how to spend the 500M

tommy permalink | tags: county, transportation
by tommy @ 1:07 pm

Update: Here is the pdf list of theProposed Road Projects likely to be approved at the next meeting.

As you read here last week, the county has 500 million dollars for transportation issues. Currently, the county plans to spend $250 million for roads, $160 million for intersection improvements, $40 million for transit/HART, $30 million for right-of-way acquisition, and $20 million for advanced traffic management systems and traffic signals.

Right here in the Sticks, Mariella Smith suggested some of that should go to the Greenways System for bike lanes and sidewalks. In addition to her Sticks column on transportation, Mariella Smith emailed a few of her friends with her concerns.

She got some very interesting feedback from a couple city leaders. I’ve chosen some excerpts here, but include the entire email exchange at the bottom of this post, just so you can see all the details if you are interested. Here’s the nutshell:

Ed Turanchik doesn’t want to spend the money just yet. He says we should hold on to the dough until Federal matching funds come available, and use it for regional transit:

Since Hillsborough County has identified a half billion for transportation, the best thing to do is not waste it on incremental improvements that will get eaten up in a sea on congestion and growth. It should hold this capacity in reserve and apply it to a future regional rail/bus transit system for capital purposes. The $500 million if applied to rail/bus transit could leverage $1.5 billion of state and federal funds for a sound, federally qualifying rail/bus transit project. If this money is spent on a regional transit system, it could provide congestion proof, high speed travel options throughout the county. If coupled with Penny for Pinellas funds of an equivalent amount, it could leverage an additional $1.5 billion. That would bring $3 billion of new money, leveraged by a billion locally.

Transportation Task Force Member Bob Abberger disagreed with that:

We have a $3.8B plus unfunded roadway need alone in Hillsborough County, not including our transit needs. Our key commercial corridors are hurtling towards gridlock, with no plan in place today to provide even minimal improvements while a broader funding strategy is addressed.

The $500M in improvements identified will address significant projects that will improve flow and congestion across all parts of our county. These are critical projects that current funding won’t dent…

We can throw $500M at transit, and we will still see our community grind to total gridlock, with a virtual moratorium on new jobs as we find ourselves with no roadway capacity, or we can put our finger in the dike, provide critical short term capacity while we find funding to fix the dam.

Ed was not convinced:

We can be pothole mavens or we can start the serious business of building a transportation infrastructure that will work for our citizens. …If we continue to spend our incremental dollars on incremental projects, when we finally get to transit, the cupboards are bear or we have shot our political capital on something else.

…We end up building ever wider intersections and wider arterial and collector roadways that lead us to the same gridlock. Indeed, the entire county concurrency elements fail to take into account this phenomenon. And while this is exciting to developers, this transportation shell game is contrary to the overall public interest in quality of life and regional mobility.

Ed ends with this:

This is precisely the type of community discussion in which we should be engaged. Let’s hope that hundreds join the fray. These matters are far too important to be resolved by limited discussions among a small group of citizens, whether appointed or elected.

I agree with that - we all have a stake, therefore we all have a say. Meetings are scheduled for May 21. What do you want to do with the 500M? Please leave your comments.

Read the entire emails below:

Ed Turanchik - “County Is On The Verge of a Half Billion Mistake”:

The Hillsborough County Transportation Task Force is going to finish its recommendations this month on spending $500 million for an assortment of road and intersection improvements, with a minor portion going to transit, right of way acquisition and traffic management. This is a huge sum of money that will have a miniscule impact on alleviating traffic congestion or providing options to being stuck in cars. The spending recommendations will widen roadways that go to major regional highways, but will do nothing to improve or enhance regional capacity. At the same time, the legislature has approved the first ever regional transportation authority that might actually be able to do something, if it only had local funding sources for transit.

