Based on the comments section on social media, readers all care about transport in Tampa Bay, and on June 11 the Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is giving you the chance to be heard at a public hearing about the new Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) it could adopt for fiscal years 2019/20-2023/24.
According to the MPO, the TIP is “a five year plan that identifies, prioritizes and allocates funding for transportation projects” and a “‘short-range’ component of the MPO’s Long Range Transportation Plan.”
Set for 6 p.m. on the second floor of the County Building in downtown Tampa (601 E. Kennedy Blvd.), the meeting is a chance for citizens (that’s you) to tell the MPO board what you think about all kinds of transportation issues including a 24-lane, I-275 downtown Tampa interchange (see a flyover video on that option, “option A,” below).
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Other items you can talk about in regards to the TIP — the MPO adopts and amends the plan, in part, based on suggestions from FDOT — include roadway expansion in South County, Vision Zero safety improvements and more. You might also want to ask why FDOT keeps shoving ideas about highways in your face despite voters agreeing to a tax increase in support of better transit options.
We could go on all day debating about the decimating effect that past highway expansion has had on the neighborhoods it runs through, and countless members of the community have spent the last half-decade rejecting the expansion of I-275 and asking the MPO and FDOT to come up with better transport options, but the FDOT continues to offer ideas on how to add more lanes to highways.
Sunshine Citizens, a nonprofit representing “a broad coalition advocating for smarter transportation and growth policy,” described the aforementioned “option A” I-275 plan as “a moonscape gutting the very heart of our city, striking a final death knell to a dynamic city experiencing a surge in value and popularity.”
The group argues that big-ass highways “do not draw talent, capital investment, high paying employers nor provide any value back to [citizens].”
Citizens are encouraged to send emails to the MPO, post comments on Facebook or leave voicemails (813-273-3774, extension 369). Messages received before noon on June 11 are supposed to be distributed to the MPO Board before the public hearing.
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This article appears in May 30 – Jun 6, 2019.