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Steve Otto Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: November 4, 2009

They say talk is cheap. I say that depends on who is doing the talking.

Today's scheduled talking is supposed to take place in the great chamber of the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners. That ought to make all of us nervous. The board is going to be talking about what ultimately will be a project costing billions of dollars. YOUR dollars.

At first glance it would be easy to dismiss this as just more huffing and puffing. The topic is mass transit - you know, trains and buses - so it would be logical not to expect much from today's session.

After all, this is the same county and region that consistently has ignored how people are supposed to get from point A to any other point while development has spread virtually throughout the region.

Today, the commissioners are supposed to hear from a transportation task force and then decide about putting a question on the ballot asking voters to pay for a new transit system. That's where the billions of dollars come in.

A familiar road

If you are one of those who look at coincidences, it's fascinating that this particular 23-person study group is showing up almost 10 years to the day from when the Committee of 99 made its report to this same body.

The 99 volunteers were to get information about putting together a long-range mass transit plan for the area. I went to a few of their sessions at local schools. The meetings were long, tedious and frequently contentious. The group met nine times, conducted six public meetings, listened to 61 speakers and produced a video. They then turned it all over to the commissioners, who blanched at the thought of facing taxpayers with the projected costs of such a plan and then filed it away in that same warehouse where the government stuck the Ark of the Covenant in the movie.

That didn't mean there wouldn't be more studies, or at least more field trips, to just about every city in the country that has light rail, commuter rail, high-speed rail or rickshaw taxi service.

Stalled out

This brings us to the closing weeks of 2009. Despite a recent upturn in gas prices, the roads still are clogged. Bus service is adequate if you aren't in a hurry and happen to live within walking range of a bus stop. The beautifully restored Union Station still only has one train a day. And as long as you can get through the security checkpoints and still find your luggage at the other end, there are flights in and out of Tampa International that can get you to Atlanta faster than you can drive across Hillsborough County.

Nobody so far has shown me anything suggesting we can put together a comprehensive mass transit plan for the rest of this century that isn't going to cost us a bundle of money. At the same time, nobody has demonstrated how we are going to flourish as an urban regional community if we don't do more than study what everyone else is doing.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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