Tampa Streetcar Project to Break Ground

[Metro Jacksonville]

Tampa Streetcar Project to Break Ground



While the potential of federal stimulus dollars for high speed rail has taken over Florida's news headlines, a smaller stimulus project is about to get underway in Downtown Tampa.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-oct-tampa-streetcar-project-to-break-ground

[alta]

Tampa.  You think you are the progressive city in Florida??  lol  Wait until we build our billion dollar bus rapid transit here in Jacksonville.  What?  You spent a fraction of that and have hotels, condos, bars, tourists attractions and office buildings locating along the streetcar route.     

[thelakelander]

While the extension is a short one, if applied to Jax, it would be like extending the Skyway down Riverside Avenue to hit Fidelity or to Atlantic Blvd to serve Hendricks Av and San Marco Square.

Federal stimulus funds to add buses, vans and streetcar rails in Tampa

By Michael Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, April 7, 2009

TAMPA — Federal stimulus money is on its way to boost Hillsborough County's transit system.

On Monday, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit's governing board approved spending more than $15.1 million in federal stimulus money, including about $7.8 million on 29 buses and two paratransit vans, which are used to shuttle elderly or disabled passengers too frail to travel by bus. Another $1.5 million will be spent to operate the fleet of 36 paratransit vans.

About $1 million was approved to extend downtown's streetcar system about a third of a mile from the Tampa Convention Center to the outer business and office district on Whiting Street. Overall, the extension will cost about $5.5 million; construction is to begin this summer and be completed by mid 2010, according to HART spokesman Ed Crawford.

The remainder of the money, about $3.8 million, will be spent on improvements to operations, equipment and security.

"This helps tremendously," Crawford said. "We were behind on bus purchases, so this gets us up to date."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/masstransit/article990149.ece

[tufsu1]

Tampa.  You think you are the progressive city in Florida??  lol  Wait until we build our billion dollar bus rapid transit here in Jacksonville.  What?  You spent a fraction of that and have hotels, condos, bars, tourists attractions and office buildings locating along the streetcar route.    

believe me...most folks in Tampa don't think $52 million for a 3 mile rail line that takes 20 minutes end-to-end was such bargain!

oh and btw...JTA just got approval for $8 million in stimulus funds...for things like new buses, shelters, and a park & ride.

[thelakelander]

Yeah, Tampa isn't the most progressive place.  Its funny that people would see a $52 million transit investment as a boondoggle when its helped spur over a billion dollars in development along that 3 mile corridor.  The Channel District was a real dump before all those mixed use projects and warehouse conversions came online.  One of these days I'm going to have to pull out my photo archives and post some images of what this area looked like a decade ago.

[Captain Zissou]

3 miles would be huge for the core neighborhoods.  That is the exact distance from San Marco Square, down San Marco blvd, over the Main Street Bridge, through DT, onto Riverside Ave, to Forest Street.  For 50 mil, very worth it.  That is also not the most efficient way to cover that distance.  San Marco, Oklahoma, Southbank, DT, and Riverside would all benefit from that.

[tufsu1]

Keep in mind that the $52 million was in 2000....and of course was originally sold at $32 million....the extra cost primarily came from the very nice trolley barn that was built in Ybor City.

btw...the proposed Jax. long range transportation plan includes 7.5 miles of streetcar lines at a cost of $105 million (in 2009 dollars)...for more info., go to

http://www.northfloridatpo.com/envision2035/participate/

[DemocraticNole]

I live down here and really the only people who use the streetcar are those who live in Channelside or Ybor City. Now, I don't want it to seem like I am not happy with the expansion, because I am. However, if they really want this thing to work, they need to get it extended across the river to UT and then down into the Hyde Park and Soho area. If they did this, the ridership would go up big time. The other problem the streetcar has is the hours of operations. Closing time in Hillsborough County is 3 AM. They really need to have the streetcar running till about 4, because then people leaving the bars would use it and stay off the roads. As of now it is not open that late.

[thelakelander]

I agree DemocraticNole.  The original streetcar line should have hit these areas.  I don't know why we continue to avoid the dense residential pockets of communities with our rail planning decisions.  However, its not too late to hit them.  That seldom used CSX line through downtown is ripe for passenger rail use and could form the backbone of Tampa's proposed LRT system.  It would also connect all of the places you just mentioned with DT and Ybor.

[Ocklawaha]

So where are we with a couple of simple extensions to the Skyway, to create the same type of demand and flow? NOWHERE. The "long range plan," had San Marco, maybe the Stadium, and certainly the Blue Cross extensions on it, but JTA withdrew all but Blue Cross. We have a loaded Congressional delegation and a president that will fund these things, and we pulled the plug, SMART, REALLY SMART JACKSONVILLE!

As for our streetcars? "Long range plan," should read, "long range dream."  Have we even funded the second phase of the study? Are we serious, or is this just a ploy to throw off the dogs at MJ? Meanwhile we read that JTA is moving right on with the stupid BRT shit. Today I can ride a bus from downtown to Gateway Plaza, and with a BILLION DOLLARS worth of BRT completed, I can ride a bus from downtown to Gateway. Does anyone else see a problem with this thinking? Does this even qualify as thinking?

