Tampabay: The 'duh' factor of mass transit

All the area's elected pooh-bahs got together in February to hold a summit. It was a veritable United Nations.

A bunch of business groups got together in March and agreed mass transit is essential to our future.

A couple weeks ago, the state Department of Transportation even chimed in with possible major routes:

- St. Petersburg to the Gateway area, across to Tampa's West Shore and downtown, and east to Lakeland.

(I would get around to Lakeland and Brooksville a little later, but you get the idea.)

Okeydoke. Let's pretend that we are designing a system. I propose a Golden Rule, and a Necessary Corollary.

You might say: Duh! But the history of failed mass-transit systems is instructive: It has always been easier for government planners to design the system that is possible, instead of the system that works.

Let's say the Mass Transit Fairy magically gave us a rail system tomorrow that linked downtown Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater and nothing else. It would be a colossal failure.

What, am I going to hop off at the corner of Kennedy and Westshore and trudge six blocks north to work on an August morning? Or dodge highway traffic on foot across Roosevelt Boulevard? Or get off at Fort Harrison in Clearwater and walk over the bridge to the beach?

I have to be able to get to the Bucs or Yankees or Devil Rays game as well. I have to be able to get to International Plaza, and Raymond James, and USF and, let's see ... oh, right. The airport. It would be nice, too, if I could hop off within walking distance of the dry cleaner on the bus home, and then hop on the next one.

This brings us to the Necessary Corollary: Rail or not, mass transit requires reinventing the bus.

Tampa's mayor, Pam Iorio, talks about a system of downtown "circulators" constantly taking people exactly where they want to go. St. Petersburg's mayor, Rick Baker, will talk to you about the concept of bus rapid transit - frequent, fast buses that do the same.

It has to be that way. Even if we had rail, it would be useless if it just dumped riders onto the Marion Street transitway in Tampa, or at the Williams Park hub in St. Petersburg, and abandoned them to the current bus systems.

Look, everything is up in the air. We don't know yet who's in charge, what we want, or how to pay for it.

But the goal has to be a system that people want to ride, and that takes them where they want to go - else the critics are right, and we should just build more highways.

Every day Howard Troxler posts extra commentaries, updates and interaction with readers online. Go to TroxBlog by clicking on the "Blogs" link from TampaBay.com, or by typing the Web address blogs.tampabay.com/troxler.

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Comments on this article

by Alex	05/01/07 01:38 PM
People has to face the facts: oil is running out. It would be best to have better mass transit to conserve oil. Then, hopefully, we will have a bit longer to try to change our oil-based economy.

by pg	04/11/07 07:38 PM
i live in westchase and would definitely use rail/bus. i drive to work and back 35 miles per day. People would ride if it covered the greater bay area,unlike the harbor island to downtown tampa route. How many people lived there and worked downtown?

by clc	04/06/07 10:57 PM
I don't think the planners of Bay area ever anticipated as much urbanization that has come since 1990. It was only 25 yrs ago there was still undeveloped land in Pinellas 20yrs so,mayors,let's get a plan together, implement, why we lost 2012 olimpics

by David	04/06/07 07:08 PM
People's opinions of mass transit will change dramatically when the price of gasoline reaches $6 a gallon. Prepare for the future or suffer the consequences.

by j	04/06/07 11:45 AM
time. some buses only run every 1/2 hour or hour. if you commute from city to suburbs or vice versa, no matter how well you plan you will be chilling at the Klondike station or somewhere like it for a long time. fix this first.

by j	04/06/07 11:42 AM
When I used to ride the HARTline, a 15-minute commute from Sem. Heights to USF took nearly 3 hours with 2 bus changes (early 90s). Looking at current schedules, the heaviest routes (Florida, Nebraska) still only run every 15-20 min even in commute

by Pretty Slow To Anywhere	04/06/07 09:24 AM
Maybe they should work on the CURRENT mass transit systems like PSTA & HART before attempting something new. There is plenty of room for improvment there (Hardly any buses after 9pm and being on time is the exception not the rule). People will ride !

by jim	04/06/07 08:39 AM
Howard you are exactly right, no one will ride it. I don't like mayor iorio at all. I live in tampa and she is a typical meglomaniac politician. No opne will ride this thing. The weather, rain and heat. The distance between places is to vast.

by Karl	04/05/07 05:59 PM
Both PSTA & Hartline have increased service by about 25% in the last 4 years. Ridership has increased by about 25% as well. It is not complicated. Each time it is made easier (earlier,later,weekends and more often) to ride, more people ride.

by Nickie	04/05/07 05:41 PM
Look, the solution has got to be simpler than this: limit your trips in the car, combine your errands, walk, ride the bus or ride a bike if you can, stay out of rush hour if you can. Companies could adjust their schedules. And dont buy a gas guzzler!

