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Tampa Petition: Forward into the Past

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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Anti-auto activists in Tampa say they have gathered enough signatures to put a measure on November’s ballot increasing sales taxes for Hillsborough County transportation. The news report about the measure claims that 55 percent will be used for roads while 45 percent will be used for transit, but that is only one of the major deceptions behind the measure.

The petition itself lists “improve roads and bridges” as the first goal of the sales tax. But in fact, only a small share of the money would be used to improve (which in transportation parlance means increase the capacity of) roads and none would be used to improve bridges. In fact, the petition specifically states that none of the money can be used to build new roads or bridges or add new lanes to existing roads or bridges. Some money — 14 percent — can be used to improve intersections, increasing their capacity, but that’s it.

The supposed 55-45 split is also wrong. First, it is really only a 54-45 split, as one percent of the money goes to the Hillsborough metropolitan planning organization to do all of its brilliant planning. The remaining 54 percent goes to Hillsborough County and cities within that county (proportional to population), but it won’t all be spent on roads either. In fact, the petition says it can be spent on “roads, bridges, sidewalks, intersections, and public transportation.” Continue reading →

Hillsborough County Commissioners Vote No

By | | Transportation
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Tampa-area voters will be spared the expense of having to go through another campaign to build an obsolete transit system in the city thanks to a 3-to-2 vote against the project by Hillsborough County commissioners. Voters already rejected the light-rail project once in 2010, and voters in neighboring Pinellas County voted against a connecting rail project in 2014.

In the end, it was a close thing. The swing vote on the county commission, Victor Crist, said he made his decision during a three-hour public hearing at which half the witnesses favored the project and half opposed. But to get a realistic look at the reality of urban rail transit, Crist and his fellow commissioners need only look at their neighbor to the south, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

As the Antiplanner noted the other day, Puerto Rico is $70 billion in debt, and one of those billions is for the Tren Urbano, a rail system that opened in 2004. Not only are local residents having to repay that $1 billion, they have to spend nearly $50 million per year to keep it operating, partly because ridership is less than half of what was projected.

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