Most rail tax support came from voters along proposed lines

Voting patterns in Tuesday's overwhelming rejection of a tax to help fund light rail in Hillsborough County suggest any future try must account for little support beyond where the first rail lines would be built.

A Tampa Tribune precinct-level analysis showed that voter approval centered on the mid-Tampa corridor between downtown and the University of South Florida and a portion of West Shore.

Despite proponents' efforts to pass the referendum by including countywide bus and road improvements with the light rail package, voters in just 59 of 383 precincts supported the proposed one cent on a dollar sales tax increase by more than a 50 percent margin.

Nearly all outlying areas of the county opposed the tax increase, with 17 precincts reporting more than 70 percent in opposition.

The unofficial 58.2 percent to 41.8 percent defeat of the referendum surprised proponents. Wednesday, they began to evaluate what happened and lay the groundwork for another try for Tampa to join more than two dozen metro areas with alternatives to car and bus transportation.

"There was a fear of the tax, the general mood throughout the country to distrust government and the question of 'what's in it for me,'" said Chuck Sykes, chief executive of Sykes Enterprises, an international technical support company headquartered in Tampa and treasurer of the pro-rail tax group.

"We need to get folks to think about what it means to build a community and what it means to them. Rather than making a sales pitch, we need to get more people involved in the thought process of what it means for a community to thrive."

Sykes pointed out that other metro areas like Phoenix fought through multiple election cycles to get light rail taxes passed.

The transportation issue is about economic competitiveness, said Stuart Rogel, who heads the Tampa Bay Partnership, which oversees economic development in a seven-county region.

"If people view that we have the community assets they want, like a quality transit system, we will be competitive in attracting top talent and jobs," Rogel said. "Until we get this right, we are missing an asset in our arsenal to attract and retain the types of industry and workforce that will help us move forward."

He said he was unaware of any definitive study that ties transit directly to wage level. But a U.S. Department of Labor report showed Tampa's average wage of $41,480 in 2009, ranked behind Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte and Phoenix, all of which have rail alternatives to auto and bus transportation.

Many of those who opposed the tax increase said that in these tough economic times, they didn't want to spend more money on taxesRoads and schools need to be improved more than anything else and people already pay too much in taxes, said Vanderlyn Jones of East Tampa, an area where light rail was proposed to travel and that drew more support for the tax than outlying county areas.

"We can't even afford insurance, let alone a tax," said Airial Triplett of East Tampa.

While transportation tax opponents said they anticipated another light rail referendum in 2012, the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority isn't waiting to plan some kind of service from Tampa's proposed high-speed rail station, which could be up and running in 2015.

HART chief executive David Armijo said his agency is planning three new bus services that would serve Tampa International Airport non-stop, Brandon with express service and bus rapid transit to the University of South Florida, with buses equipped with electronic devices to get through intersections quickly.

Buses between Tampa's high speed rail station and Pinellas County beaches could depend on funding that Pinellas might help fund, Armijo said.

David Singer, a Holland & Knight attorney retained to head the pro-rail tax group, Moving Hillsborough Forward, acknowledged that "this was an incredibly tough environment in which to ask voters to pay more for anything, even a world-class transportation system that would create jobs and generate significant economic development."

He contends that the vote "was not about having a pro-rail vs. anti-rail confrontation, but rather an attempt to find a solution to our county's transportation needs." The voters' message, he said, was that "we all need to take a different approach to reach a solution."

Reporters Kevin Wiatrowski and Josh Poltilove contributed to this report.

tjackovics@tampatrib.com(813) 259-7817