Leadership lacking on transit in Hillsborough

The comments last week by the chairman of Hillsborough County's mass transit agency illustrate why this region continues to lag behind other major metro areas in mass transit.

 Mike Suarez, the chairman of Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, scoffed at the notion that the county would be ready to present a transit package to the voters in 2016. "The boat has sailed on that," 

he said. Best to wait until 2018.

 That's a stall that has played out for decades, and it reflects a lack of vision and leadership that continues to hurt Hillsborough 

and the Tampa Bay region. here

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

Tampa Mayor Iorio Makes Headway On Mass Transit

Now, two years after Iorio sent a "white paper" to hundreds of local lawmakers and business leaders urging them to reconsider light rail for the region, it appears a new County Commission has the votes to put a mass transit tax before voters........here
Tampa Rail

Take The Train To The Ray's Games

The Mass Transit Factor

Rays fans across Tampa Bay are excited about Opening Day on Tuesday, but most are less excited over the prospect of more debate about the need for a new baseball stadium. Is there really any hope for a new home for the Tampa Bay Rays? There could be, if everyone would focus on successful stadium projects that have been built elsewhere. The modern era for baseball stadium design and location began with Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore in 1992. Since the construction of Camden Yards, 21 new major league ballparks have been built. Among the great ones: Progressive Field in Cleveland and Coors Field in Denver. Among the losers: the New Comiskey Park in Chicago and perhaps Turner Field in Atlanta. What separates winners from losers? Consider three important factors that characterize successful ballparks:
• They were built as part of an overall development plan.
• They include neighborhood integration.
• They include a mass transit factor.
more
Ybor City and Channelside come to mind. Let The Rays build their stadium without taxpayers money and the city and county can build trains to it.

Hillsborough Residents Say Bring On Mass Transit

A majority of Hillsborough County residents don't think road building alone will ease congestion, according to a survey released Tuesday. An overwhelming number of residents polled also think the county will need rail or mass transit in the next 50 years, and that new development should pay for its effect on roads and schools........more

Jump on The Iorio Express @ Tampa Rail

The State Of Tampa Politics: Russell Giambrone

Right now, Tampa’s political scene is one dominated by both inefficiently, and a definite lack of direction. We have a County Board Of Supervisors that has put out a for sale sign to big pocket developers without any thought to having a well developed transportation plan. The result is that the highways are always gridlocked during rush hour with no relief in sight.

 Our mass transit system is the worst in the nation and only now during an election season does the need for change become an issue. Economic growth in our area is dependent on creating a mass transit system, that is both ecologically friendly and serves all sections of the county. We have another great example of ineffective governance in the Hillsborough County Board Of Education who are denying the teachers their contractually promised raises, while mismanagement of funds are the only thing that this Board is good at doing. 

The voters of Hillsborough County now have the opportunity to change the direction of our region. Progressive candidates are offering the voters a choice between a candidate who will govern with them in mind or re-electing politicians who represent those who are elitist and can donate to their reelection campaigns. 

Russell Giambrone 

Tampa Receives Federal Grant for Transit

Tampa was awarded $234,281 from the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Innovative Transit Workforce Development Program to implement "Meeting Today's and Tomorrow's Job Needs in Mass Transit," a recruitment and training partnership between the Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa, Inc. (CDC of Tampa) and HART.

more

New Board Members Favor Mass Transit Agenda

During this election season mass transit and specifically light rail figured predominantly in nearly every debate and questionnaire put to all the candidates. We need to be honest, in most cases the strongest advocates for light rail did not win this time around.....more

Hillsborough County - Got Traffic?

Thanks to Al Higginbotham, Tampa Bay's traffic nightmare continues to get worse. His strident opposition to any transit funding means that Tampa is the only one of the 25 largest urban areas in the country that doesn't have mass transit. Hillsborough County is gridlocked -- and it's time for change.

Pat Kemp is running for District 7 of the Hillsborough County Commission to bring change to Tampa. Please VOTE for her on 11.4.14. Check her out here.

Where do i VOTE?

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.

Rude And Ungrateful HART Drivers

Saturday this blog sponsored a team in 

The Heights Collective Benefit Bonanza 2015! 

