Trusting in trolleys and a student's lucky foot

Tampa columnist HOOPER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published October 15, 2002

Sharon Dent always makes it a point to ride the streetcar when she goes to New Orleans or San Francisco.

In New Orleans, she has breakfast at Camille Grill. In San Fran, she finds a spot to have dinner somewhere along the line.

I get the feeling Dent would be excited about Tampa's trolley even if she wasn't the director of HARTline, which will operate the system. As she gave me a tour of the Ybor City maintenance facility Monday, Dent's optimism about the trolley's inaugural run on Saturday was contagious.

It even caught up to me . . . a little.

The trolley always has struck me as a good little $12-million idea that spun horribly out of control -- to the tune of $53-million. After 90 minutes with Dent, I'm almost ready to sing a different tune.

The bottom line is, can the trolley work? By definition, it not only has to generate enough money to be self-sufficient, but has to spur development along the route from the St. Pete Times Forum to Ybor City, what Dent called the "visitors crescent."

As we strolled through one of the handsome air-conditioned cars, Dent talked about how it will be the thing to do for visitors and then become habit with residents.

She conceded the project is a risk, but says, "the risk of not doing something is even greater." In some ways, she has a point. Most of us want downtown redevelopment, but it won't happen by just wishing it. To create infill, you need something to attract development.

Is the trolley the answer? Maybe, but I always thought we needed to have residents in place first. Then the ridership to make it sufficient would be in place. Dent explained public transit projects such as the trolley have to be timed perfectly. They can't be too early or too late.

"If we had waited five years to do this, we wouldn't have been able to because the pieces wouldn't have been in place," Dent said. "Right away would have been too expensive."

So, we're taking a chance to make Tampa better. Dent said the great revitalizations of other cities have almost always been spurred by a government's calculated risk: an example for the private sector to follow.

A vision is needed to bring it all together, and long-term plans call for a second line running through downtown and a third trolley line to connect downtown with Hyde Park and SoHo. I'm mildly amused that the last station on such a stop may well end up next to the Tiny Tap tavern.

If it works and the tax base expands, great. But if the vision becomes a mirage, people are going to be seeing red.

I caught up with the University of South Florida student who won a year's worth of free rent at the Boardwalk on Morris Bridge Road by booting a 40-yard field goal at the USF-Southern Miss game Saturday. Sophomore Trevor Puskar, who grew up in Lakeland, said he has no clue how he did it.

"I went out there in my sandals, so I had to kick barefoot," said Puskar, whose line-drive kick sailed just over the crossbar. "I just kicked it."

Puskar said he kicked the ball around in P.E. but never played organized ball. Given his success Saturday, he said that should change.

"I figure with the condition I was in, I should kick for Florida State or Southern Miss," Puskar said of the two schools who lost because their kickers missed last-second field goal attempts. "They missed it and they do it every day."

While riding around downtown's north side with Dent, I saw a historical marker near the Park Trammel Building that read, "Billy Graham Began Here." Maybe you knew Graham, who attended Temple Terrace's Florida Bible Institute, began exhorting derelicts to find the Lord on Franklin Street back in 1939, but it was news to me.

Plus, with daughter Anne Graham Lotz slated to come to the St. Pete Times Forum Nov. 1-2, I think it's worth noting again.

Dent told me Mayor Dick Greco hopes to find some of the city's oldest citizens to participate in the grand opening of the trolley on Saturday. I mentioned to her that the nation's oldest firefighter, 104-year-old Daniel Kelliher, lived at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center Nursing HomeCare Unit.

A couple of hours later, I learned from Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Bill Wade that Kelliher passed away Sunday. The good news, I guess, is that he died peacefully and at 104, he truly lived a full life.

That's all I'm saying.

-- Ernest Hooper can be reached at (813) 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com.

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