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.