Since Hillsborough County has identified a half billion for transportation, the best thing to do is not waste it on incremental improvements that will get eaten up in a sea on congestion and growth. It should hold this capacity in reserve and apply it to a future regional rail/bus transit system for capital purposes. The $500 million if applied to rail/bus transit could leverage $1.5 billion of state and federal funds for a sound, federally qualifying rail/bus transit project. If this money is spent on a regional transit system, it could provide congestion proof, high speed travel options throughout the county. If coupled with Penny for Pinellas funds of an equivalent amount, it could leverage an additional $1.5 billion. That would bring $3 billion of new money, leveraged by a billion locally.

Since retiring from the County Commission, I have not sent out a blanket email like this. THIS IS A HUGELY IMPORTANT ISSUE THAT DESERVES YOUR ATTENTION AND VOICE. I saw us fritter away our prior position on transit, and it cost us potentially billions of dollars. If we had the vision and fortitude to act in the 90’s on the transit initiative, it would be under construction today for a fraction of the cost that it will cost us, and have a transit system to grow on. The stars are aligning again for the opportunity to move transit forward in a meaningful way. I hate to see us lose this opportunity again.

While all sorts of arguments will be mounted as to why we should spend $500 million now, the fact is that government can always spend our money. The point is that we want it done wisely, prudently and in a manner to help us build a better community. Moving forward now is the imprudent, fiscally irresponsible and unwise decision.

I am copying all county commissioners on this message to aid in your engagement in this discussion. Hopefully, you will take advantage of the internet and use it to weigh in on this topic, no matter your opinion.

Transportation Task Force Member Bob Abberger responded to Turanchik:

Your outcry here is ill considered. We have a $3.8B plus unfunded roadway need alone in HillsboroughCounty, not including our transit needs. Our key commercial corridors are hurtling towards gridlock, with no plan in place today to provide even minimal improvements while a broader funding strategy is addressed.

Although you haven’t participated with this task forces deliberations, I do have great respect for your opinions and research on transit, and share your belief that we must fund transit. As you know, I led the Chambers task force in 2000 when I served as Vice Chair of HART for new transit and roadway funding, and I shared your frustration that we lost our position on Federal New Starts as well as ignored our growing unfunded transportation needs with little or no acknowledgement by the media or community at large.

That being said, our task force set out to first address CRITICAL SHORT TERM NEEDS that we can address in a five year period. The $500M in improvements identified will address significant projects that will improve flow and congestion across all parts of our county. These are critical projects that current funding won’t dent at approximately $50M a year in current county roadway funding. The next step is to quickly move on this momentum to identify additional funding that can be used to accomplish the real challenges in our vastly under funded transportation infrastructure - a step that needs to occur this year, that will provide the leverage you and I desire with federal funding.

We as a community blew it on transit when we lost our position on New Starts. A rail solution is MANY MANY years from being in place. Bus funding is desperately needed, and we are looking at funding the first Bus Rapid Transit Corridor to get this jump started as well.

We can throw $500M at transit, and we will still see our community grind to total gridlock, with a virtual moratorium on new jobs as we find ourselves with no roadway capacity, or we can put our finger in the dike, provide critical short term capacity while we find funding to fix the dam.

Respectfully,
Robert R. Abberger

Of course, Ed wrote back:

Thank you. I wholly disagree. We can be pothole mavens or we can start the serious business of building a transportation infrastructure that will work for our citizens. I have heard these arguments for years “We will do the roads now and then we will get to transit,” so goes the argument. So the County will spend $500 million on roadways. The City will spend $40 million on downtown infrastructure improvements with CRA funds None of these add seriously to regional mobility. None do these projects deals seriously with issues such as growth management, workforce mobility, global warming, or regional competitiveness. So, if we continue to spend our incremental dollars on incremental projects, when we finally get to transit, the cupboards are bear or we have shot our political capital on something else. With potential serious reductions in local government revenues due to changes in Tallahassee on the horizon, and with the various permutations for funding of transportation initiatives that might come out of a regional transportation authority wholly unknown and unknowable at this point, we should keep our powder dry.

