Hillsborough transit vote likely to impact Pasco's rail plans

By the time today's kindergartners have kids of their own, Pasco County could have commuter trains running down the middle of State Road 54 - at least that's what county leaders hope.

Commissioners began tempering those hopes after Hillsborough County voters delivered a sound thrashing to plans for building light rail there on Tuesday. Nearly two-thirds of Hillsborough County voters opposed the proposed one-cent sales tax hike that would have financed rail, buses and roads.

Pasco officials say their own transit plans hinge on Hillsborough leaders' ability to win support of transit there.

"It will certainly slow things down," Commissioner Jack Mariano said. "Hillsborough is the key to the whole region."

Pasco officials have said they may put a transit-tax referendum before voters in 2020. Construction of a new transit line would start about five years later.

Opponents of Hillsborough's transit tax say they'll take their fight to Pasco and Pinellas - and sooner rather than later.

"We believe that light rain in and of itself is a bad idea," said John Hendricks, a founder of Hillsborough's No Tax for Tracks campaign.

The group will work with Pasco residents who want to fight any county effort to raise revenue for rail, Hendricks said.

Hendricks opposed Hillsborough's rail effort because it costs too much and is too inflexible to serve the Tampa Bay area's sprawling communities. The region needs better roads, not rail, he said.

Transit advocates across the region say they're taking the long view -- planning for the region's needs in 2050.

Commissioner Ann Hildebrand, who sits on the board of the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, known as TBARTA, compared transit's future to the interstate system's past.

Transit opponents are being short-sighted, said Hildebrand, comparing transit's future with the interstate highway system's past.

"Don't you shudder to think what this country would be like if someone hadn't laid that plan out 60 years ago?" she said. "Where would we be?"

Pasco has thousands of acres of future homes, offices and shopping all primed for development in the coming years. Two decades from now, Pasco's population - less than half a million today - is likely to nearly double, according to the county projections.

Pasco already sends 80,000 commuters into Hillsborough and Pinellas counties every workday. Getting thousands more people to work and school in the decades to come will take more than just asphalt, county planners say.

"Those roads are clogged today, and it's only going to get worse," said TBARTA chief Bob Clifford. "The reality is there isn't any number of lanes you can build to address those [new commuters]. You've got to have alternatives."

County commissioners want to promote growth along S.R. 54/56 and U.S. 19 partly by raising the cost of developing in the county's wide-open rural areas. Developers would get reduced impact fees and other incentives for increasing the population density in established areas.

Raising the population in southern and western Pasco would make those areas more inviting for transit, county officials argue.

"This actually controls sprawl by encouraging development where you want it to go," Clifford said.

Hendricks decries using regulation to drive up population in specific areas.

"That's creating an artificial land scarcity," he said.

It's worth using the government's planning power to channel future growth if it creates a market for transit and leads to redevelopment - particularly along one of Pasco's most notorious roads, Hildebrand said.

"When you do this, you might also create some urban renewal," Hildebrand said. "How many times do people ask me 'what are you going to be about [U.S.] 19?'"