Although if it went up for a popular vote in the Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, V.M Ybor and Ybor City it would probably go down to defeat, there is no indication that the controversial Tampa Bay Express project from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is going to be stopped anytime soon.
But when the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization voted almost unanimously (despite overwhelming public opposition) in August to accept the TBX as part of their Transportation Improvement Project, they also charged FDOT to work with the community to make it as palatable as possible in terms of its impact on the local neighborhoods that it will affect. Immediately afterwards, FDOT contacted officials with USF’s Florida Center for Community Design and Research to hold community meetings to present a message from what the affected community wants.
On Monday night, that group began the first of what they say will be six neighborhood “charettes”, and will lead to two more series of workshops that will address 1) needs and concerns, 2) Determine goals and strategies and 3) Create design strategies to meet some of those needs that fit with the goals and strategies that FDOT has set out for the Tampa Bay Express, which at its core will add commuter lanes on parts of I-275 starting out near Pasco County and going towards Pinellas County.
Interested observers were asked to go online to announce their attendance at Monday night’s charette. If they didn’t, they weren’t invited to sit at the two tables that spent the majority of the meeting working with hand-picked facilitators leading the discussion, which started from the extremely general question of having participants write on post-it notes what they thought was exceptional about Tampa living.
There were six such facilitators directing the conversation at the two tables (all USF students), and at least four representatives from FDOT, 2 members of HART, one member of the Hillsborough Planning Commission, one member from Hillsborough County government, and one official from the city of Tampa all in the room at the John P. Germany Library in downtown Tampa.
Overall members of the public who came to learn more or participate appeared to be between 10-15 people.
“The TBX plan hasn’t been fully designed yet, and the idea is that the community, which has expressed a lot of concerns about the project, will have an opportunity to not only share those concerns, but share their ideas about how the design can be affected, changed or ultimately implemented,” said Taryn Sabia with the Florida Center for Community Design and Research, which is housed inside the University of South Florida’s School of Architecture and Community Design. “They’re (the citizens) are concerned about the impacts to their neighborhoods, to downtown, and they want to see how their concerns can really be addressed in that overall design at the end. So this is the opportunity to be able to give that input and that feedback about the project in general.”
At the end of the two-hour meeting, the two teams had come up with what they valued, and what they hoped to see occur if TBX goes forward.
“Team A”‘s spokesman was Frank Grebowski, who owns the European Wax Center on Jackson Street in downtown Tampa. Among the concepts that his group wants to keep or maintain includes retail density, particularly between Franklin Street to the Channel District.
He also talked about expanding or rerouting the streetcar, have more “connector” streets and hyper connectivity, and there seemed to be an excessive concern with more pedestrian traffic to avoid loitering and safety concerns.
Christine Acosta was the spokesperson for the other team, which was a bit more specific about the endgame. They want the city to adhere to the InVision plan, the city’s plan that incorporates West Tampa into downtown, including expanding the streetcar.
They also said they wanted an environmental study of current and projected traffic flows/behaviors that would be affected when the TBX was installed.
There will be a similar meeting Tuesday night to be held at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County in Ybor City between 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Opponents to TBX intend on attending the next MPO meeting, to be held next Tuesday, November 10 at the County Center in Tampa from 6-8 p.m.
