Janelle Irwin Taylor
Republican Rep. Michael Owen is reportedly taking steps to dissolve the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART).
Owen, who represents House District 70 in Hillsborough County, plans to file legislation by October that would replace HART with a new Tampa Transit Authority (TTA) that would operate only within city limits, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
The bill, which Owen is fine-tuning, would establish a process to phase out HART while shifting to the TTA.
Speaking to the Business Journal, Owen argued that the vast majority of HART’s riders are from Tampa. Creating a citywide authority would place the funding onus on Tampa.
“It’s something I’ve been kicking the tires on for a while,” said Owen, who previously served as a County Commissioner and on the HART board.
“We all know that our transportation is lacking in Tampa, so this is one of those solutions we’ve been thinking about for a while. But we were trying to see if HART could swim on its own a little bit. To me, they’re not doing that.”
Transit access is among Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s priority. She established Tampa M.O.V.E.S., an acronym for Mobility, Opportunity, Vision, Equity and (public) Safety. The program is part of Castor’s Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow strategic initiative. M.O.V.E.S. includes a new citywide mobility plan to improve mobility and transportation throughout the city.
City of Tampa spokesperson Adam Smith declined to comment on the proposals, saying the city had not yet been briefed on it.
The news comes as the embattled Hillsborough transit agency continues to face solvency woes.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Josh Wostal, a Republican who opposes putting a property tax increase question to voters, previously proposed the possibility of instead creating a transit sales tax only within Tampa city limits, according to Transit Talent, a trade publication covering transit issues and news. His plan would cut property taxes to save homeowners while still funding urban transit.
Owen’s plan seems to build on that idea legislatively, though few other details have been announced. Wostal’s proposal would require legislative action to allow for Tampa-only transit.
Hillsborough voters have already shown a willingness to pay additional sales tax to fund transit and transportation, with a 1% sales tax passed in 2018, known as All for Transportation. The Florida Supreme Court ultimately struck down the tax.
And while voters did not approve a second attempt, the vote was close, with 49% voting in favor. Supporters of the 2022 initiative suspect its failure at the ballot box on the tax’s second take may have been the result of legal hang-ups that had struck down the initiative as misleading. Despite the ruling, an appeal allowed the measure to stay on the ballot, though there was confusion about whether votes for it would count.
The latest proposal would possibly leave the approximately 1.1 million Hillsborough County residents outside Tampa city limits without transit options. However, Wostal’s proposal suggested Hillsborough County could still fund transit in the county independently, or a Tampa system could still offer service to areas outside city limits through interlocal agreements.
But both Owen and Wostal have said transit funding is unsustainable in areas of the county outside the urban core, where sprawl makes efficient routes more difficult, such as in Plant City, Brandon, Fish Hawk and New Tampa.
