Mayor Pam wants TBARTA to put Tampa at the top of the list for rail.
Of course they should. Tampa is the center of the Tampa Bay universe, and moving folks moving in and out of downtown, Westshore, Tampa International Airport and USF will be a significant step toward a regional rail system.
Even those that didn’t want to rush to judgment have come around, and now realize that it just makes sense to begin where most commuters will be affected.
Find out more about TBARTA online.
Steven Tamayo
1 year ago
any sort of rail here will be a huge failure. there is nowhere to go. at least you guys will be fit from all the walking you will have to do from any train station. hope it aint raining.
George
1 year ago
I just can’t get behind rail here. The land acquisition costs, the lack of flexiblity, the need for addtional infrastruce (buses, parking lots, stations) seems like a lot of money for a system that nobody will use. It makes sense to me to put the money into HARTLine, and put together a bus based mass transit plan. But buses suffer from a negative image, while light rail is sexy. Well, there is a correlation between the sexiness and what will happen to the taxpayers if we go with light rail.
Kristen
1 year ago
I don’t know about those two, but I am definitely going to use a rail system if we get one. Buses take way too long, and if Tampa wants to be considered a big dog, they need some kind of metro system (better than buses).
Meredith
1 year ago
Now that I live in a place with reliable rail transportation, I don’t want to move somewhere that *doesn’t* have it. You don’t know how useful it is, and how much you will depend on it, until you have it.
Kelly
1 year ago
TBARTA is way more about the land use changes and development that comes with rail (or new roads) than they are about the actual rail. Look at their focus with all the land use meetings they have (with special consideration to the development community)
Looks like Mayor Pam is just finding out what they were really about and it isn’t so pretty.
Keith
1 year ago
Yeah, a lot of the commenters here are dead on, we (the Tampa area) are not worthy of rail, or mass transit. In fact, there’s a bubble over the Tampa area that makes it distinctly different from anywhere else in the country, the world even.
The humans that live here enjoy building idiotic single level sprawling communities and replacing nature with asphalt. They delight in driving new bargain basement guzzlers that helps them forget they’re stupid and small, at least Jesus loves ‘em. They enjoy dressing as pseudo pirates and badly parodying Mardi Gras via a bit of history which never happened. We enjoy being dumb (ain’t that the American way?) and having a laughing stock of a public education system that perpuates our ignorance, and getting big tax breaks which we blow at the dog track and on Budweiser and strippers.
We’re so dumb we can’t even plan for a respectable future, perhaps we’ll be lucky and there won’t be a future.
Sometimes, one reaps what they sow.
Denis Baldwin
1 year ago
My worst fear for rail here is that it would end up like the People Mover in Detroit. A closed loop track to nowhere, it cost the city millions and is used by very, very few. The main problem is that is simply isn’t big enough or has enough stops to make it at all viable. Secondly, even if it were bigger and with more stops, the way it’s designed (as a kidney bean shaped loop) leaves no real path to the center where most have to go. Thus, you’re stuck walking either way.
If Tampa can pull it off, I’m all for it. I’d love rail that goes up to even the major roads (Hillsborough, MLK, Columbus, etc.etc) and connects to major districts downtown (Ybor, Channelside, etc.etc.) I just hope they put the time and effort into understanding not just the costs of the system but the cost of it’s utilization, or lack of utilization.
Tino
1 year ago
The number one priority rail project in Tampa was the downtown-to-Ybor trolley system. Let’s look at that as an example of how rail is going to work on a larger scale.
It has been an utter failure in terms of cost, ridership and increasing (yes, you read that right) traffic congestion. Instead of a trolley-like bus route that could have used the same roadway, the city removed a lane of traffic and has spent in the tens of millions more than the revenues to build it and keep it running. All that and it still takes an average of 20-30 minutes to go a mile and a half.
When the trust fund set up to pay for the trolley’s operating deficits runs out in a year, the business and condo owners in Channelside and Ybor are legally required to make up the difference. When each resident gets a $1,000 a year add-on in their property tax bill, you will hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Why do we think that another rail system will be any different?
