Mitch Perry
Will there be a transit tax referendum placed on the 2016 Hillsborough County ballot?
That question remains uncertain more than a year and a half out, which is why the ongoing public outreach effort called, “Go Hillsborough,” is so important.
The effort has consisted of a series of public forums and some telephone town halls to generate what is most on the minds of Hillsborough citizens when it comes to making transit improvements.
The results so far have been listed in a new study called, “Issues and Opportunities Report“. And they are somewhat scattered in terms of priorities, depending on what region of the county you’re at. And that means that it will be difficult for policy leaders to make those calls, since the needs of South Tampa are far different than those in Sun City.
“The feedback received clearly demonstrates that residents feel they are already experiencing a decline in quality of life,” says Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill. “And with the active participation in this process, it has also shown us that across the board, residents want to find a solution to transportation issues.”
The report shows the five top priorities among residents across the county, and quickly found emerging consensus that maintenance – including resurfacing existing roads – was the number one priority countywide. In fact, 10 out of 12 neighborhoods ranked maintenance as the highest priority.
The top five priorities are 1) Maintenance, 2) Intersections, 3)roads, 4) Transit and 5)Bike/pedestrian use.
The remaining key issues vary depending on where residents live, and include the push and pull between new or widened roads (including intersections) and new or expanded transit.
The report says this about the different priorities:
“Interestingly, when priorities were viewed on a map of the county, GO Hillsborough learned that central Hillsborough and South Hillsborough have very different priorities. This is not the case in the West and East areas of the County, which each ranked transit as No. 2. Also, ranking very high on the priorities list were better sidewalks and bike lanes.”
The second phase of the meetings, called Choices, began yesterday, and will run through May 21. There will be 15 more open house-style workshops and two telephone town hall meetings will go deeper into potential transportation options.
Once the meetings end, the decisions about what should be funded and if there should be a referendum will be decided by the Policy Leadership Group, consisting of the seven member Board of County Commissioners in Hillsborough, as well as the mayors of Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City.
They are working with the transportation engineering firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff, which is being paid $900,000 to work on the public outreach campaign. They have subcontracted some of that work over to Tampa public relations executive Beth Leytham.
