More money down an old rat hole
Sen. Dana Young and
Rep. James Grant, both Tampa Republicans, have filed Bills in the Florida
Legislature (SB 1200/HB 535) to take money from state passenger rail projects
to build alternative transportation systems.
These alternative transportation
systems are such things as autonomous vehicles, ride share operations and other
emerging transportation technologies.
The Sunday Tampa Bay
Times Editorial: Editorial: Legislature should send Tampa Bay
transit money without limiting options is all in on sending the “money” without limitations.
Problem is the money
coming to the Bay Area is currently designated in the Bill to go to TBARTA one
of the most failed Transit Authorities in the State.
Link to current draft Bill HB 535
From the Bill:
Twenty-five million
dollars on a matching basis to the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority
for the design and construction of an alternative transportation system, as
defined CS/HB. One dollar in local or
private matching funds must be provided
for each dollar distributed under this subparagraph. Federal funds may
not be substituted for the local or private matching funds.
Even after a carefully
crafted re-due by the Legislature TBARTA remains hopelessly flawed in is
methods, management and implementation.
TBARTA never met a
train in did not love, or a consultant that it could not somehow justify hiring.
Why you would make TBARTA responsible for a project they basically benefit from
if it fails is beyond me.
I cannot even begin to
count the number of neighborhood association meetings and City Council sessions
over my 28 years with the City of St. Petersburg where some TBARTA consultant,
and never the same one, gave a glowing report replete with maps and charts
about the progress of some TBARTA project that never came to fruition.
Even with a dollar for
dollar match requirement that is currently in the Bill, which in all
likelihoods could quietly disappear, the TBRATA folks who are much more creative at
dealing for dollars than they are at building transportation systems will find
some way to get their paws on the $25 million.
Given TBARTA’s past
track record the chances of any of the State money or the matching funds
actually ending up in a Bay Area rolling transportation solution are remote.
The Times has this one
all wrong. The first place to start is cutting TBARTA completely out of this
picture and wrapping these funds up in requirements for rolling deliverables
not consultant reports.
TBARTA will hire a
staff to “manage” this program, open up the consultant’s feeding trough and spend
most of the money trying to figure out how to throttle alternative
transportation systems, so we can get back to their view of the real transportation
solution light rail and transportation redevelopment.
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