The perfect commute is easy, inexpensive and reliable.

In cities boasting such factors, like Buffalo, N.Y., Salt Lake City and Milwaukee, the trip to work is a breeze. But for commuters in Atlanta, Detroit and Miami, the daily grind is just that, thanks to bad traffic, insufficient infrastructure and drivers who resist carpools and public transportation.

Forbes.com looked at the 75 largest metro areas in the U.S. and evaluated them based on traffic delays, travel times and how efficiently commuters use existing infrastructure, based on data from the Texas Transportation Institute and the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 American Community Survey. The worst commutes were those that ate up the most hours and were the least reliable. The best commutes were in cities with short, dependable treks to the office, where fellow commuters efficiently use transit options to reduce congestion

Tampa Ranks #6: Tampa commuters are victims of urban sprawl. As late as 2005, 25% of area properties were classified as investment properties; this rate was almost double the national average. What does this have to do with commuting? It’s a good sign that the city is spread out. While Tampa exhibits a very low population density, commuters are stuck in traffic delays 45 hours a year, and 7% take more than an hour to get to work.
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Give rail a jump-start
08/17/08 - St. Petersburg Times

The Tampa Bay region has no greater problem than its congested and outdated transportation system. For two decades, political leaders throughout Tampa Bay have acknowledged that commuter rail must play a role if the growing region is to maintain its quality of life and diversify and grow its economy. Yet all the talk and costly studies have failed to drive a single spike into the ground; even a rudimentary rail system is at least another decade away.

That’s why Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio’s plan to jump-start rail is encouraging. The time has come to give commuters more transit options and for the region to make better use of its land and transportation dollars. But adding rail is an expensive and long-term undertaking. Moving ahead should reflect a larger consensus that the region is ready to address transportation and growth well beyond the lens of parochial politics. Read more

Visions Of Regional Transit Bump Against Local Realities
08/17/08 -The Tampa Tribune

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio is taking the lead and pushing hard to give Hillsborough voters a chance, finally, to say yes or no to a rail transit proposal. Not everyone is happy about that. Red flags are up warning she is moving so far ahead of regional plans that the state won’t help pay for the costly project, which means it couldn’t be built. We encourage the mayor to keep pushing and for regional planning efforts to continue. By early next year the regional plans will have caught up, and everyone should be on the same track in time for a 2010 vote.

Iorio and others, including Hillsborough Commissioner Mark Sharpe, are right not to entirely delegate Tampa’s big-city commuting challenges to the whims of a seven-county board. Unlike Iorio, many of the local elected leaders on the board are accountable to small-town constituencies more interested in keeping taxes low than in investing in faster travel. Iorio’s strategy is that some jurisdiction has to go first, and it makes sense to start where the traffic is the worst and the commuters most eager for options. When the first segment is open, neighboring counties can see the benefits and join when they’re ready. Read more

Final design approval keeps commuter rail project alive
By Dan Tracy | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer

Central Florida’s planned commuter-rail project passed a technical hurdle Monday, freeing up as much as $60 million to spend on land for proposed stations and train cars.

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R- Winter Park, said at a morning press conference at Walt Disney World that the venture was approved for final design by the Federal Transit Administration.

“I’m very pleased we reached this stage in the process,” Mica said.

That designation, while not ensuring that the $1.2 billion train system will be built, keeps the project alive, supporters said.

The plan still needs final approval from the Florida Legislature, which balked earlier this year at providing insurance for some workers associated with the train. Also, some Lakeland officials are against the project because they fear that extra freight trains will be rerouted away from commuter rail tracks and into their Polk County community.

But state Sen. Daniel Webster, R- Winter Garden, promised a deal would be worked out by the Legislature when it meets next year. “Whatever needs to happen is going to happen,” said Webster, who retires because of term limits at the end of this year.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-commuter-rail-081108,0,457662.story

 
TBARTA’s Mission in Flux 
 WUSF 89.7 News, By STEVE NEWBORN

TAMPA (2008-07-25) The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority hasn’t celebrated it’s first birthday yet, and many questions remain about the board’s mission. Will it oversee the rail projects being outlined by several counties, or is it expected to come up with its own plans for the seven counties?

