Timing, arguably, is everything. You can make a case, for example, that the Tampa Bay region could use a modern mass transit system. Thirty years ago. Something to do with reining in sprawl, getting ahead of the clean air curve and positioning the area, especially the business hub of Tampa, for high-density development and the attraction and retention of business.
Instead, rail was railroaded and ridiculed. Remember “Commissioner Choo-Choo”? Ed Turanchik does. And Tampa now rivals Detroit as twin major metro markets sans viable mass transit. But intriguingly — and ironically — enough, Tampa is on schedule to become a terminus of the nation’s first high-speed rail line. The one between Orlando and here that the feds are largely underwriting. That’s on track to roll into downtown in 2015.
But then what? What will the Orlando-to-Tampa train connect to? The promise of light rail or the prospect of buses? The 21st century or the 20th?
Much rides quite literally on the upcoming (Nov. 2) referendum, including regional signals to adjacent counties. Light rail — along with road projects and expanded bus service — hangs in the precarious balance. During a worst-in-memory recession. Talk about timing.
The editorials and op-ed pieces are all over the print media. There are TV spots and Jim Davis-voice-over robo calls. The transit-tax issue — and light rail is the unquestioned lightning rod — is that controversial, that polarizing and that important for the area’s future.
And now add this subplot. The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority is saying that a key light rail route between downtown and Tampa International Airport could be more than a progressive promise in 2015 if the referendum passes. In fact, it could be up and running by 2015, three years earlier than previously planned. Revenue from a one-cent sales tax hike could be leveraged for light rail instead of waiting for matching federal funds first.
That would be pragmatic policy and progressive leadership. And candidly it’s also savvy, pre-referendum politics.
Time is not an ally for a city and a region that has long lived in a transportation time warp. An operational light rail route in 2015 — instead of 2018 — should matter. Especially when it’s in time to complement the Orlando-to-Tampa high-speed rail route that is coming here no matter how the referendum vote goes.
All that remains to be determined is what century the line will encounter — just five years from now.