As the Rick Kriseman era approaches, his collection of transition teams have been meeting with local organizations and constituents to become better acquainted with the issues and ensure a smooth shift. This continued Friday afternoon, as Kriseman's Transportation Transition Team met with officials from the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority (TBARTA).
Given that this meeting served more as an introduction than anything else, TBARTA's Executive Director Bob Clifford, dominated the meeting, explaining the organization's goals for the Tampa Bay region, stretching from Citrus County to Sarasota, and how Pinellas fits in. One of Clifford's main points was the need for a transportation plan with a regional vision, as opposed to the usual county wide focus.
“When you're going somewhere, you don't think about political jurisdictional boundaries,” said Clifford. “You just want to get there. We all often cross jurisdictional boundaries, whether they be city boundaries, county boundaries. We think nothing of it, it does not matter to us. But when we address transportation from the planning and implementation perspective, we put it in different silos of those different entities that we all deal with.”
[jump]According to Clifford, Tampa Bay is home to seven transit providers, three commercial airports, six metropolitan planning organizations, three regional planning councils, two FDOT districts, and two highway toll authorities.
Clifford has found that this lack of cohesiveness has played a role in Tampa Bay missing out on state and federal transportation grants to it's in-state rivals.
“We were not consistent on what our priorities were. The challenge of that was we would hear it from FDOT, we would hear it from the state legislature, we would hear it from congressional delegates, we would hear it from the administration, from the governors office. They would say to us 'when we hear from Orlando they say the same three or four projects all the time'. South Florida, same thing. Go to Tampa Bay and we hear a whole list of different projects and whoever I talk to gives me a different priority.“
In following the lead of Orlando and South Florida, TBARTA has looked at projects that would benefit the region as a whole. Those include thosein the spine of the area, consisting of the Gateway and Westshore business districts, along with Tampa and St. Petersburg's respective downtowns. One was the need for redevelopment of the northbound span of the Howard Frankland Bridge.
While making it clear that there are no current plans to implement it, Clifford recommended that the new span should be constructed in a way that would accommodate light rail, eventually better connecting the two business districts that when combined, would create the second largest business district in the Southeast. Clifford also made reference to future redevelopment of Tampa International Airport, possibly connecting the airport to a consolidated transportation area in Westshore, that would serve as a hub for tourists and locals.
Other topics included the issue of bringing tourists that visit Tampa for it's cruise lines to Pinellas beaches, the pros and cons of embracing the private sector for transportation developments, and the benefits of using public funds to leverage state and federal funds.
The transportation team's next meeting will be next Tuesday when they meet with the PSTA board and Greenlight Pinellas.