On transit, it's time for plan B

Editorial

The rejection of a sales tax increase for transit in Hillsborough County leaves planned transportation improvements for rail, buses and roads unfunded and impossible to accomplish.

Bringing the same question up again in 2012 is politically unlikely. It's time for plan B, yet without additional money, options are largely limited to self-financed projects like toll roads.

The task now is to find out all that went wrong and not make the same mistakes when the sales-tax question is eventually asked again, as it must be in some manner.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe and the business community, especially the Tampa Bay Partnership, were effective proponents, but many local politicians were against the plan or kept silent.

"I'm not going to talk down to people," says Sharpe, who easily won reelection. "We cannot say, 'You just didn't get it.' My job now is to listen."

We have been listening already and have heard very mixed messages. Some say they like transit but not this plan. Others were irritated that the plans remained incomplete on Election Day.

Some voters liked the plan but didn't trust government to implement it. Others didn't like the idea of using sales taxes for roads. Some just didn't think the plan would benefit them.

Many have told us they were in favor of a transit tax, but not now, with unemployment high and population growth stagnant. Others said that a full penny increase is too much today or ever.

It was also easy for voters to associate the local plan with federal stimulus spending, which many successful Republican candidates campaigned hard against.

Local residents continue to confuse the light rail plan with the federal high-speed rail from Orlando to Tampa, which itself could be in jeopardy. Governor-elect Rick Scott and the new Republican majority in the U.S. House aren't fans of subsidized passenger rail.

Some voters didn't want Hillsborough to take the lead in building a regional transportation system. They prefer to wait for buy-in from other counties. Perhaps Pinellas and Pasco counties will move ahead on plans to improve transit, but without the Hillsborough hub to link to, advocates there will have a tough sales job.

Many college students and other young adults who would have supported the plan didn't bother to vote this year. They helped give pollsters the impression the vote would be close.

There were many reasons to vote no, yet in the worst possible environment to ask the question, about 42 percent still said yes.

These voters understand that without a source of addition revenue, transit cannot be expanded. Roads, too, need more money. The local gasoline tax doesn't even raise enough to keep them all in good repair and to make needed intersection improvements.

For the immediate future, the transit agency, HART, should continue its plans to add more rapid bus service to its busiest routes. The Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority and the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority should look more aggressively at adding toll lanes or new toll roads that can be built without tax increases.

Efforts to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety must continue, because without improved transit, traffic conditions won't improve.

Ray Chiaramonte, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Agency, in charge of countywide transportation planning, says at some point, the county will have to build some form of rapid transit.

He's right, but it appears now to be later rather than sooner.