For commuters, it's hurry up and wait

By BETH GLENN

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2000

PORT RICHEY -- Janet Robertson and her friends have found a way to beat the commuter crunch between Port Richey and Tampa.

Each morning at 6:15, Robertson boards a Dodge van from Bay Area Commuter Services that whisks her and seven pool-mates to the Tampa business district near Veteran's Expressway.

BACS is a non-profit agency, funded through the state, that organizes van pools to try to decrease congestion. It provides a database to locate ride-sharers and encourages employers to subsidize van pooling. Commuters pay for gas, tolls and insurance. For Robertson's van, that comes to about $20 per rider each month.

"It saves gas and wear and tear on the car," said Robertson, 38. "lt's not as much stress as driving by yourself all the time. I wish they'd get more of these on road and get some of these cars off the road."

Robertson is not alone in making that wish. Commuters throughout Pasco, many of whom work in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, often find their drives to and from work choked by traffic congestion.

A 1999 study conducted for the Times advertising department by Scarborough Research Corp. showed that nearly 89,000 Pasco residents head south on eight major arteries to get to work.

About 24,000 of those use U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes, which often resembled a parking lot until the recent widening of the intersection of U.S. 41 and State Road 54. U.S. 301 was the next most popular thoroughfare, regularly carrying more than 19,000 passengers to work, followed by the 17,800 Pasco residents using Interstate 75.

That type of volume, coupled with construction crews scrambling to meet motorists' needs, adds up to congestion. And Sarah Noyle, executive director of BACS, says a couple of commuter complaints have become familiar refrains.

"People are mostly concerned with . . . the time it takes to get to places," Noyle said. "The lack of consistency is a problem, too. You can't time (a trip) anymore. It might take 20 minutes one day and 40 minutes the next day. You just never know."

Moreover, the traditional rush hour seems to be lengthening -- a phenomenon that bothers commuters and transportation planners alike.

"Now rush hour is like from 4 to 7 or 7:30 (p.m.)," Robertson observed. "There are definitely more cars on the road."

Said Noyle: "Rush hour is definitely getting longer and longer. It's just a function of the times we live in. So many people from New Port Richey, for instance, are working in downtown Tampa. They're living where the property is cheaper but working where the jobs are."

Why are so many Pasco residents working in the counties to the south? One explanation is that they used to live there.

"What we're seeing over the last 10 years is a lot of people who lived and worked in Pinellas moving up here," said Gary Brosch, director of the Center for Urban Transportation Research at USF.

Pasco clearly is growing. The latest Internal Revenue Service figures show that about 11,000 people moved into Pasco in 1998, while just around 8,000 moved out. The number of people moving in grew 8.1 percent between 1994 and 1998. People weren't leaving as fast during the same period, with growth in out-migration of 6.1 percent.

Most of Pasco's new residents -- 52 percent in 1998 -- came from other counties in Florida. Hillsborough supplied the majority at 19 percent, followed by Pinellas at 17 percent. Five percent made their way into Pasco from Hernando County.

"While large numbers of people want central city living, larger numbers want the amenities of more suburban kind of housing," Brosch said. "They want that because when all's said and done, they feel they get more house and more land for the money. The trade-off is a commute that they have to make, and people are increasingly willing to make the trade-off."

He said small communities will increasingly be faced with troubles such as New Port Richey's fight over Massachusetts Avenue: Neighborhood streets sometimes become shortcuts or speedways.

"Throughout Pasco, the smaller communities are all going to be faced with the same kind of localized congestions," Brosch said. "That's the price they pay for success."

As communities respond to such problems with speed bumps and stop signs, he said, workaday commuters, as well as police, firefighters and rescue drivers, could all be slowed down.

But Brosch stressed that hope is in sight. "Fortunately, there are a lot of projects going on," he said. "Most of the north-south roads have all been multilaned. Now we're starting to look at east-west roads. We've seen a couple of parts of State Road 54 already multilaned."

A new, intelligent traffic light system being piloted on U.S. 19 from the Pinellas border to Main Street in New Port Richey should make for smoother driving as well. Fiber optic cables and sensors will allow traffic lights to adapt to the number of cars on the road.

The current system is preset to change the traffic lights according to how many cars are expected at a given time of day and cannot adapt to conditions such as bottlenecks due to construction or accidents.

But because the smart system will include cameras mounted on signal mast arms, the county instantly will know where accidents are occurring along U.S. 19 and can improve areas that are particularly troublesome.

Brosch said rural counties such as Pasco usually have to grow a bit more before public transportation becomes widespread, but he said older residents and migrants from urban areas with mass transit could spur its growth.

"Places with low-density development, a lot of cul-de-sacs and without a traditional grid system make it very difficult for mass transit to work," Brosch said. "Look for a lot more non-traditional services where people have the ability to dial a ride.

"Right now that's mostly for people with disabilities, but in the future I see technology expanding so that service is provided to more people. We're also seeing the advent of local neighborhood circulating systems and some private-public partnerships."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.