This is, in my view, the appropriate conservative approach. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we missed the next federal funding cycle for lack of this $500 million and passed up on $1.5 billion. I would be exceedingly angry to know that my tax dollars, which I work very hard to earn, are being sent to another community to help them solve their problems, creating more livable cities where my children will prefer to live. So if miss yet another opportunity, instead of building a regional transit system, we can proudly point to a widened Lithia Pinecrest Road ( just a hypothetical as the county commission will decide on the other short term projects that are so critical that they require immediate funding) or a bigger intersection at the corner of Dale Mabry and who knows what road.

I have been down this point before, and it ultimately is little better than zero sum. We end up building ever wider intersections and wider arterial and collector roadways that lead us to the same gridlock. Indeed, the entire county concurrency elements fail to take into account this phenomenon. And while this is exciting to developers, this transportation shell game is contrary to the overall public interest in quality of life and regional mobility. Again, I say and maintain that the potential opportunity cost associated with spending these funds is far too high to undertake at this point.

I do, however, thank you for writing me. This is precisely the type of community discussion in which we should be engaged. Let’s hope that hundreds join the fray. These matters are far too important to be resolved by limited discussions among a small group of citizens, whether appointed or elected. I know, let’s have a referendum as see whether all of our citizens agree on spending the $500 million in a manner that is being considered. I bet the vote would be a resounding NO.

So, do you agree with Ed? Do you agree with Bob? Maybe you have a better idea than all of them.

11 Responses to “how to spend the 500M”

  1. Anita Jimenez Says:

    I agree with Mr. Turanchek. We can’t continue putting bandaids on our festering transportation problems. We keep “improving” our roadways only to have them reach capacity before the cones are removed. Taking advantage of federal funds to make real progress is the only logical next step. We need to make a commitment as a community to SOLVE our problems so that we aren’t continuing to have this conversation ten years on.

  2. chris peattie Says:

    more roads equal more cars equal more congestion. just ask LA. Good public transportation means most people don’t even need cars. Boston or New York for example. I leave my car when i visit these cities.
    Developers want new roads for the same reason they want anything; a quick buck. Then they leave us Brandon, Lutz, Riverview etc. Aw Gee, looks like a lot more traffic, Maybe you should build a bigger road

  3. WP Says:

    Tommy,
    Perhaps you should link to some of the previous discussions on transportation/traffic as well.
    The commercial corridor gridlock referenced by Abberger will not be addressed with these funds. Most of the corridors in the urban/suburban areas are as wide as they should ever be. Could anyone imagine adding additional lanes to Hwy 60 or Dale Mabry north of 275? Or making BBD look the same as Fowler from USF up to New Tampa? Everytime I fly out of TIA I’m astounded at the huge scars that the east-west arterials create on our landscape. Semantics aside, gridlock is caused by too many cars not too few roadways.
    I agree with Ed that we need to galvanize development of a true alternative to driving. We need to utilize this money to procur funds that will allow for a full-fledged transit system instead of a piecemeal effort that will inevitably lead to a protracted project that will offer very little long-term relief.

  4. Pierre Mathurin Says:

    I was one of three members of the public who commented on the proposed transportation plan at Monday’s meeting (May 7). As proposed, the $500 million bond will devote over 80% to roads and intersection improvements and just 8% to transit. If this community is serious about transit, then spending over 10 times more on roads than on transit does not reflect a serious effort. The proposed $500 million program is limited to capital projects, not for transit operations, which HART needs greatly. It is unfortunate that more transit projects were not added to the program.

    While county staff had worked to provide the task force members with information comparing Hillsborough County’s transportation efforts to other Florida counties, we also compete with other areas nationwide. Other areas that have made the choice to invest in transit. In Eugene - Springfield, Oregon,(population of over 200,000) a new bus rapid transit (BRT) line opened earlier this year. So far, the new BRT line has managed to increase ridership to about 5,000 a day, an increase of 50% over the previous bus line it replaced. In Honolulu, the local Metropolitan Planning Organization (a transportation planning agency) approved a plan to proceed with a rail transit line. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, voters on Tuesday (May 8) approved a property tax renewal and an increase in the property tax rate to fund existing transit service and to expand transit service.

