That's right everyone, I've been away from the TR a bit thanks to another important project of mine.  I'm still watching things from afar, though.  Meanwhile, I'd say all the major pro-rail outlets have everything covered.

As for my project, anyone who knows me knows that I develop little "prototype" web applications for the sheer fun and creationism of it.  The one that has been keeping me extra busy this past month has been Headline Prophet. 

www.headlineprophet.com

Headline Prophet, Great for the Planet -- bad for Tampa Rail, sorry -- I still love you! :)

It's a web site where you can discuss news before it happens.  For instance, news like groundbreaking for Hillsborough County light rail!

Drop by the site and play the game.  The hard part is over and I'll be back here pretty soon!

Now that Tampa and Hillsborough County are poised to bring the question of improved, modern, transit to county residents, you should know that the official campaign website appears to be at Moving Hillsborough Forward. They also operate a Facebook fan page right here.

Motorman Henry called my attention to Creative Loafing piece The Bumpy Ride to Light Rail in Tampa, which is a ride not quite over but I'm now guessing will be, in large part, come next November.  It's the most pronounced press on light rail since the referendum's inclusion on the ballot passed.  Another interesting article is St. Pete Times's Hillsborough County Rail Tax Faces Tougher Road than Funding for Buccaneers Stadium, which disturbingly notes that even rail's biggest cheerleaders (which might well be this site, right?) are worried the tax won't pass. Personally, maybe I was worried in pre-hearing thinking, but after reports of so many transit advocates showing up and outnumbering and outlasting transit foes, I've grown more confident. 

Plus, as is noted in the Trib's The Many Faces of Transit Backers, the winning side simply has more intelligence and muster behind it in terms of relevance.   The cranks who stood up at the public hearing meeting and enjoyed such a sneering overtone to their position statements revealed the "kind" of people who typically oppose progress.  Sneering, selfish, self-righteous, and even somewhat intellectual in that creepy kind of "don't jitter their worldview even a little lest they pull out a gun and start shooting wildly" kind of air.

Col. Frank Fitts, USMC
(Chris Cooper in American Beauty) - A Composite of the Anti-Transit Personality in HIllsborough County

In fact, you must remember this about the transit and rail issue in Hillsborough County to fully understand just how likely it is for this vote to pass after all.  Bottom line, the movement is supported by the Tampa business community, the folks who stand to lose the most in terms of prosperity and job enrichment to the community at large if it doesn't; something business-smart local Republicans understand just as well.  Anti-transit-anti-tax folks usually rant against government's decisions in these matters, but in this debate they have little to shoot at.  The light rail question in Hillsborough is not a government-driven affair.  It's one being pushed, and mightily so, by the smart financial types with business plans that anti-government people swear government should smartly regard themselves.  These are the people who stand to lose or gain real dollars in decisions made by local politics, not people like some who spoke during the hearing, who only know the limits of their selfish economics.

It's on folks!  Your day is here!  An opportunity to bring better mass transit to Hillsborough County, including light rail.

• Hillsborough Commissioners Okay Rail Tax Referendum
• Hundreds Come Out to Speak
• Hillsborough Residents Will Vote in November on Transit Tax
• Official Annoucement by HART
• Penny Tax to Support Light Rail Will Go on November Ballot
• Watch the Public Hearing Leading to the Referendum Decision (Select "BOCC Public Hearing 05/13/2010". May need to use MSIE or Chrome to view)

Light Rail is Tampa's eventuality.  Next November makes for the very real possibility that it will happen sooner rather than later.

Obviously, more to say on all this coming up! ;)

I really don't know what to make of this story running in the St. Petersburg Times.  Personally, I don't think as many people are as confused about the high speed rail project and the proposed light rail project as the story's very existence seems to validate.  This supposed confusion can't possibly be generating new opponents among those who might ever be inclined to embrace light rail.  If they're confused, as far as I'm concerned, they were never for a rail project to begin with and are simply looking to add to their own fire of resistance with malicious obfuscation.