Tampa Mayor and TBARTA member Pam Iorio says while Hillsborough County has the ability to put a penny sales tax on the ballot to find construction of light rail projects, many other counties don’t. And since Hillsborough already has a plan to construct the first of several planned light rail lines, would that plan fall to HART, the county’s rapid transit service.  Listen here

Column: Slow Down! A Transit Plan May Take Effect
8/5/2008 - Tampa Tribune

Obviously, despite being a lifelong resident of the Tampa Bay area, Mayor Pam Iorio still has no clue how we do things around here. It was a clearly uppity mayor who said the other day that rather than wait for the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority to develop a, well, regional transportation plan, she wanted to move ahead with her own initiative to create a Hillsborough County mass transit system, funded by a sales tax. The nerve of some people! Read more

HART Raises Bus Fares, Backs Property Tax Hike
8/5/2008-Tampa Tribune

Riding a bus is going to get more expensive, and even nonriders might soon pay more to support Hillsborough County’s transit agency. The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit board agreed Monday to raise fares across the board and gave tentative backing to a property tax increase to pay for more buses and a long-range transit study. The tax increase must survive two public hearings and be passed by a super-majority of the board before becoming reality. Citing higher costs for gas and increased ridership, the HART board unanimously agreed to raise bus fares but split 5-4 on increasing the property tax rate to 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable value. The current rate is 45 cents. Under the higher rate, the owner of a home assessed at $150,000 with a $50,000 homestead exemption would pay HART $50 yearly in property taxes, an increase of $5.05. A house assessed at $250,000 with the exemption would pay $100, or $10.10 more than now. Read more

Palmetto to study red-light cameras
8/5/2008 - Bradenton Herald

Red light cameras may be in store for Palmetto if a feasibility study convinces city commissioners it is worth implementing. Palmetto City Commmissioners on Monday asked the police department to conduct a study to show how effective cameras might be for the city. Deputy Chief Mike Mayer said it will take about 30 days to examine traffic reports of intersections before making a recommendation to the commission on whether to install cameras. If city commissioners give the OK, Palmetto would become the third government entity in Manatee County to approve red-light cameras. Read more

Editorial: The interest is there, but mass transit is not
8/3/2008- St. Petersburg Times
There are lots of ideas and lots of desires. There is, however, not a lot of money. TBARTA doesn’t have a permanent funding source. A working mass transit system among the seven counties is two decades away, suggested former state representative and current Hernando Commissioner David Russell, who sits on the TBARTA board. So we wait in traffic. The federal interstate system accounts for 3 percent of total public lane miles in Florida but carries 30 percent of the traffic, according to TBARTA’s Web site. It helps explain why a recent poll found transportation as the No. 1 concern in Pasco. It also helps explain why Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio is trying to jump-start a rail system for her city in advance of TBARTA’s finished plan. Read more

Metros Move to Forge Their Own Transit Futures
8/3/2008 -Citiwire
America’s major metro regions may be on the verge of transit independence. They tap federal aid whenever they can. But increasingly they’re being obliged to find money for system expansion right at home. They’re learning to get cities and suburbs on the same page as they prepare for a post-petroleum age. And where they’re not succeeding, anger is mounting. Take the Atlanta region, legendary for its traffic tie-ups. It added 2 million people in 20 years but built little new capacity, and now needs to invest $50 billion in rails and roads. As recently as April, Georgia’s legislature refused to let citizens of the region even vote on a sales tax boost to finance transit lines and roadway expansion. Read more

PSTA sets new ridership record
7/23/2008 -Tampa Bay Business Journal

More people than ever are taking the bus in Pinellas County. The June report from the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority shows a 12.1 percent in fixed route ridership compared with last year. Nearly 1.1 million people rode the bus, bringing the nine-month year-to-date total to 9.3 million riders, the most in PSTA history. Ridership is up 8.8 percent for the year. Read more

If your drive to work each day consists of crossing a county line, you are not alone. However you probably already knew that, due the the congestion you experience everyday.

While you know you have company on the road, the percentage of people employed outside their county of residence might still astound you. Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council (TBRPC) used 2000 census data to analyze our regional commuting patterns for the 2007 Reality Check exercise and found the following percentage of citizens were employed outside their county of residence:

To view the County-to-County Work Flows Map, Click Here.

Currently, 20 percent of our regional population is over the age of 65 and over the next two decades this number is expected to reach unprecedented numbers as America’s baby boom generation reaches retirement age.

Critical opportunities lie immediately ahead to provide our region’s aging population with greater independence and quality of life.   This need has been documented in several recent reports including;

• AARP — Enhancing Mobility Options for Older Americans
• Aging Americans: Stranded Without Options
• Expanding the Transportation Options in an Aging Society
• Harris Interactive — The Attitudes Of Older Americans Toward Mobility and Transportation

For more information on how transit choice impact the again community visit: www.publictransportation.org

By Amanda Ripley
July 3, 2008 Time.com

The world had long assumed that Americans were just unrepentant energy pigs. If gas prices went up, well, we kept our Explorers aimed at the horizon, and little changed. We truthfully didn’t have lots of options. Unlike Europeans, we didn’t have jobs we could bike to or convenient public transit. Gasoline prices never stayed high enough long enough to force those kinds of shifts in how we lived.

