nine months

By Aubrey Whelan, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Friday, August 26, 2011

St. Pete Times

http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/roads/davis-islands-harbour-island-residents-decry-plan-for-platt-street-bridge/1187801

DOWNTOWN — The plan to close the dilapidated Platt Street Bridge for much-needed repairs has been on the table for months now, county officials say.

But time hasn’t eased the frustration residents of Davis Islands and Harbour Island feel over the project that will eliminate a major link to and from downtown for 105 days, some time in early October.

They say the city hasn’t provided enough options for diverting traffic away from the bridge, contending that the closing will create a near-constant gridlock in and around the Platt Street area.

“Hopefully this (traffic plan) is a work in progress,” Davis Islands resident Joe Fontana said at an open house this week hosted by County Commissioner Sandy Murman. “But this is the same as nine months ago. That’s extremely inefficient.”

One resident said the traffic plan made her feel “claustrophobic,” while others expressed concerns about access for emergency vehicles in the area. They’re also worried that cars leaving from Tampa General Hospital on Davis Islands and St. John’s Episcopal Church School in Hyde Park — which send employees and students home around the same time — will further clog the area.

City transportation officials say the plan is a tentative one and are still looking for suggestions from residents as the project draws closer to its start date.

City transportation manager Jean Dorzback said while the traffic situation in and around Platt Street isn’t ideal, the city will “deal with it as best as we can.”

In part, the current plan will divert neighborhood traffic crossing the Hillsborough River onto Kennedy Boulevard and Franklin Street. Other alternatives will detour drivers onto Verne Street and Plant Avenue, which will soon allow three lanes of traffic through.

Commuters will be encouraged to take the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway across town to avoid Bayshore Boulevard. The Tampa Police Department will station officers at key intersections to direct traffic during the first few days of the bridge closure, and the city plans to post 30 electronic message boards around the area to warn drivers.

The county, which owns the bridge and is overseeing the $13.8 million project, is offering monetary incentives to its contractors to finish the job on time — $10,000 per day if the bridge is completed up to 20 days in advance and $10,000 penalties for every day past the 105-day completion window. The project is part of ongoing repairs to the bridge that began in January and have caused lane closures along the way.

But no matter what, officials say, residents will have to deal with occasionally frustrating traffic.

“The first few days are going to be awful,” said Martin Stone, the planning director of the state Expressway Authority. He was at Monday’s open house, handing out free SunPasses to help residents prepare for the months to come.

Despite all their planning, officials say they still expect some confusion in October.

“We’ve been promoting this for months now,” said Shannon Edge, the head of the city’s neighborhood and community relations office. “People aren’t going to realize it’s actually closed until the day of.”

Aubrey Whelan can be reached at (813) 226-3446 or awhelan@sptimes.com

Commissioner Murman mentioned in this Creative Loafing article on HART:

Posted by Mitch Perry on Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:46 AM

As we’ve noted on various occasions, last November’s rejection of a transit tax in Hillsborough County not only killed the possibility of a light rail system being built anytime soon, but nine months later, there aren’t any plans now over the next 10 years to revisit the issue.

However, members who serve on Hillsborough County’s transit agency, HART, have said that what they can do for now is to concentrate on what they do best – efficient bus service.

But when it came time on Monday to vote to approve a maximum millage rate that the board will consider, which meant voting for a minimal increase in taxes to alleviate a large reduction in service, one Hillsborough County Republican chose to eschew the no-taxes mantra of his party and supported the modest measure, and one did not.

The millage increase would go from .4682 to .5. When the issue came before the board two months ago, both Sandy Murman and Mark Sharpe voted against it.

Murman said again Monday that she couldn’t support the raise, saying she would look like a “hypocrite” after supporting a decrease in the millage last week with her position on the County Commission. “I think we have to dig a little deeper,” she said, adding that asking all of the taxpayers in Hillsborough to raise their millage when only a small percentage utilize their services would be unfair.

But commissioner Kevin Beckner warned that a failure to raise the millage would interfere with the stated goal of the board to increase its basic services, not cut them. He then asked Katharine Eagan, the chief operating officer for HART, what would happen if the board ultimately voted not to increase the millage?

She recited a litany of service cuts that would include, eliminating weekend service in south Hillsborough on weekends, no service out to Brandon hospital on weekends, no Christmas or Thanksgiving service, and fewer rides from Brandon to MacDill Air Force Base.

HART has already cut 1.4 percent of its bus routes since March of 2010, but another reduction would eliminate two to three percent of current routes, or roughly twice as much as what has already been cut.

It was also revealed that the millage increase, which would add $1.8 million to HART’s coffers, would break down to about 41 cents per month to Hillsborough citizens via their property taxes (that’s based on the average household value of $90,420 in 2012).

After listening to Eagan, Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe said that he had changed his mind, and would now vote for the tax increase. Calling Commissioner a “kindred spirit,” Sharpe said he understood where she was coming from, but said he couldn’t go along with her in not approving the raise, adding,”My concern is we’d be entering into a death spiral, we’d be fulfilling a prophesy,” by eliminating service routes.

Today’s vote was on setting the maximum millage, but not the final vote locking in the new millage rates.

Sandy Murman

Tale of Two Republicans manifested at HART meeting