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Column: Hillsborough transportation plan offers reasonable approach

 
A half-cent sales tax could improve bus service, relieve congestion with wider roads, and fund a modernized streetcar through downtown Tampa.
A half-cent sales tax could improve bus service, relieve congestion with wider roads, and fund a modernized streetcar through downtown Tampa.
Published June 11, 2015

Over the past two years, Hillsborough County commissioners, the mayors of our three cities and the chairman of HART, together with other local and regional transportation agencies, have worked collaboratively on the GO Hillsborough initiative to find solutions to our community's transportation crisis. Unlike previous attempts, GO Hillsborough is about truly understanding our transportation needs and desires at a grassroots level.

Consistently throughout GO Hillsborough's extensive public engagement and outreach, residents told us that they believe our community is facing a transportation crisis. In fact, it is the top concern for them, more than jobs and our local economy. I believe these concerns speak to a basic desire among residents for prosperity — prosperity for their families, prosperity in their careers and prosperity for the community as a whole.

So, how are we doing as a community on prosperity? We are 11th highest in traffic congestion in the country; rank among the highest number of bicycle and pedestrian injuries and deaths in the country; face a $750 million backlog of basic maintenance needs on roads, intersections and bridges; and operate a bus system that lacks adequate frequency, coverage and convenience, and does not serve the needs of a generation of workers who will become the great innovators of our era and who desire premium transit choices.

Prosperity means different things to different people. But I think we can safely agree that these are not indicators of a community on the path to prosperity.

After more than 60 presentations to neighborhood associations, chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and business interest groups; after 32 interactive community events and four telephone town halls; after hours of market research, nine focus groups and a statistically significant voter survey, what did we hear from residents? Clearly and consistently, they see value in fixing and maintaining roads, bridges and intersections. They also see value in improving mass transit, sidewalks and trails. And they are willing to invest in these improvements.

Opinion surveying shows little community support for gas taxes and property taxes as a way to pay for transportation needs. In the end, a majority of those interviewed will support a new half-cent sales tax for 30 years. GO Hillsborough considered a full penny of new revenue. However, we quickly learned from community input and feedback that neither residents in the city of Tampa nor the rest of the county are willing to support that much at this time.

Consistent with community feedback, GO Hillsborough is recommending a dedicated half-cent sales tax to be approved by voters in a November 2016 referendum. This would raise $117.5 million annually and $3.5 billion over 30 years to fix our roads first, relieve congestion and nearly double transit service, including the modernization of the streetcar by the city of Tampa. At the same time the half-cent sales tax is implemented, new growth would pay an increased and equitable share for its transportation impacts.

Improvements to roads and transit go hand-in-hand in relieving traffic flow. We believe that an approach that fixes roads, builds bus transit ridership and positions the community for some type of premium transit is a fair and balanced plan that our entire community can support. Importantly, with half-cent sales tax, GO Hillsborough can accomplish many critical improvements for the entire community:

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• Fund 100 percent of backlog and future maintenance needs and 100 percent of bike and sidewalk safety needs throughout the county and cities;

• Relieve congestion, traffic flow and bottlenecks with new and widened roads and intersections as well as building ridership and improving bus transit service, including Bus Rapid Transit and Express and Flex lines;

• Enable the city of Tampa to use its new revenue allocation to fund a modernized streetcar through downtown Tampa and on to the airport or the University of South Florida as a demonstration of the effectiveness of light rail technology;

• Use this new revenue to partner with the Florida Department of Transportation and Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority to develop plans that accommodate short- and longer-term transit solutions along major corridors to connect people to employment, commercial and residential centers.

Certainly, we recognize that a half-cent sales tax will not meet all of our community's needs. It does, however, provide a reasonable choice that avoids the far worse fate of a true transportation crisis by doing nothing. It does provide a measured choice for building transit ridership and the opportunity to show the viability of a light rail technology. And it is an opportunity for our community to invest and move toward a shared prosperity.

Mike Merrill is the Hillsborough County administrator. He wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times.