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Slow Down! A Transit Plan May Take Effect

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Daniel Ruth

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 5, 2008

Obviously, despite being a lifelong resident of the Tampa Bay area, Mayor Pam Iorio still has no clue how we do things around here.

It was a clearly uppity mayor who said the other day that rather than wait for the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority to develop a, well, regional transportation plan, she wanted to move ahead with her own initiative to create a Hillsborough County mass transit system, funded by a sales tax.

The nerve of some people!

If Iorio were to get her way, in 2010 voters would have the opportunity to approve a ballot measure that would provide sales tax revenue to build a mass transit system with trains linking New Tampa, the University of South Florida, downtown and Tampa International Airport.

The mayor argued she thought the residents of the area are "ready" for such a system. Isn't there a know-it-all in every crowd?

You have to wonder whether Iorio was remotely aware she was violating the first rule of Bay area politics, especially when it comes to mass transit: A good load of bureaucratic twaddle always trumps the actual laying of tracks.

Out Of Control

For no sooner had Iorio, 49, expressed the audacity of moving forward with a mass transit system before she's eligible for Social Security than the TBARTA apparatchiks started suggesting the mayor was spinning out of control.

Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard cautioned Iorio about moving too quickly. Hibbard noted the authority would not complete its analysis of the region's transportation needs until the end of the year.

Pinellas County Commissioner Ronnie Duncan also urged Iorio to slow down this crazy, insane juggernaut of a mass transit idea.

And they are absolutely right. The mayor should slow down. Who knows? This whole mass transit thing could simply be a passing fad.

There's no sense getting ahead of ourselves here.

Brow-Furrowing

After all, if the greater Tampa Bay region has proved anything, it is that while other metropolitan centers such as Denver, Portland, Ore., and Charlotte, N.C., have plunged headlong into developing mass transit, the Bay area has successfully managed to avoid choo-choos, which might appeal to corporations wishing to relocate, or make this area simply more livable.

Instead, for nearly four decades, this area has become quite adept at creating agencies, authorities, commissions, committees, blue-ribbon panels and study groups, who have spent years chin-rubbing, thumb-sucking and brow-furrowing on the way to issuing recommendations, proposals, plans and strategies - none of which has ever resulted in so much as a commuter token turnstile being bolted to a floor.

So along comes Iorio to disrupt this perfect storm of inertia.

For of all the regional issues confronting the Tampa Bay area, none has suffered from a lack of political will/political leadership rivaling Vichy France meets Freedonia more than mass transit.

If it's true that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, it is also probably fair to say that the pathway to a mass transit system begins with a single track - and one very impatient mayor.

Keyword: Book of Ruth, to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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