If you have your voter registration card handy, offering that to a HART bus driver next Tuesday will get a you a free bus ride to your polling place, or any destination point that particular route goes.
As part of a series of measures that the HART board introduced this year, the agency is offering a free bus ride on Tuesday with a valid voter ID card when boarding any of HART's fixed-route bus services. For those who aren't certain what bus would take them to their specific polling place, HART's Info Line can assist at (813)254-HART.
But critics of the penny transit tax that Hillsborough County citizens have been voting on for the past two weeks and will conclude on Tuesday are crying foul, saying HART is buying off voters with free rides to get them to the polls and vote for the transit tax.
Doug Guetzloe, chairman of the Orlando based group Ax the Tax, says in a press release that, "The use of tax dollars to support any political issue is an outrage to the taxpayers of Tampa and Hillsborough County. HART is attempting to generate support by offering free rides to the polls hoping that this clever disguise of providing a "free" ride will generate additional votes for the rail boondoggle."
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2010.