Bridge over Hillsborough bay? (Tampa, St. Petersburg: credit, living in, lawsuits)

[dothetwist]

Originally Posted by Concert D Major

There's a project called GoHillsborough where you can submit comments or ideas about transportation. The county is doing this to get feedback prior to an upcoming sales tax increase vote. A lot of what's being posted on this forum should be submitted on GoHillsborough.

Your Voice | GO Hillsborough | Transportation for your everyday life.

I went to site. It's only about Hillsborough, not the TB area.

There needs to be a REGIONAL governmental group formed specifically to address mass transit for the entire REGION.

This has been done elsewhere and should be done here. It ain't like this wheel hasn't been invented in other metropolitan areas. I googled and did not find a regional board/task force, other than the TB Metro Chamber of Commerce.

I'm new here, but worked in local government in DC-Metro for 30+ years. Yes, there are always rivalries between localities in a region, but they can be put aside for specific ventures that create a better environment for the entire region.

[VanHalen5150]

Originally Posted by dothetwist

I lived in DC area when they were building Metro....I remember riding it the first week it opened. It was slow to catch on...people didn't want to give up there cars.

It would be the same here; mass transit BRINGS growth....prior the Metro in DC, there was no Crystal City, no Rosslyn to speak of; these are now dense areas in Arlington County (where I worked for over 30 years)...these neighborhoods went from flea bag motels (Crystal City) and parking lots for DC commuters (Rosslyn) to vibrant business communities and high rise condo development.

Good mass transit is a shot in the arm for FUTURE development; keep putting it on the backburner and Tampa will never reach its full potential.

People didn't want to give up their freedom, but it actually made sense to use it. I know the metro has been expanded several times at it's end points, especially the red and orange and blue lines, out further into the suburbs of MD and VA

If memory serves me correctly, crystal city didnt exist as you know it today because it was a huge industrial area. There was that huge Railroad yard (Potomac yard) over by Alexandria, and all around it was industrial, not residential. So the railroad yards closed in the late 80's, and all that industrial land was closed up, sold off and hi-rises built on the sites, right along the blue line

The development in the crystal city/potomac yards area is completely different than what happened out in Roslyn / Vienna

But what I think you are not taking away from my argument is that DC is a HUGE employment center. HUGE. Second to probably only NYC on the East coast. And the employment is centered more or less in DC, a small geographic area.

We do not have that here. We have downtown Tampa, Downtown St. Pete to some degree and then places like Feather Sound/Carrilon, then LOTS of little places here and there. When employment is spread out like it is here, mass transit just does not work, it cant.

Where would you propose we build these light rail lines to/from? Westchase, Carrolwood, Brandon, South Tampa into downtown? But what about the people that work elsewhere? Which in Tampa is 80% or more of the population...

I know better transportation spurs development... that's a given. Look at what the building of the Veterans / Suncoast parkway did in the early 2000's and the I-75 extension through Brandon to Ft. Meyers and crosstown extension to Brandon did in the 80's. But it shouldnt be the government's job to build roads just to facilitate building of residential developments. That's ALL it's doing in Florida

[DUNNDFRNT]

Building residential areas expands your tax base grows your city, that is a role of government.

[dothetwist]

For starters, light rail should link the obvious core areas: Downtown Tampa, Downtown St. Pete, Tampa International Airport, Busch Gardens, Tropicana Field, other venues (sports/entertainment) that draw crowds, and then on to the beaches.

Future stations should look at underperforming and/or underutilized areas that can be totally re-planned and rebuilt, take some of the worst neighborhoods in the area and rebuild them, with mass transit as the anchor to both new residential and new business construction.

Again, start with a REGIONAL governmental group where each locality gets a piece of the action and a part of the expense. And a say-so in the overall plan.

[jsun556]

It's really a shame that Tampa Bay doesn't have any rail system to speak of for passengers locally. We are being left behind by Orlando and South Florida (Sunrail and TriRail)... Won't be surprised if these systems link up soon.

What might have been a promising boom for the I4 corridor has vanished. Now, we will see South and East FL carrying the state.

[VanHalen5150]

Originally Posted by jsun556

It's really a shame that Tampa Bay doesn't have any rail system to speak of for passengers locally. We are being left behind by Orlando and South Florida (Sunrail and TriRail)... Won't be surprised if these systems link up soon.

It's really not a fair comparison... So I know a little bit about this...

Tri-Rail (West Palm to Miami) was started by the state as a stop-gap to assist with traffic congestion while massive road construction was happening on I-95, it was supposed to be a temporary thing. And was not used very well. It was set up on an EXISTING rail corridoor that the state eventually bought from CSX railroad, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on procuring an expanding (double tracking, new stations, new bridges, etc) and it still loses huge amounts of money. There are 2 rail corridoors down there the CSX which is inland, West of I-95, and the FEC, which is well EAST of I-95, goes through MUCH better (richer, you know, the people who actually WORK) neighborhoods. People are pissed that the state does not have tri-rail on the FEC, as it would be better utilized

SunRail (Orlando) was started by the state about a year ago, the state BOUGHT the existing CSX rail line and expanded it (double track, new signals, new stations, new trains) to the tune of 800 million dollars (450 just to purchase the line from CSX). It goes from Sanford or Deland to Kissimmie I think.