Now here we are. Gas prices are near $4 per gal., as no one needs to tell you, and they are likely to stay that way. Most of us still don’t have the alternatives we need to adapt with grace, which means that many will adapt just by suffering. We will run out of gas on I-80, ease our minivans over to the shoulder and tell the kids everything is O.K. We’ll fall behind on Visa bills to pay for gas so we can buy food made ever more expensive by energy costs.

But it’s also true that Americans are finding options where there seemed to be none. They’re ready to change — and waiting for their infrastructure to catch up. They are driving to commuter-rail lines only to find there are no parking spots left. They are running fewer errands and dumping their SUVs. Public-transit use is at a 50-year high. Gas purchases are down 2% to 3%. And all those changes bring secondary, hard-earned benefits.

“You suddenly are reminded how the economy works,” says Eric Roston, author of a new book about energy, The Carbon Age. “Nobody wants high prices for oil. But there’s also no faster mechanism to change behavior.” The suffering will go on. But the story, like any good tragedy, is not without redemption

1. Globalized Jobs Return Home: The world suddenly seems big again.
2. Sprawl Stalls: Across the country, real estate agents are reporting that many home buyers are looking to move closer to cities.
3. Four-Day Workweeks: Companies, colleges and governments are moving to four-day weeks.
4. Less Pollution: As people consume less fuel in America, vehicle emissions should drop.
5. More Frugality: Trucking companies are using software to help identify optimal places for drivers to refuel and the most efficient delivery routes.
6. Fewer Traffic Deaths: Every year, about 40,000 people die in traffic accidents in the U.S.
7. Cheaper Insurance: If you are driving less, you could qualify for lower car-insurance rates.
8. Less Traffic: Travel on all roads dropped 2.1% in the first four months of 2008
9. More Cops on the Beat: Across the country, police bike and foot patrols are up, and cops are being told to cut down on idling their cruisers.
10. Less Obesity: People walk more, bike more and eat out less when gas is pricey. A permanent $1 hike in prices may cut obesity 10%, saving thousands of lives and billions of dollars a year.
Read the full story here

House Approves Bill to Support Public Transportation
On June 26, the House voted 322-98 to pass the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act (H.R. 6052). Representatives James L. Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, John L. Mica (R-FL), Ranking Member of the Committee, and Peter M. DeFazio (D-OR), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, are the bill’s original co-sponsors. The bipartisan bill authorizes $1.7 billion in grants to public transportation agencies over fiscal 2008 and 2009. The measure is aimed at helping transit agencies contend with high gasoline prices that are driving up their operating costs while simultaneously increasing the demand for their services. The grants could be used to enable agencies to cut fares or expand their service. The bill is currently waiting on action in the Senate.

Reports of Interest
The National Surface Transportation and Revenue Study Commission  released its final report to Congress at the end of 2007.  Transportation for Tomorrow: Report of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, prepared by a specially convened Commission, meets the charge given under Section 1909 of the Safe Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).  The Report includes detailed recommendations for creating and sustaining a pre-eminent surface transportation system in the United States.  .A major purpose of the Commission’s study was to reinvigorate public debate regarding the future of the surface transportation system. 

Click here to read the full report.

Transportation authority plans community workshop
 7/8/2008,  Tampa Bay Newspapers Weekly
 Light rail or bus rapid transit? Commuter rail, managed lanes, or waterborne transit?The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority will be asking the public to imagine the possibilities and share their ideas on different transit modes for our region at the next series of community workshops that will be held from July 23 to Aug. 7. A community workshop will be held locally Thursday, Aug. 7, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive. The format will be an “open house” and will contain information on all options. The workshops are part of TBARTA’s effort to develop a transportation master plan for the 7-county West Central Florida region, including Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota counties.
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HOT lanes taking shape along I-95
6/30/2008, Miami Herald
Somebody forgot to tell the folks in the South Florida transportation business that these are supposed to be the slow, lazy days of summer. Crews are furiously working to finish the first phase of a high-profile experiment that will transform the old, underused HOV lanes on Interstate 95 into the first variably priced High Occupancy Toll (HOT) facility in Florida.
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TBARTA Wants Its Own Director
6/27/08, WUSF-NPR
Since its inception, the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority has relied on Bob Clifford, a planner on loan from the state Department of Transportation. Now that Gov. Crist signed a bill giving them $2 million, members want their own director at the helm.
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