Transit ≠ Rail

We don’t need a multi-county “cheerleading” committee to promote rail, we need a hard-headed group dedicated to developing a cost-effective means of moving people around the region. Could this be TBARTA?

So far, TBARTA, like HART, is considering rail as the only solution to rapid public transportation.
Just about everyone has given up on considering Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Why? Because 20 years ago Tampa business leaders decided that a shiny new Choo-Choo through their downtown would be great for increasing property values there. Now, 20 years later we have the same group with the same vision of personal profit that an improved bus service they felt would not bring them.

The latest wrinkle in this greedy profit-taking scheme has to do with investing in county-created, tax-exempt, mortgage-backed, GNMA Federal government-guaranteed loans to lower-income, first-time home-buyers which can be turned into securities and which in turn can be bought and sold profitably by investors. There is much money to be siphoned out of the many transactions involved, with no money going to The County.

Worse, The County might miss future  revenues from lost transfer fees each time these mortgages change hands.

What better way to increase the availability of these investment securities  than to have The County buy up distressed housing along proposed rail routes so that developers can build “affordable housing” thereby qualifying hundreds more for these mortgages funded by municipal bonds.

The proposed light-rail system construction, operation and maintenance is almost 100% taxpayer financed. Only a very small percentage comes out of selling tickets to passengers. Compare this to what is already possible in the outside world with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Bogotá Columbia has one of the world’s most efficient, cost-effective public transportation systems in the world through extensive use of BRT and feeder buses. The government built only the bus stations, special bus lanes and bus traffic control systems, while private companies own and operate the BRT buses. This is true public/private partnership.

And now, CSX has finally come to the negotiating table over use of their rail right of way. However, putting commuter traffic on freight lines is like putting the cart before the horse. That is, moving people from homes to jobs is not like moving freight in and out of the port. 

Instead of putting transportation between where people work and live, the CSX option would force people to live and work where the tracks are already located. Great for developers. Not so great for taxpayers who have homes, businesses and jobs along existing transportation routes.

<IMHO> Fred Jacobsen

Get on the bus Gus

Bogotá Columbia BRT

The County of Hillsborough and the City of Tampa, along with lawyers, consultants and developers have been working together on a scheme to use county taxpayer money to improve property values around downtown Tampa. They call it Transit Oriented Development (TOD).

We should call it TAMPA Oriented Development.

Why expensive light-rail instead of more cost-effective bus transit?

The consultants and the lobby group Moving Hillsborough Forward determined that light-rail would have a bigger impact on Tampa property values than Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or Plain Old Bus (POB) service. Plus, they found that riders would prefer to vote for a shiny new Choo-Choo than a stinky old bus.

So what was the plan to get riders from outside the corridors to the train stations? POB.

The County has given HART $40 million out of the $4 BILLION raised from the last (CIT) sales tax increase. HART has only spent $1.3 million of it while the rest rots in a bank, and we pay interest on the bonds.

If public transportation was so important to them, Ken Hagan and the Transportation Task Force, why was so little of that tax used? Waiting for light-rail?

Hagan’s Transportation Task Force was all about property-value-enhancing rail for Tampa.
It was never about helping people get from one place to another.

If transportation was the important goal, a better use of our $40 million would have been made, years ago.

Bogotá Columbia has one of the most sophisticated public transit systems in the world, using only BRT and POB. They make Tampa/Hillsborough look like a third-world country.

We need to get off this 20-year old Choo-Choo plan and get on the bus Gus.

<IMHO> Fred Jacobsen