Saturday, February 15, 2025
Stogie's Athlete Of The Week
#31 - Kali Cleary
USF Bulls Women's Lacrosse
#31 - Kali Cleary
USF Bulls Women's Lacrosse
Position: Midfield
Height: 5-9
Class: Freshman
Highschool: Gulf Coast High School
Hometown: Naples, Fla.
A four-year midfielder for Gulf Coast High School under head coach Lynn Garrision…Served as captain 2022-2024... 2022-2023 Player of the Year in Southwest Florida... 2020-2023 High School All-American... 2020-2021 Rookie of the Year... 2021-2022 County Athlete of the Month... 2020-2022 American Select... 2022 and 2023 Shark Award recipient... President of the Student Government Association... Played for LaxManiax under Head Coach Micheal Molster...
Friday, February 14, 2025
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Stogie's letter to the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART)
The whole purpose of public transportation is to serve the public and your fare changes not only do not serve the public but they make it impossible for a large portion of your patrons, the working poor, to use your services. I am speaking for them. These are people who can not maintain a bank account or have the internet access needed to put funds into a Flamingo card and who do not live close enough to a facility that accepts money for a Flamingo card. Many of them have to transfer two or more times to get to work and back home every day and they have to beg for or borrow the money one dollar at a time to pay the fares. If they need $8 or more for those transfers, anything short of that $8 does them no good at all. It means they lose their jobs. Even borrowing enough to pay for a $4 day pass, something HART no longer accepts, is often difficult but certainly more possible than paying a separate $2 fare each time they have to transfer to a different bus. You HAVE to realize that many of your patrons live by a thread and the changes you have made to your fare system do them a great disservice. I am a staunch advocate for public transportation who relies solely on the HART bus system. I have had many discussions with other HART passengers and I know that doing away with day passes is a great concern for many of them. My comments here are not derived from conjecture but from first hand knowledge. By my own personal observations while riding the Hart buses every day a great many of your riders utilize the day passes and do not approve of your doing away with them. Your fare system worked and to change it only because it may be more convenient for you to no longer have to process those day passes is a horribly misguided idea. It would mean you are making the changes to benefit yourselves at the expensive of those who rely most on your service. You MUST go back to your previous fare system if you expect to remain what can be considered public transportation. Sure, there are charitable organizations who can help SOME of those working poor but your fare changes have only placed one more hurdle in their way.
I am not only an advocate for public transportation but I am also a writer for a local internet news service here in the Tampa Bay area. I have the means to broadcast this message to the public in this area and I intend to do just that.
Btw, the link you have posted on many of your bus stops that patrons are to use to submit comments about your fare changes is to a web page that does not exist.
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