A scavenger hunt to raise money for  

The Centre for Girls - Tampa, 

Teams were given a list of task, one of them was to get a picture of a team member holding a bus pass next to a bus driver. Our team visited the Marion Transit Center to try to accomplish this task. After talking to several bus drivers, not one would help us. We showed them our tasker, told them why we needed the pic and even offered to block out their faces. Still they were rude and would not help us. We checked with other teams and with the hunt director and no one was able to accomplish this task. May we remind these drivers that it is activist like us who fight super highways (TBX) and promote mass transit so they can keep their jobs. If you would like to let HART know what you think, please do it here.

Spacial thanks to:

The bartenders at The Hub, the folks at MF Arts Ybor for the use of their awesome space, Red Star Rock Bar, the man at Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe who let us in to get our pic of the two headed gator even though they were not open yet (Thanks for the offer Dude!), 
La Segunda Cenral Bakery, Ulele, Mermaid Tavern, Nicko's, King Corona and many more for being so HELPFUL!
And The Heights Collective for this awesome event!  

Miami's Attack On Mass Transit

In the past year, Miami-Dade Transit cut service on 39 bus routes, affecting one in two local bus riders. here

Tampa Bay Wants More Transit, Less Sprawl

Residents in the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, which borders Polk County, envision growth with compact developments linked by mass transit, officials learned Friday...........here

A Ferry Tale

The Tampa Bay Ferry is a fun day for the privileged, not a means of transportation for those who really need transportation.

Tampa commuters on their way to another hard day's work in St. Petersburg

It would be far more cost effective to expand the hours for the current rapid transit buses to St. Petersburg and South Hillsborough and let the privileged who won't ride on a bus with the unwashed masses pay for their own sightseeing excursions.

"While taxpayers paid $14.23 per ferry boarding last year, the similar cost per passenger was $6.17 for HART and $4.94 for PSTA." (Tampa Bay Times)

Read the Tampa Bay Times editorial "Tampa Bay ferry is fun. It’s not real mass transit" HERE

The State Of Tampa Politics: Jodi Tripp Perlman Cohen

Going into the new year, I am on the fence about politics in Tampa. Clean energy and juvenile justice are on a good path. Projects like restorative justice, affordable housing, houselessness and mass transit seem stuck in the mud. In addition, public schools are drowning in a quagmire of politics and limited resources.I see hope in the persistent pushing by several progressive organizations to keep human issues in the spotlight and offer up positive solutions. However, our most important goal should be to elect candidates for strategic offices who will fight with a moral compass and undying zeal.

Recent victories featured the election of Pat Kemp and Andrew Warren. There are a number of declared candidates who are focused on our stagnant system and offer supportive ideas to improve the lives of the PEOPLE (not the credit rating) of Tampa. We need to stand behind them and get them into office. As is true in the rest of our nation, contenders outside of The Party have difficulty raising funds to launch and continue their campaigns. If we do nothing else, we should support these folks so that their voices can be heard during the election process. We need to give voters a true choice.....not just a selection of the "least worse."

Jodi Tripp Perlman Cohen

MetroRapid

Free Rides For 2 Weeks
Sleek, shiny, technology-laden and quick — Hillsborough County's newest form of mass transit is meant to lure commuters out of their cars and into a passenger seat.
here
Nice new bus smell.

Drill for Oil and Gas in the Everglades

"The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in
the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region,
or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is.".....Michele Bachmann

Resourcefulness? Solar, Wind, Better MPG's, Mass Transit and some of those 60mpg VW's they got in Germany.

Fire Mike Merrill

All he does is spread lies.

“We spent all this time and the community has said doing roads, bridges and intersections are a top priority."

Check chart above, this is not true.

Now he wants to tie the ferry sevice to the tax.

here

Mass Transit wasn't even on the survey.

here and here

No Rail, No New Taxes!

HART Riders

Meet Chris
She Is From Arizona. She Moved Here 3 Weeks Ago To Be With Her Parents.
Says They Have A Great Mass Transit System In Phoenix.
Go HART!

Pat Kemp: A Climate Change Plan in Hillsborough County

In Hillsborough County on Sunday, we rallied & marched in support of a sustainable future. We need our own local climate action plan with a significant investment in mass transit options and in solar and energy efficiency measures. We can create jobs, save money, and reduce fossil fuels locally. As a commissioner, I will work to move us to a sustainable, energy efficient future.
I need your support today. 

Please make a campaign contribution to change our future.

Thank you!