Remember folks it was our own Scott Clem that said "LRT is not a good fit for Jacksonville," and Mike Miller who said, "The people hate rail, they want Bus Rapid Transit." "Klatu Nebula, calling Jacksonville... is there any intelligent life on your planet?"

OCKLAWAHA

[Dog Walker]

Have any of the JTA planners ever been in a city with LRT?  Not just the tourist lines, but a working system?  Idiots!

[CS Foltz]

Dog Walker I whole heartedly agree............Idiots! The hockey puck that said "We don't want rail" obviously is a share holder in Gates Concrete! No one asked me and I say rail for downtown Jacksonville. Any person with half of a brain can see the benefits but thats just me..........current Administration appears to have no brains at all!

[stjr]

So where are we with a couple of simple extensions to the Skyway, to create the same type of demand and flow? NOWHERE. The "long range plan," had San Marco, maybe the Stadium, and certainly the Blue Cross extensions on it, but JTA withdrew all but Blue Cross. We have a loaded Congressional delegation and a president that will fund these things, and we pulled the plug, SMART, REALLY SMART JACKSONVILLE!

As for our streetcars? "Long range plan," should read, "long range dream."  Have we even funded the second phase of the study? Are we serious, or is this just a ploy to throw off the dogs at MJ? Meanwhile we read that JTA is moving right on with the stupid BRT shit. Today I can ride a bus from downtown to Gateway Plaza, and with a BILLION DOLLARS worth of BRT completed, I can ride a bus from downtown to Gateway. Does anyone else see a problem with this thinking? Does this even qualify as thinking?

Remember folks it was our own Scott Clem that said "LRT is not a good fit for Jacksonville," and Mike Miller who said, "The people hate rail, they want Bus Rapid Transit." "Klatu Nebula, calling Jacksonville... is there any intelligent life on your planet?"

OCKLAWAHA

Ock, I have said all along, our community is A-D-D.  It can not focus on more than one mass transit project at a time.

The community is skeptical of mass transit and is not going to give leaders a groundswell of support until they see something that actually makes an impact on transit in this City.  The $ky-high-way, our somewhat disfunctional bus system, and now, potentially BRT, will just continue to give mass transit a black eye and make the prospects for rail systems in Jax bleaker.

We need to dump the $ky-high-way and BRT and focus on doing one priority right.  Previous discussions on MJ have indicated a priority for commuter rail and streetcars.  Let's get one of these rail projects going as a start and move on after we have a success under our belts.

[Ocklawaha]

It doesn't even have to be big, to be RIGHT!

Ock, I have said all along, our community is A-D-D.  It can not focus on more than one mass transit project at a time.

The community is skeptical of mass transit and is not going to give leaders a groundswell of support until they see something that actually makes an impact on transit in this City.  The $ky-high-way, our somewhat disfunctional bus system, and now, potentially BRT, will just continue to give mass transit a black eye and make the prospects for rail systems in Jax bleaker.

We need to dump the $ky-high-way and BRT and focus on doing one priority right.  Previous discussions on MJ have indicated a priority for commuter rail and streetcars.  Let's get one of these rail projects going as a start and move on after we have a success under our belts.

Any Questions?


What happens in Vegas, needs to... COME HERE!

It's really a damn shame that a city/metro of nearly a million and a half people, can't even get a bus or a freaking horizontal elevator to function correctly. JTA suffers from many ills most of which can be summed up in the old "too many chiefs and not enough Indians," argument.

One of the main reasons to add the remaining four miles to the Skyway,  is to set the ground work that the officials at AMTRAK said attracts them toward downtown! It also serves along with streetcar and possible electric bus, as the distributors of downtown traffic in lieu of the current diesel bus fleet. Like I said, you Stephendare, myself and ?? perhaps Mr. Blaylock, should go spend a couple of hours to make some hard observations. Why isn't Rosa Parks on 8Th Street? Why isn't Kings Avenue Station at Atlantic, and the current station at the Hilton? etc..

Streetcars, this is an easy fix, simply follow Dallas and Tampa, fund and sub out the entire operation to a private nonprofit that will do the job 100% better and for less bucks... Hey, and it will even LOOK like the private streetcars that were stolen from us so, so, long ago.

Don't completely discount BRT, at least not the concept of priority, lanes and up grades to the infrastructure. Just for the sake of thought, if the Skyway DID end at 8Th and Jefferson, and if we built another Kings Avenue type station there, with the buses on one side and the STREETCAR on the other, I feel certain you would see success all across the board. Note that I said success, not profit. Anyone in this thread still looking for profit from Amtrak, Transit, Skyway, Streetcars, Buses etc... consider the new investment in buildings, offices and jobs, would more then pay - however indirectly - for the system. The key word is SYSTEM, without a good mix, laid out in a matrix, we don't have mass transit, we have a few bus routes, end of story!

Anyone else up for a few hours at the Skyway?


The plan is SWEET, just add streetcar! But keeping it on paper and not in brick is just plain dumb!

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

Have any of the JTA planners ever been in a city with LRT?  Not just the tourist lines, but a working system?  Idiots!

pretty sad statement...considering I doubt you know any of the JTA planners in person...if you did, you wouldn't have asked the question