I’d personally like to see further extensions through Downtown, replacing the current “In-Town Trolley” bus routes, and perhaps also and additional line in Hyde Park and South Tampa, but this is unlikely to happen for decades.

Four years later in 2004, voters throughout the whole county were presented with an additional .5% sales tax to fund a package of roads, buses, and additional light rail throughout the entire metrpolitan area. That also passed, although it was much more controversial than the 2000 vote. Now, of course dwindling sales tax revenues attributable to the recession and real estate collapse are forcing local authorities to cut or delay certain projects in the plan pitched to the voters.

If there’s any lesson from the Phoenix experience it might be that if the vote is at a county level, there needs to be some sort of plan for service to various corners of the metropolitan area. A more limited plan for one starter line can work if the vote is constrained to those communities immediately benefiting from the initial route.

* The region (and state) is hostile to pedestrian transit, bicycle transit, and pretty much anything that isn’t a vehicle. Some exceptions to this generalization could be for instance in the neighboring city of St. Petersburg but… they are vastly different cities. Regardless, it is very difficult to take a bus somewhere in the city (at least when I lived there from 1979-2000) and then get to your final destination. The likelihood you’d be asked to walk on a busy section of street with little to no sidewalks is pretty high

* The Tampa Bay metro region is so spread out that most of the compelling common routes would seemingly require multiple connections, but maybe the population/commercial centers have shifted slightly since I was there

* Similarly, the bus routes have frequently not be aligned with where the population is growing or where people want to go

* HART, like many metro transit agencies, has never been on top of their branding & marketing game plan

* Finally I don’t believe employers in the Tampa region are compelled to offer incentives for those that utilize mass transit

Regardless, as Bill said that Tampa is even _seriously_ considering a _proposal_ of this nature is jaw-droppingly awesome. Kudos to those who’ve worked hard to put it together.

- Increasing bus service is absolutely a good thing. HART has disproportionately low ridership in proportion with the huge number of people in Brandon and New Tampa that have almost no service. Hopefully the feds will take service coverage into account when looking at ridership data.

- Similarly, without promises of road improvements, this proposal has a snowball’s chance in Hades of passing.

- the USF line is going to be transformative. It already has pretty high bus ridership by Tampa standards, and it’s not difficult at all to imagine commuters switching to rail in droves to avoid the parking lot traffic in the area during rush hour.

- Each additional line is on or near an over-capacity commuting corridor. Once people see that transit works and isn’t just another crazy boondoggle (of which we’ve had more than our fair share), there will be riots if the system *isn’t* expanded.

- At the state level, as I’m sure you’re aware, we’ve had a hostile transit environment for some time. Governor Bush almost singlehandedly killed the Tampa-Orlando HSR (‘the bullet train’, in local parlance) with a deliberately-ambiguous referendum in 2004. If not for that referendum, SunRail, like HSR, would be a non-issue. Voters on the Suncoast and in Central Florida are starting to realise that Bush & his successor Charlie Crist’s policies aren’t the answer to our problems, and we’ll likely get a much more hospitable state government next year.

What we really need is to come up with a name for this thing. (Also, integrated ticketing.)