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Bus compound pits taxpayers against neighbors

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published February 21, 2007

Pinellas County school officials and neighbors of a controversial proposed school bus compound met for the first time this week. The meeting did little to assuage opponents.

"It did not change our resolve," said Sharon Philyaw, a leading opponent of the project proposed for the northeast corner of McMullen-Booth Road and State Road 580. "If anything, it made it stronger."

Residents are concerned that the 300-bus maintenance and parking compound would aggravate traffic congestion, despoil a woodsy area and bring buses near their homes.

School officials say the bus compound is the only remedy they have found for an expensive problem.

"We're spending $50,000 a month" sending empty buses to pick up students in North Pinellas, school superintendent Clayton Wilcox said. "It costs us the equivalent of a teacher a month."

* * *

The school district has been trying to find a place for a bus terminal for more than a decade. Wilcox said it has considered about 60 sites, but none worked out.

In a memo, associate superintendent for institutional services Leon T. Hobbs wrote that district staffers and consultants "believe this may be the only site" in North Pinellas that meets the district's criteria:

- Centralized location.

- Access to major roads.

- No access required on subdivision or neighborhood streets.

- A tax-exempt status.

It is also in perhaps one of the higher elevations in Pinellas County, the safest place should a hurricane strike.

This is the second time the district has studied the McMullen-Booth/SR 580 site. School administrators first looked at it in 2002, but Clearwater officials were not willing to give it up then because they were thinking about expanding the sewage treatment facility.

Officials are looking for ways to cut what they call "deadhead" travel, when buses go empty for miles to pick up students in North Pinellas.

There are two bus compounds that are considered north county depots: one in Tarpon Springs that handles 75 routes and one at High Point that handles 187. Between the two, they transport 14,000 students a day.

Of the 187 buses based at High Point, 59 percent do not have a first stop until the Countryside area or beyond, officials say. Each year, deadhead travel accounts for 441,000 miles requiring 75,000 gallons of fuel and driver overtime at a cost of at least $490,000.

* * *

As proposed, the bus compound would include a 31,500-square-foot maintenance building, fueling center, parking spaces for 300 school buses and 384 driver/staff vehicles, and a 3.9-acre storm drainage pond on 20 to 22 acres just north of Clearwater's sewer treatment plant.

The school district wants to acquire the land from Clearwater by swapping 27 acres it owns near Lake Chautauqua.

A traffic signal would probably be installed on McMullen-Booth Road, possibly in front of the golf driving range.

Before going forward, the district still must do a traffic study, biological survey and appraisal of the land.

During Monday night's meeting, Wilcox and his staff showed a preliminary site plan to residents of the Briar Creek, Amber Glades, Country Villas and Rainbow Farms neighborhoods.

"There is only a 30- to 40-foot buffer between us and concrete," Philyaw said afterward.

But Jim Miller, director of real property management for Pinellas County schools, said the terminal would be about 70 feet from home owners with a natural buffer of undisturbed vegetation.

"We just want to be a good neighbor," he said. Consequently, the School District proposes to:

Design the parking lot so buses do not have to back out of spaces in the morning, eliminating the shrill beeping noise; construct an earthen berm and landscaping to provide sight and sound buffering; leave mature trees intact whenever possible; and use special fixtures to reduce light spillover.

But that is not enough to placate neighbors. More than 2,000 have signed a petition against the project.

Wilcox said he has 100,000 students and a district to serve. "These folks have got to understand that they live in the most densely populated county in Florida, and they aren't the only ones who live here."

Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 20, 2007, 20:58:18]