63. And everyone is still talking without so much as a single rail spike to have ever been driven into the ground.
more

Poll shows public support for publicly financed light rail.
more
Folks that want to help.
Vote Transit
Connect Tampa Bay

We Won -- Again

Yesterday morning over 50 citizens helped represent you in front of the Hillsborough County Commission to get the conversation started there about how to create more options after two and a half years of silence. We won. It was a unanimous vote to bring the cities and transportation agencies to the table within 6 weeks to find a way to create economic development and improve quality of life by creating more transportation options. You made this happen. Many said it wouldn’t happen and that you couldn’t get it done, but the Hillsborough County Commissioners listened to you and we won.

Please take a minute to send the Commissioners a note to thank them for this step
– and ask them to keep moving forward.
here

Tampa Is Joining The 21st Century

Things Are Starting To Look Up Around Here

Two weeks ago i get an e-mail from a group called Connect Tampa Bay asking me to join them. The other day i meet these folks from Vote Transit in Dowtown Tampa. Both want to bring Mass-Transit to our area. Today i read in The Times that Tampa soon could have a public bike-rental program similar to those in New York and Washington, D.C.
here
Should we thank Mayor Bob for all this? He did say, "The downside risk is that we try it and it doesn't work.
 But we'll never know unless we try."
I am starting to like the big guy.

VoteTransit.org

I met these folks at the the rally in downtown Tampa. They are trying
to bring Mass Transit to Tampa Bay.
Visit them here