In the off chance there's some legitimacy to the point, let me explain in a nutshell that the high speed rail project which we associate with Obama's blessing, is a Florida-wide one that happens to involve Tampa as the system's starting point.  It involves a high speed rail connection between Tampa, Orlando, and, eventually many other parts of Florida.  This is the system that is going to happen no matter what happens with any tax referendum in Hillsborough County, in November.  It's a done deal.

The light rail system, by contrast, is a system that will run in and connect points within Hillsborough County, similar to subway systems in larger cities, or, light rail systems up and running in places like Dallas, Charlotte, and Phoenix.  The actual route is not yet decided but will be a starter line that either connects USF to downtown, or, downtown to Westshore and the neighborhood of the Tampa International airport.   Ultimately, it will be a system of both the USF and Westshore lines, and then some.  If you want to see the routes under consideration, you can visit HART's web page devoted to the topic and download the 2 PDF files you'll see linked there.

Incidentally, contradicting a point I may have made earlier, it now does seem, by looking at those two PDF maps, that an effort is being made to make sure that either light rail line does in fact wind up connecting to the High Speed Rail terminal in the first build.   In that case, this is a matter of 2 separate projects, one funded and ready to go (the high speed rail), and one as of yet to be (the pending voter-approval and Federal funding), coming together to form a seamless rail connection network.

I've gotten some private e-mails last week steering me towards a Bay News 9 piece on the streetcar Whiting Street extension project. 

See the video at Bay News 9. Click here.

It's an exciting story all right and I wish I could be there to take some real ground footage of the work in action.  If anyone actually does take pictures and posts them, be sure to let me know the link.  They can also mention it on the Tampa Rail Facebook Group page.

• See the Bay News 9 Piece: Tampa's Streetcar System Undergoing Expansion
  

The BN9 piece does show off some great footage of the work, and, I notice, gives encouraging press to the future of the system.  It's rare that an MSM story goes out of its way to point out that the plan for the streetcar isn't to run between Ybor and Channelside, which proves to be fodder for those who oppose the project, but rather, to loop the entire downtown area.  This plan will not likely be realized for many years, but it's still the system's manifest destiny.

It looks like a date has been set to put the vote for transportation choice into play.  As per Bay Buzz, the big day will be May 13 at the All Peoples Life Center located someplace in East Tampa.  The Hillsborough BOCC will vote to put the referendum on the ballot following a public debate in which no doubt those favoring a thriving local economy and transportation choice, will square off against those favoring limited mobility and expensive gas fillups for the privileged minority who can comfortably afford them.

Jim Norman, Al Higginbotham: Let Mother Government Decide Transit, Not Democracy

Actually, Bay Buzz says that the debate will be against the intelligent and ideologically conservative Marke Sharpe, and Al Higginbotham, the latter who has taken the position that only government should decide whether or not a better mass transit agenda should move forward; not voters.  Higginbotham and cohort Jim Norman have emerged as the sole proponents for keeping the refererendum out the democracy pipeline while concurrently failing to explain how either of them would proceed with mass transit expansion or the execution of light rail. 

Assuming Higginbotham fails to persuade all BOCC members that never is the time to do anything, and the vote goes through, it will, finally, be time for the transit investment campaign to kick in.   

The burning question has to be, what are the odds it will be successful?  It's true light rail is coming to Hillsborough County, but can it really take the major step needed to be on track as early as next November?   Will the vote for rail really pass in just one election as most of us hope for sake of expediency, or, will it take more than one, as some of us might have expected? 

Right now, gas prices are likely headed back up once again over the summer.  This is sure to inflame memories of $4/gallon two years ago and remind of the importance of an infrastructure that provides a means and ways to keep us moving when things get tight at the pump.  Certain that risk is too great, folks might prefer a private body to roll into Tampa and build Hillsborough a mass transit network, but, that will never happen.  Logically, this must instead be a private interest/government-engaged approach to something everyone agrees must be addressed.

Then again, national politics including a the furor over health care, not to mention the pressures wrought by tight state and local government budgets, might cause some people to capriciously blend the matter of quality of life value-building in with the rant of tea bag dialogue.  The argument against big government and "taxes" is of course weak and selective, but due to these factors, today its volume is amplified.

It's a crapshoot, but, one that will be expertly managed by the Tampa business community, intelligent progressives and conservatives, and this here website.  As much as possible given my position.