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Tampa's streetcar network cost a total of $61 million. Courtesy photo.
Currently 6 Responses
- 1.
- Stanley!!!!!!!!! I depend on the kindness of strangers.
- 2.
- What a colossal waste of money. Can they just give me the $70,000? I can send them every economic study they've ignored.
- 3.
- Oh good!! Let's close off the streets again so we can install trolley tracks!
- 4.
- One can take a bus to anywhere and a streetcar would only be used in the high season. Seems like a lot of money will be wasted AGAIN!
- 5.
- This is a $50 million folly -- not because it's being spent on transit, but because our existing bus operations are so underdeveloped. Let's run buses (trolley buses, if you want), every 15 minutes up and down Main Street, as part of a Fruitville Road-Lido (or Longboat Key) bus route. If you want, call it a circulator. That would be cost effective, and serve many, many more residents.
Johannes Werner, Sarasota-Manatee Transit Group
- 6.
- It makes perfect sense: Drive your Caddy from Lakewood Ranch, pass by all the free street parking, pay to park in the city garage, then pay to ride the street car to the Van Wezel, which is surrounded by an immense free parking lot. And you get it all for only $50 million per mile. But who cares what it costs? Surely the federal government will pick up the tab; just like they did for the BRT on the railroad track (7 miles for $100 million). Whoops! SCAT never got that grant because the Federal Transit Authority could get more bang for the buck elsewhere. Jacksonville and Tampa are putting BRT on the street now for only $2.5 million per mile. The MPO approved 2002 Best Bus Plan solves the "circulator" problem by simply rerouting existing underperforming SCAT routes through downtown and eliminating the need for the Lemon Terminal. JIm Ley wanted the Lemon Terminal so bad (more "free" federal money) that the county forced the city to give up city property to build that obsolete eyesore in a place that was originally designed to front Whole Foods. Ever wonder why their front door opens into an alley? The MPO Best Bus Plan stayed on the top shelf gathering dust. Now Jim Ley is nowhere and our bus system still stinks. Take a bus ride from SRQ to SMH. Enjoy your 20 minute layover at the Lemon Terminal (should be renamed the Leyover) whilst inhaling diesel exhaust and tobacco smoke. This is what transit service level D is all about. (Yes, it is official.)
- Jun
18 'Last Night Out' - Brides Against Breast Cancer Fundraiser
5:30 pm - 9:00 pm - Jun
19 Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance June Executive Briefing - "Creating a Social Media policy at your place of business"
7:30 am - 9:00 am - Jun
20 Welcome Club of Sarasota/Manatee Luncheon
11:00 am - 2:00 pm - Jun
28 Regatta Pointe Marina River Regatta 2013
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
