Bridge to NoWhere

Remeber Sarah Palin's bridge to nowhere? Pork Bellie Politics, lots of federal money handed out for a project that did not seem to benefit anyone except the companies with the contract and the people that had jobs for the duration of the project?  Well Florida is getting its own sweet little project handed to us.  Ours has the bonus of being wrapped up in green packaging - we are saving the earth and our economy all at once.

High Speed Rail train.  Whoooooo Hooooo. Tampa to Orlando in like 30+ minutes.  Remove the majority of traffic along I-4, increase business and commuter opportunities between the 2 cities.  I know a surprising number of people that do the commute already.  If I had to have a job in Orlando, I would rip my family out of their comfortable little zone and move them.  If my husband and I had split jobs, we would move to Lakeland - but I digress.  The green hippie, progressive side of me should be thrilled.  But, I have been opposed to this project every time it has come up for the last 15 years - and it comes up alot.  Now we have federal funding, so it looks like my internal whining is being ignored once again by those who have never heard my opinion.

What's my problem with this wonderful, money making, gas saving, public transit project that we all crave?  Infra structure.  We have none. I'm not sure about Orlando, but I've never seen a "visit our city and the public transit will take you everywhere you want to go, quickly, easily and comfortably" ads.  I do know that Once you get to Tampa, you will hire a cab, call a friend or be pretty much stuck.  I have attempted designing routes on Tampa's public transit system that gets me from point A to point B.  But it is confusing, difficult and would leave me hanging out on very uncomfortable street corners for an uncomfortable length of time.  People don't ride the bus in Tampa.  At least not middle class gainfully employed people.  The busses here may not be dangerous, or dirty, but the reputation of them being so prevails.  There has been talk about building a light rail system to get people from the major 'burbs of Tampa to downtown for years.  Same problem - you get people to a hub - then what?

It always cracks me up when the promoters of these projects point to Portland, Oregon as the model to follow when trying to seek funding.  We have sent delegations to Portland to see the light rail, they always come back with glowing reports.  As they should.  Portland public transit is amazing, and easy, and user friendly.  Everybody rides the bus in Portland.  Our city areas are similar in size and construct, here in Tampa we do not have to deal with Ice, uneven terrain, potential (although unlikely) earthquakes and cross-state politics.  We do worry about sinkholes, floods and the occassional hurricane.  So what's the dif?  Culture!

I lived in Portland while they were putting in the light rail.  They tore up downtown.  Portland is a very walkable city, and the city put out a massive effort to keep it so during all of the construction, and they did an excellent job of keeping access to local business open, I think they lost very few.  Also, the traffic in Portland is significantly worse than in Tampa.  Hard to believe, but it is soooo much easier to ride a bus than to try to drive around during rush hour.  When the subject of light-rail came up, it was not a bunch of politics and special interest groups going "this will be good for our city,"  it was a bunch of citizens going "do something now, we can't get to work or move around comfortably on a daily basis."  The street level infrastructure was established before the light rail system went in.  People were already riding buses - light rail just made it all easier.  The High school and middle school students have bus passes, and get to and from after school activities on the bus, rumor has it that the politics in Tampa with transit and school board would make that almost impossible, and frankly, I won't let my kid ride the school bus, pretty sure they'd have to fix a lot of things before I stuck her on a public bus.  As for safety - my brother worked law enforcement in Multnomah county for a long time.  Every LEO (law enforcement officer) in Portland or Multnomah county is required to inform the driver when they get on the bus.  That is a lot of off-duty and plain clothes cops offering back-up.  You don't know they are there, but the drivers do.

So - the answer for Tampa is to change the culture, educate the people, and make them feel like transit is safe and convenient - no, make it BE safe and convenient.  Work on the infrastructure first.  On another note, a friend of mine, a geologist tossed out another argument the other day that I hadn't really thought about.  Did I mention sink holes?   Huge areas of Tampa have been closed down this winter because large chunks of road fell into the ground.  These are random, unpredictable and common throughout Florida.  Small ones damages houses, large ones swallow them up.  Travelling 180 miles an hour above ground hoping a sink hole doesn't open on the track may be a fun little thrill ride, get y'all warm-ed up for Universal Studios.