After months of speculation that has been floated in the local media, last week Pinellas/Hillsborough state Senator Jack Latvala addressed the boards of both HART and PSTA about the possibility of the two Bay area transit agencies consolidating.
Speaking at the Hillsborough transit board's Ybor City offices last Monday, the Senator said that the arguments for such a merger is that both agencies are in the same financial situation: that is, they are both close to their millage cap, have used up much of their reserves, and are looking at reducing their respective budgets.
But he admitted that he had no knowledge about how much a merger would save,though he said "it's just common sense" that would be the case.
At Monday's meeting of HART Finance, Governance and Administrative committee, members said they questioned whether such a plan would be beneficial.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2011.