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Central shop owners clamor to get trolleys
By DEBORAH HIRSCH ST. PETERSBURG -- While some may argue that trolleys are nothing more than buses with charm, business owners know that this transportation niche brings in tourists and their vacation money. And everyone seems to want a slice of the profit. Just ask the business owners along Central Avenue between Third and 20th streets. Two Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority trolleys run from the gulf beaches to the Pier and BayWalk. While much of the trip is along Central, the trolleys veer to either First Avenue N or S through their commercial district. And that, they say, hurts business because riders don't know their shops even exist. While they may not have been keen to have buses trundling in front of their stores, the cute trolleys -- which took over two bus routes a year and a half ago -- are a different matter. "I think the trolleys are neat looking," said Lee Sauter, co-owner of Fitting Image at 657 Central. "I think they're conducive to these streets. They're smaller -- the buses are really big -- and they're arty, and people love the trolleys and people love the Loopers." But city and transit authorities fielding requests for more trolleys or route changes say that business will have to be satisfied with existing service. "They didn't want the buses on but now they want the trolley," said Mike Siebel, PSTA director of planning. "Had we put service back up there we would've had another group of people voicing against that." Last January, 107 business owners along Central Avenue signed a petition asking for trolley Routes 3 and 35 running east and west along First Avenues N and S to be switched to their street, which they submitted to the city and PSTA. Someone from every business between Third and 20th streets at that time signed the petition, said Central Avenue store owner Marcia Hamburger, who started the campaign. Hamburger, the owner of Echo Antiques on 1209 Central for 11 years, said her business has been dropping steadily every year. She said she almost had to go out of business five years ago when the city closed the avenue between Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) and 16th streets for construction. Colored sidewalks, a roundabout, neckouts, potted plants and geometric sculptures were installed before the first baseball season as part of a $1-million project to beautify the street and slow traffic. She thinks that moving the beach trolley to Central would make sense because it is a "leisurely thing" for tourists who want to shop and there are more stores there than on First Avenue N and S where six bus routes already travel in congested traffic. City and PSTA representatives examined the street in response to Hamburger's petition, but told her that it would require removing parking spaces and some of the new construction in the Dome District to make a Central Avenue route handicap accessible. Hamburger sent letters to her City Council representative but said nobody contacted her since last May. "I know she has a lot of (signatures), but a lot of people will sign petitions and don't do anything about it," PSTA director Seibel said. But some other Central Avenue businesses are actively working on trolley campaigns of their own. The Downtown Arts Association has been asking the city to provide more trolley service for years, for their monthly evening "gallery walks," said Marcy Davidson at Davidson Fine Art, 725 Central Ave. Lee Sauter, co-owner of Fitting Image for three years, said she had called the mayor's office and the PSTA begging for service. After investing so much time and money into the Dome District, Sauter said, she didn't know why the city wouldn't want to encourage people traveling through there. "Tourists keep saying, 'We wish we'd known there were all these shops here, we already spent all our money,' " Sauter said. "The more money we make, the more money the city gets in taxes. It just needs to be more balanced." Kevin Dunn, city managing director of development coordination, said he would eventually like to see trolleys running throughout the downtown. But transit and city officials agreed that adding more service or changing routes is too expensive or too much of a hassle. Even switching the downtown Looper trolley route -- which is separate from PSTA service -- would require reworking a lot of established regulations because the vehicles were purchased with $560,000 of federal grant money, said Eric Carlson, transportation director of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. "Quite candidly, I just don't have the resources to do it and my lease agreement prohibits me from doing it," Carlson said. "For the sake of a block, how much energy and how much money do you want to put in a change of transportation? These things can change. They don't change quickly."
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