Tampa Electric Company (TECO) said that its streetcar system served up 99,675 rides in March. That tally makes for the service’s busiest month ever and brings the trip count for fiscal year 2019 up to 451,289. For comparison, the streetcar carried about 200,000 trips in fiscal year 2018 (which began October 1, 2017 and ended September 30, 2018).
Streetcar ridership along the rails that run from Ybor City to downtown Tampa has tripled since October 2018 when TECO received a $2.7 million state grant and began offering free rides (rides were $2.50-$5 before that). If you’ve been on the streetcar over the weekend, then you know that many of the trolleys are regularly packed, and TECO addressed that in a blog post.
“While this is a great ‘problem’ to have, it's still an issue regardless,” TECO wrote.
That’s why the streetcar is moving to expand 15-minute service to nights and weekend starting April 21.
"We are looking at two things with the streetcar — one is modernizing the existing TECO Streetcar Line and then we are looking at a great opportunity to expand it to more activity centers, residents and businesses,” HART CEO Benjamin Limmer told the TBBJ, alluding to a proposed extension that would bring service to Franklin Street in Tampa Heights. “We are evaluating the best places to connect."
A decision on the Heights extension is a long way out, but the streetcar’s increased ridership means there’s that many less people driving around downtown Tampa, and we’re OK with that.
Check out the trolley schedule in real-time and catch a ride.
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This article appears in Apr 4-11, 2019.