For those of you in St. Pete who don't take the bus because it stops at Williams Park, also known as ax-chase land, you're in luck.
Today, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority Director Brad Miller presented a plan to St. Pete City Council that would move the city's buses to a grid system, rather than the hub-and-spoke system currently in place. The new plan has been months in the making. The transition, he said, will take a few months but ought to be completed by Valentine's Day.
Williams Park is a notorious hub for something other than buses, i.e. drug dealers and other ne'er-do-wells who make what would otherwise be a prime spot a creepy-as-hell place to traverse, especially if you're not of the male persuasion.
But to categorize everyone who spends time at the park in that way is wrong, council members said. Those homeless and working poor who are actually there to wait on a bus or recline for a few moments on a shaded bench (but not sleep; sleeping in public is illegal, due to a very mean law passed a while back) should be brought into the know.
Members of the council said losing the buses that surround the park will go a long way toward helping law enforcement tell the difference.
"[The] presence of the buses gives the wrong element the excuse to hang around," said Councilwoman Darden Rice. "So it's very difficult for the police to identify who's there to sell drugs. If they can ask them what they're doing there, they can say, 'Oh, I'm just waiting on a bus,' it becomes difficult from a safety element.”
Without the buses there, they'd have no excuse, she said, which helps protect the homeless that congregate there.
But there's concern that changing the patterns of the bus system will burden members of the homeless community, given that many rely on the bus system to get around. And it's not easy to make them all aware of the changes.
“There are lots of homeless advocates that are concerned about this change, that are expressing concern,” said Councilwoman Amy Foster, who said she would like to invite homeless advocates and community members into the conversation. “It's not about targeting our most vulnerable population.”
The Council also talked about plan to overhaul school crossing signs the city is accused of intentionally installing in places that are difficult to see, thus increasing ticket revenue, as well as a possible as well as a possible resolution asking the county to consider using new bed tax dollars to fund a Rays baseball stadium.
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2015.