In our report on a Tampa Downtown Partnership forum Wednesday on the failed Hillsborough transit tax, we literally downplayed comments made to us by Ed Turanchik at the end of the 90-minute forum.
But upon further review, we realized that they deserve to be revisited.
Turanchik is noted for being a big transportation advocate, and last year he worked with ConnectUS, the local organization formed to help bring federal funding to Florida for a high-speed rail line. That effort came to fruition when President Obama announced a $1.25 billion stimulus grant to begin construction of that Tampa-to-Orlando route.
But we didn't speak with him much about the light-rail effort fostered by HART and Moving Hillsborough Forward, and according to Turanchik, those groups didn't have much time to hear him out either. "There wasn't a whole lot of intellectual honesty in this whole thing," he told CL yesterday. "Why are we picking light rail at 2 1/2 times the cost of BRT [Bus rapid transit] when they move the same amount of people?" he asked.
Although the other major candidates running for mayor of Tampa supported the Hillsborough County transit tax to varying degrees, there surely was an assumption that Turanchik, noted for his long time support of transit, backed it as well. And as we reported from a HART meeting last February, Turanchik did address the HART board about putting a light rail stop in West Tampa.
But speaking to CL before the discussion ended Wednesday morning, the former County Commissioner and Sierra Club head made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the losing effort.