The high-speed ferry public/private project being spearheaded by former Hillsborough County Commissioner Ed Turanchik seemed to be going swimmingly over the past year — until objections about the site where the ferry terminal would be located in South Hillsborough County by some environmental groups led to Hillsborough County staffers searching feverishly for a new location.
According to Turanchik, they're not going to find one. The issue comes before the Board of County Commissioners next week where the plan before the BOCC will be tol extend the existing agreement to February 28, 2015.
To show that Turanchik isn't alone in his advocacy, a new group, called the Tampa Bay Citizens' Committee for High Speed Ferries has been formed. It's co-chaired by Kent Bailey with the Sierra Club, Keith Greminger, an urban planner and former chair of the Tampa Downtown Partnership, and Ken Roberts from the activist group Citizens Organized for Sound Transportation.
"We are Tampa Bay area residents," says a statement from the group. "We believe the Tampa Bay Ferry project is an exciting and unique way to connect us to where we live, work and play. Our mission is to get ferries up and running as soon as possible. Our goal is for ferries to be running by 2017!"
Among the groups listed as showing support for the high-speed ferry plan include a variety of local chambers of commerce, the Sierra Club, the Tampa Downtown Partnership, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Ybor City Redevelopment Corporation.
Although the initial phase of the plan would mostly be designed strictly for employees who work at MacDill Air Force Base to commute from South Hillsborough County, the concept has created excitement on both sides of Tampa Bay due to the fact that the concept would ultimately take passengers from Tampa to St. Petersburg.
The Sierra Club's Kent Bailey says that one reason the group was formed was to show the Commissioners that there is indeed grassroots support for the proposal.
The overall costs of the plan range over $20 million. The Board of County Commissioners has provided some seed money, as it were, but has not allocated many other funds for the project just yet. The board would not run the ferry rides, instead giving up control to HMS Ferries, a Washington state based business that runs similar ferry operations around the country.
Currently the plan for the South County terminal would be housed on the Fred and Idah Schultz preserve, but after objections were raised about the site in August by Audubon Florida, Commissioner Sandy Murman agreed, saying, "You shouldn’t be paving over pristine lands."
The board then backed Murman's proposal to have HMS Ferries begin searching for an alternative site. But Turanchik has flatly stated that the objections by Audubon have "no basis in fact." Turanchik told CL at the time that the agreement with the County Commission was to develop the Schultz property because that's the only site that will work.
Charles Lee, director of advocacy with Audubon Florida, objects to Turanchik's suggestion that the Schultz Preserve was proposed to be developed as a public park with an access road identical to that which would be needed for the ferry terminal and other significant facilities that would impact the restored habitat on the site.