    With gasoline prices at near $3 levels, our community, unlike many other communities across the nation, is currently very limited in its efforts to meet the demand for transit service. If we don’t make a commitment to transit now, then when? Next year? Next decade? Or, when it will be too late to do anything?

  5. Mariella Says:

    The root of the problem is that development has not been paying for itself, so we are now $3.1 billion behind just on roads. Our county keeps allowing development to overwhelm our infrastructure, and then we taxpayers keep having to bail ourselves out of the mess the developers leave behind. The $500M is to be borrowed against our future taxes. We can’t afford to keep digging ourselves into this stupid hole. Let’s stop digging.

  6. WP Says:

    I absolutely agree Mariella. Also, development needs to be managed to start concentrating densities in the urban centers. Although, because of such poor planning in the past, the infrastructure to support the increasing densities aren’t there yet and will be so much more expensive now, and we’ll find ourselves in chicken/egg arguments regarding on where and when, at every step of the way. Too bad our leaders weren’t working for their constituents instead of the developers. Additionally, we really need to put the brakes on sprawling single-family developments at the fringes.

    *Tongue-in-cheek sidenote, all these folks should be required to play Sim City before they’re eligible to take office

  7. Phillip Says:

    Out of $500 million only $40 million of it is being devoted to mass transit?? What a joke.

  8. Dave Says:

    Take a nominal amount of that (even with Turanchik’s proposal) and invest in intelligent mass transit information systems. For very little of that 500 million we could hop on the web and know exactly when the next bus is going to pull up to the bus stop down the street. Those plans are probably in the works anyway but surely now they could be speeded up.

  9. Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog » Blog Archive » tribune parrots developers' propaganda Says:

    […] Contrary to these hysterical warnings of the economic doom that might come from letting citizens control development in our communities, unrestrained growth is NOT good for our economy. In fact, unrestrained growth is drowning us in debt. A new county study (the FIELD model) shows that unless we rein in development, in twenty years our county will be $3.3 billion in debt on roads alone, while schools and other infrastructure will increase that deficit. Each new house costs Hillsborough taxpayers several thousand dollars just in road costs not covered by impact fees. Our county is right now about to borrow $500 million against our future taxes just to make a small down-payment toward our $3.8 billion unfunded roadway need. […]

  10. Pierre Mathurin Says:

    The proposed $500 million transportation program and the $40 million slated for transit is the least of our community’s worries now. There is a greater threat to existing transit service levels provided by HART. The proposed property tax reform program that the state legislature is considering could have a serious impact on mass transit in our community. HART gets over 50% of their funding from the 1/2 mill property tax to fund transit service that provided over 10 million rides last year. Any cut in funding threatens existing levels of service and cancels any planned increases in service. Any cutbacks in service may involve late night service, Sunday service, Saturday service, holiday service and entire routes, as well as paratransit service. The Hillsborough County Legislative Delegation is holding a meeting on Tuesday June 5, 2007 at the University Area Community Center Complex gymnasium at 14013 North 22nd Street from 6PM to 9PM, to hear from Hillsborough County, Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City officials and the general public on the issue of property tax reform. Although HART was not scheduled on the agenda, it is important that these elected officials hear from the public how important it is to maintain transit service. In this time of $3 a gallon gas, is it wise for our community to cut back on transit service, and reduce mobility for many in our community and increase the negative impacts of auto-only transportation on our environment?

    Please attend this important meeting!

    Sincerely yours,

    Pierre Mathurin

  11. Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog » Blog Archive » roads to sprawlville on new transportation plan Says:

    […] can’t afford all the infrastructure we need WITHIN the Urban Service Area—we’re BILLIONS of dollars behind on the roads we need now. We should be spending our money on infrastructure where the people are, filling our existing needs […]

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