If you’ve ever taken that relaxing 50-minute ride between Tampa and St. Pete on the Cross Bay Ferry, you owe a nod of thanks to Ed Turanchik. While the long-time Hillsborough County politico and influencer (no, not the social media sort) is, officially speaking, the lawyer for the service’s operator, HMS Ferry, he served as an early evangelist, planner and organizer. It seems fair to say that Turanchik, 64, was the most important local player in making the ferry—which was first seen by many as a lark—a reality.
That’s just one accomplishment in a career that dates back to his arrival from Ohio in 1987. Over the years Turanchik has been an active proponent of regional transit (or, as one local columnist called him, a “transportation wonk”). The Cross Bay Ferry is primarily a leisure service, and does essentially nothing to alleviate the Bay area’s clogged roadways and other transportation woes. But it is, y’know, something—something that actually got done other than building another leg of highway.
“I think Ed’s one of the biggest visionaries in Tampa Bay,” says current Tampa City Council member Bill Carlson, whose PR firm, Tucker/Hall, has worked with Turanchik on various initiatives. “One of the problems with Tampa is that we’ve always been happy with the status quo. Ed has always thought big—big on transportation, big on affordable housing, regional cooperation, etc. He thinks big overall.”
During Turanchik’s 2019 Tampa mayoral run—he finished fourth—he unveiled a “Go Plan” for transit improvement that entailed bike and water routes, existing freight rail lines, electric buses and more. It also called for expanding the Cross Bay Ferry to include a more commuter-oriented Westshore-to-St. Petersburg route. All good ideas, but will any of them get done? Hard to say. If Turanchik has not seen many of his proposals come to fruition, he has been effective in making transportation an ongoing part of the civic discussion.
In 1990, Turanchik was elected to the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners, where he served for eight years. He ran for mayor in 2011 and lost. In the late ‘90s, he was part of the team of elected officials that hammered out a deal to form Tampa Bay Water, a regional authority that put an end to the costly, fractious, decades-long “water wars” that pitted city and county governments against each other. “I feel it’s Ed’s greatest achievement,” Carlson says. “It’s really the only example of successful regional cooperation in Tampa Bay, and Ed was the primary leader.”
Turanchik, who’s been accused of acting like “the smartest guy in the room,” has stirred his share of controversy. During his last mayoral run, he claimed at a candidate forum that “when I was commissioner, I got the Ice Palace done.” That’s the original name of Amalie Arena, which opened in ‘96. His claim earned a harsh rebuke from former Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman, who called it “absolutely false.” The general consensus is that Turanchik was part of the team that made the Bay area’s first modern sports and concert arena happen.
In 2018, Turanchik was the only mayoral candidate who didn’t support Hillsborough County’s penny sales tax increase called All For Transportation. It seemed an odd position for a transit advocate. He criticized it as costly and ineffective. After the initiative earned a 57% vote, Turanchik publicly applauded its passing, which prompted some to accuse him of being two-faced during the mayor’s race. He wasn’t the first and won’t be the last.
While Ed Turnachik has a few miscues under his belt, he’s always been a major local asset and, through his talk and actions, showed a genuine desire to make the Tampa Bay region a better place. He maintains that he’ll never run for office again, but don’t expect his voice to go silent.
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This article appears in Best of the Bay 2020.