Let me say this at the outset. For all those media members who are still trafficking in sophomoric, hackneyed “choo-choo” references when it comes to former County Commissioner Ed Turanchik: It’s not funny and it’s not fair. Nor has it ever been.
Turanchik has been what this region has long been short-changed on: bright, big-idea visionaries. Not air-headed idealists or status-quo venerators or no-taxes-for-anything-because-I-paid-my-share-up-North pseudo-ideologues. We’ve always exceeded our quota with such elements. Turanchik was for rail when it would have put Tampa Bay on the progressive map as a region of Florida that could actually do more than pave its way to ever-more sprawl.
To be sure, the Tampa attorney also led the failed Olympic pitch–but recall that it was really a Tampa-headquartered, Florida-regional approach that would have also involved Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami and even Ocala. Ironically, “Florida 2012” would have been much more viable had plans for regional mass transit–that included rail–been heeded years before. And, yes, he’s long tried to marry affordable housing to a challenging marketplace. But lest we forget, he was also a key catalyst behind Tampa Bay Water, hardly a utopian daydream.
Now Turanchik is fronting for commuter ferry service around Tampa Bay. Not that the concept is brand new. Hardly. But timing is everything. So are the players.
Turanchik persuaded the president of HMS Ferries Inc. that the market was here. Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based HMS provides water transit worldwide to both commuters and tourists. Tampa Bay has both.
“We get offers to look at a lot of presentation bids and we are generally skeptical,” noted HMS president Gregory Dronkert. “But Tampa Bay is ripe for this kind of service.”
What HMS, whose services include a ferry in Jacksonville and ones that shuttle visitors to the Statue of Liberty, likes is the Bay Area’s critical-mass potential. Most persuasive: the 5,300 military families that are MacDill Air Force Base-connected. Most have a member commuting between south county and MacDill. Plus, a number of base employees qualify for a government transit voucher that would largely cover fare expenses.
Moreover, off-peak-hour scenarios include event-related service to downtown Tampa and tourist excursions between Tampa and St. Petersburg. HMS would underwrite operating expenses, including a MacDill tram, and not require a subsidy because of that sizable MacDill commuter base.
The public-private partnership wouldn’t be chump change–an estimated $22 million over three years–for dredging, docks, boats and parking, but hardly a sum to rival uber expensive lane paving. (For example, it’s estimated that it would cost nearly $9 million per mile for the construction of two lanes of highway. And that’s excluding right-of-way and real estate-acquisition overhead.) But the numbers would be in context–even if federal and state dollars aren’t involved.
We’re talking about a feasible way to relieve traffic congestion in a key corridor. We’re also talking about the future for an area that keeps losing quality-of-life and corporate-relo-incentive ground to the competition. And we’re also talking–and we shouldn’t need reminding on this–about a major-market region that is water oriented.