Anonymous
1 year ago
Wow! What a faulure complex you guys have!
It’s a stereotype keith nailed on the head – Tampa MUST any one of a kind and do stuff on the cheap because WE are cheap and closed minded and one of a kind in ineptitude!
Instead of trying to plan the best way forward — you’re certain any attempt forward will fail, miserably. What, did all the Bucs losing season engrave this on your psyche?!
Denis brought up the closed loop fail possibility and someone else hit on the trolley – due to lack of leadership and planning, the trolley was planned as a closed loop and IS planned to be finished as a closed loop. FAIL. But instead of suggesting changing the system to make it better and lobbying the government, the failure complex comes out.
And arguing in favor of driving downtown shows you don’t even know that a tourist district such as channelside is driven by PEDESTRIAN traffic.
In conclusion, investoing more in HART and buses does nothing – buses are only as good as the roads they drive on and area roadways are over congested.
But let’s only focus on the failure potential with trying something different! Cuz the. Crrent situation sucks and the closed minds can’t see anything besides further failure in this town. Nice attitude.
Denis Baldwin
1 year ago
Anonymous – I honestly hope I’m wrong. I’d love for Tampa to be the new NYC, with it’s complex and relatively quick/expansive/effective rail system. I’m just not counting on it in this economy, with this political roadblock and with the mindset of most of the residence.
It’s easier for any one of us to move to the rail than the rail to come to us, is it not?
Tino
1 year ago
Every city that has used the “NYC has it, and it works, so should we” has failed miserably. Portland, St. Louis, you name it. Do you ever see us having a population density of tens of thousands per square mile? If your initial assumptions are grossly wrong, then so will your final solution.
When public transit is as quick as traveling by car, then people will use it. Period. Chicago? Sure. Manhattan? You bet. Here, it’s never taken me more than 20 minutes to get from downtown to the airport.
Every time I hear someone say “we need a high-speed train line between Tampa and Orlando” I ask them if they have taken the Amtrak service on that very route. I’ve never met anyone who has made the trip, much less even heard that it exists.
Anonymous, I feel sorry for all the people who currently visit Channelside/Ybor from Pinellas. How early do you think they get up to start walking? Should we tear down the parking garages to add more train tracks and stations?
Meredith
1 year ago
Tino, what do you suggest instead? Wait until Tampa *does* suffocate from traffic before taking on rail? Be proactive – establish rail now while land values are negotiable and businesses are in flux. When the dust settles, Tampa can be positioned serve citizens and tourists like a real city. Even Charlotte NC makes Tampa look like a backwater by comparison. Why perpetuate that? When gas climbs back to $4+ per gallon and people are desperate for alternative transportation, what will Tampa offer? “Oh, we thought it would fail.” Well great, thanks for foresight, dickweeds.
When will this town grow up?
Ed
1 year ago
Anonymous can always be counted on to blow sunshine up your ass when we want to talk about how ti improve Tampa. What problems he says? Why you so negative and have to talk reality he asks?
Metro can work if you can go to work on it, and right now we have been shedding jobs for over a year. I want and believe we need light rail but I also think it is a moot point till we figure out how to handle our job crisis in Tampa.
And Anonymous – what did you think of the Hooper piece in the SP Times that have credit for Deane Robers for leading the call for rail? I love this town, no one does jack but takes credit for anything that gets accomplished or even appears to be done. She is the worst example.
Chris
1 year ago
Be careful what you wish for Tampa. Moved to D.C. a year ago. Metro sucks!!! Overcrowded, poor service, frequent breakdowns in equipment.
I live 6 miles from my office and my average commute is 45+ minutes. It’s another 10-15 minutes to walk to the nearest station, which isn’t bad, unless there’s sleet and ice in the winter, or 100% humidity in the summer. There is a bus connection, but if you’re lucky you’ll get one every 30 minutes.
Then when the weekends come, expect 20-25 minute wait to get a train.