Not that long ago, critics of the penny transportation tax referendum in Hillsborough County brought up the fact that there was no leg currently scheduled to stop at Tampa International Airport as a(nother) reason to vote against the transit measure come this fall.
But suddenly there are now serious plans for both light and high speed rail to dock at T.I.A.
Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern confirmed to CL on Thursday that she is determined to gather up as many federal dollars that are available and to help pay for an HSR stop to the airport.
"There are multiple sources of funding for this," Mulhern said while traveling in Michigan, where she was beginning her summer family vacation. She mentioned the fact that the Obama administration has already said that the $1.25 billion that was granted to the state in late January for high speed rail was just a down payment, along with billions more potentially available that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood informed Mulhern about at a super regional convention on transportation in Orlando in late May.
She also said that Kevin Thibault, the director of the Florida Rail Enterprise, who came before the City Council at a transit workshop that Mulhern hosted two weeks ago, also says there is money available.
But will local leaders rally behind such a cause? Mulhern told the Tampa Tribune's Ted Jackovics today that she will begin her search for funds at the next Hillsborough County Metropolitan Organization meeting.
But could there be resistance, in particular because HART is now talking for the first time ever about adding a line to their current schedule of light rail stations to the airport (that agency will discuss that possibility on July 19).
"We don’t know if were going to get the funding for light rail," is Mulhern's first response about the now provocative prospect of having plans for both systems to stop at T.I.A. "The light rail measure has got a 50/50 chance of passing," she said, which is theoretically true though not a true indication of where the Hillsborough electorate is on the issue four months out (there have been no published polls on the measure). "If it doesn't pass, we'll have no plans, and we'll have bypassed federal dollars for a high speed rail stop at the airport."
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.