by J	04/05/07 05:07 PM
The current gas price is about equal to what it was in 1982. So, first raise the price of gas comparable to what other industrialized nations pay. then talk about public transportation. there has to be a problem before there can be a solution.

by Anne	04/05/07 04:27 PM
Just returned from London and Paris. I would LOVE to have a train and metro system like that! Efficient, on time, clean and easy to manipulate. And yes it requires the use of ours legs as well. I don't know if Americans are up to that!

by John	04/05/07 03:55 PM
Anyone remember the monorail from downtown Tampa to Harbour Island? Gee, what happened to it? They tore it down because NOBODY EVEN RODE THAT!!! Stop wasting our time & money and build more beltways and widen major thoroughfares!

by Ken	04/05/07 03:38 PM
Mass transit won't work. People in the bay area love their cars. Even if there was a mass transit system in place it would need the backing of all the local counties, be convenient, safe and affordable.

by Ron	04/05/07 02:20 PM
It can't possibly be faster, cheaper or more convenient for me to drive to downtown St Pete, park (& pay), then take a train to downtown Tampa, as opposed to just driving there. This would just be a typical government boondoogle.

by Jim	04/05/07 01:37 PM
Well said, Howard. This isn't San Francisco.

by Marilyn	04/05/07 01:14 PM
Look no further than Boulder, CO for a great bus system. The "HOP" runs from "downtown" out to the "mall" and the "Skip" runs north/south including the university campus, the "Hop" includes other neighborhoods and the RTD to the airport and 'burbs.

by Jeff	04/05/07 12:00 PM
This area needs to invest in better roads and forget about mass transit. Rail will not relieve congestion on the roads and it'll be a huge waste of tax payer money. Like many of the rail systems it will be a failure.

by Shawn	04/05/07 11:35 AM
Mention foresight. A recent statement by GW says it all. "This war ends on your watch" He will not be blamed. They could care less about the future.

by Steve	04/05/07 11:31 AM
A transit system shouldn't just take passengers where they want to go, but when; the buses shut down after 10 pm, sometimes earlier.

by Lee	04/05/07 11:02 AM
People who use mass transit in cities like NY & Boston don't have issue with getting out of a rail car and walking 6 more blocks it's part of the culture. But here? I doubt it.

by Dana	04/05/07 10:30 AM
I lived in Boston for two years and used mass transit every day, but I would never use it here. How can you walk a 1/2 mile in 95 degress in a suit? or deal with an unexpected thunderstorm. It will never work.

by Ellen	04/05/07 09:39 AM
I do not take mass transit because it is inconvienient. It takes 1 1/2 hours and three stops on a bus. Driving is 15 minutes. If they could find ways around that I may be tempted. Maybe a couple of express routes between the cities too.

by Patrick	04/05/07 09:09 AM
God forbid people actually walk somewhere. 6 blocks! Oh man, that might actually burn some of the fat.

by Travis	04/05/07 09:07 AM
Does anyone recall the push 20 years ago for Monorail system? Everyone loved the idea and nothing happened. 20 years from now they will STILL be talking about the need for efficient mass transit. Time changes around here but little else.

by Harold	04/05/07 09:05 AM
Mass transit only works in major cities with true downtown centers. We do not have that in Tampa Bay. Offices are in decentralized office parks, shopping in malls. There are no true downtown business centers.

by JANE	04/05/07 08:59 AM
I KNOW FOR SURE I WOULD NEVER USE SUCH A SYSTEM!! MASS TRANSIT WORKS WELL IN PLACES THAT HAVE THE POPULATION BUT HERE WE ARE ALL SPREAD OUT WITH OUR OWN AGENDA.

by Bob	04/05/07 08:59 AM
Howard: Nearly 30 years ago I was involved with the study to detemine the feasibility of mass transit in the Tampa Bay area. TBART was the local quasi-governmental agency. Results of surveys- no one wanted to ride. Cars preferred. TBART abolished.

by Lisa	04/05/07 08:18 AM
It would hilarious to watch Clearwater - the city that can't redevelop the most beautiful beach in America, much less it's "hilltop above a bay" downtown - participate in building an area-wide mass transit system. Their section would never work!

by James	04/05/07 08:07 AM
Howard, please take a look at the finances of every new transit system we've put in place and see the cash being flushed down the drain. That's why the Tampa trolley loses $10 every time someone takes a ride. So the solution is ... more of it?

by Mike	04/05/07 06:51 AM
What the area needs too is to STOP this haphazard zoning we currently have. We need to put an end to sprawl, stop allowing developers to build vacant land and only permit infill development and higher density development for office and residential.

by Dave	04/05/07 04:01 AM
Won't happen in most of our lifetimes. If our politicians had an ounce of foresight, they'd have been on this twenty years ago...but of course we know what sort of foresight our political leaders have. We just all need to get used to traffic.

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The 'duh' factor of mass transit