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Regional transit plan ready for the public

Newschannel 8 Photo by Michael Egger

The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority has been developing the transportation plan since 2007.

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By RICH SHOPES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 21, 2009

TAMPA - Imagine taking a train from Wesley Chapel to downtown Tampa or driving on a road set aside for vehicles with three or more occupants.

The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, the area's transportation authority, has been developing a transportation plan since 2007 that envisions those and other systems.

Now the plan is ready for review by the public.

The authority plans to unveil the package at a TBARTA board meeting at 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Department of Transportation's Tampa offices, 11606 N. McKinley Drive.

The plan's centerpiece will be a network of transportation corridors stretching from Sarasota County to Citrus County and centered largely on Tampa, St. Petersburg and southern Pasco County.

That network will show potential hubs where commuter trains intersect with light-rail trains and buses. It also will show a grid of potential high-occupancy vehicle lanes, possibly on Interstate 75 and other highways, for buses, vans and vehicles with three or more people.

One highly visible piece of the plan is a train network to serve downtown Tampa, the West Shore Business District, the University of South Florida, Tampa International Airport, St. Petersburg and other job centers.

TBARTA officials say the idea is to view travel patterns from a regional perspective and relieve congestion by offering motorists an alternative to traveling alone in a car.

The plan has two incarnations. The first is several hundred pages offering a look at the potential travel corridors, with traffic analyses, estimated costs for each transportation system and how TBARTA, working with counties and cities, can pay for those systems using bonds, taxes, fees and federal and state grants.

The second is a 34-page summary for the public to take home.

TBARTA worked with the Department of Transportation and the DOT's consultant, Jacobs Engineering, to create the plan.

The Legislature created the authority two years ago to develop a long-range master transportation plan by July 2009 for seven counties — Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Citrus, Hernando, Manatee and Sarasota.

In the next three weeks, TBARTA will hold nine town hall-style telephone meetings to gather public input. Citizens will be able to call in to ask questions of TBARTA board members or submit questions through a Web site, www.TBARTA.com.

Starting Friday, that Web site will have the master plan posted for the public to see.

A more traditional public meeting will be held May 11.

After that, TBARTA will set out to adopt a final version of the plan and prioritize its projects.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633.

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