Orlando and Miami doesnt have a BAY to deal with. Commuter rail along the 275 corridoor might work, but would be prohibitively expensive. These commuter lines in the state use EXISTING ROW's. The only existing rail line that goes from Tampa to St. Pete is an old line which was used by Amtrak until 1984. It goes from downtown Tampa EAST to about 34th street (East of Ybor), then North to Busch Blvd, then West to Oldsmar, then up through safety harbor, clearwater and diagonally southEast to St. Pete. The old Amtrak station was on 38th ave N just East of 34th street N. It took almost 2 hours to go via train from st. pete to tampa, via pinellas park, clearwater, safety harbor, oldsmar, Suitcase city, college hill...

What might have been a promising boom for the I4 corridor has vanished. Now, we will see South and East FL carrying the state.

The only people who are crying about this is the developers and land owners who would have gotten rich selling land and building homes along I-4. That corridoor as a commuter rail corridoor would not help traffic much, as it would have dumped everyone off in downtown

[Not_liking_FL]

Originally Posted by VanHalen5150

The only people who are crying about this is the developers and land owners who would have gotten rich selling land and building homes along I-4. That corridoor as a commuter rail corridoor would not help traffic much, as it would have dumped everyone off in downtown

I remember a lot of folks besides land owners and developers crying about Rick Scott refusing to build HSR. The HSR was the beginning of a much bigger project that would eventually tie into Miami and North into Georgia. It was never meant to be commuter rail. Scott cited one study from a libertarian think tank(The Reason Foundation), IIRC, as his reason for not going forward with the project, and other states received Florida's $2 billion of federal $.

[VanHalen5150]

Originally Posted by Not_liking_FL

I remember a lot of folks besides land owners and developers crying about Rick Scott refusing to build HSR. The HSR was the beginning of a much bigger project that would eventually tie into Miami and North into Georgia. It was never meant to be commuter rail. Scott cited one study from a libertarian think tank(The Reason Foundation), IIRC, as his reason for not going forward with the project, and other states received Florida's $2 billion of federal $.

Great... and all this talk of high speed rail, but no jobs here to support it.

I think it's the cart before the horse argument. Is transportation REALLY the biggest priority here? We seem to slowly be getting jobs, like Amazon, we need more stuff like that, and more corporate jobs. Really we need to be attracting more business downtown, not filling downtown Tampa up with residential condos so single 20 somethings living on their parents trust funds can live in a trendy place... there's LOTS of vacant commerical floorspace downtown, we need less of that!

But no, we have companies building these little 2-3 story stand-alone office parks out in the hinterlands, making traffic and congestion worse in the suburbs. These employment centers will never be served by any sort of light rail, only cars

[dothetwist]

Originally Posted by VanHalen5150

Great... and all this talk of high speed rail, but no jobs here to support it.

I think it's the cart before the horse argument. Is transportation REALLY the biggest priority here? We seem to slowly be getting jobs, like Amazon, we need more stuff like that, and more corporate jobs. Really we need to be attracting more business downtown, not filling downtown Tampa up with residential condos so single 20 somethings living on their parents trust funds can live in a trendy place... there's LOTS of vacant commerical floorspace downtown, we need less of that!

But no, we have companies building these little 2-3 story stand-alone office parks out in the hinterlands, making traffic and congestion worse in the suburbs. These employment centers will never be served by any sort of light rail, only cars

You're the one who has it backwards. It's a vision thing. Stop trying to make these crappy office parks work, they don't. They won't grow TB Area into a world-class metro area. Mass transit will.

Large employers want to locate in an area that is served by mass transit. This is also true of major league sports venues (last link). Just think if Tropicana Field were linked by mass transit to the entire TB Area.

Read these:
State Farm to Locate Thousands of Jobs Near Transit | Streetsblog.net

Companies Say Goodbye to the 'Burbs - WSJ

http://www.colgate.edu/docs/d_center...2.pdf?sfvrsn=2

[Not_liking_FL]

Originally Posted by VanHalen5150

Great... and all this talk of high speed rail, but no jobs here to support it.

I think it's the cart before the horse argument. Is transportation REALLY the biggest priority here? We seem to slowly be getting jobs, like Amazon, we need more stuff like that, and more corporate jobs. Really we need to be attracting more business downtown, not filling downtown Tampa up with residential condos so single 20 somethings living on their parents trust funds can live in a trendy place... there's LOTS of vacant commerical floorspace downtown, we need less of that!

But no, we have companies building these little 2-3 story stand-alone office parks out in the hinterlands, making traffic and congestion worse in the suburbs. These employment centers will never be served by any sort of light rail, only cars

Well, I think HSR or light rail would create short and long term jobs. Either way HSR was intended for traveling not commuting. The Tampa Bay area and Orlando are tourist destinations.

I agree that job centers should be more centralized rather than spread out. If light rail was built and served the areas where there are already business centers more will set up shop there. There is no way light rail will be able to cover every area, but if it's done smartly it will be successful.