It’s beyond ironic.
Just last month Tampa International Airport was recognized as the top passenger-rated large airport in the country–edging out counterparts in Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Chicago (Midway) and Atlanta. Pretty heady company.
In fact, two years ago TIA placed third globally in passenger satisfaction. In short, since its grand opening in 1971, TIA has been regularly saluted for making passengers a priority–from Landside/Airside design to the pioneering people-mover system.
You know the reality and gut feeling–even during current construction–when you fly home from anywhere to TIA. However weary, you also feel proud. We did this.
The term “world class” is frequently abused, but not where TIA is concerned.
And lest we take it for granted, TIA wasn’t located on the exurb fringes of the metro hub, where most such land-devouring projects are relegated these days. It’s six miles west of downtown Tampa, where it abuts the Westshore business district. Beyond prescient and fortunate.
Now for the irony.
Imagine, an area that was so far ahead of the air travel curve–the go-to prototype for other airports such as Orlando–is also a region notorious for its inability to make mass transit happen. Apparently, we can’t do this.
Among major metro areas, the two infamous, mass-transit laggards are still Tampa Bay and Detroit. That’s not company we want to keep. Three years ago a national study by the Brookings Institution ranked Tampa Bay 77th out of 100 metro areas for accessible mass transit. Jackson, Miss., was 76th. Embarrassing. Or should have been.
Just ask Jeff Vinik what question he hears most frequently after an out-of-town, PowerPoint presentation to potential Amalie area relocatees. Variations on a modern transportation theme: As in, how the hell is it that road-building remains your definition of mass transit?
Mess transit is obviously an economic-growth governor, and it’s a quality-of-life suppressant.
And, as we also know, attempts to address our most glaring infrastructure need continue to fail in frustrating fashion.
The 2010 referendum, which deigned to highlight rail, failed in a countywide vote–although it passed in the city–and passed muster with the business community. Then there was the recent Go Hillsborough debacle, a modestly helpful, vision-challenged initiative, which won’t be making it to the fall ballot thanks to an “old-fashion intuition” swing vote.
Among the clearly disappointed, Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who would have been placated with rail connecting downtown to TIA–but wanted a dedicated, 30-year revenue stream to accommodate debt-service, bonding and federal grant scenarios.
“To know now that the county commission is unwilling to even let the citizens have a say is discouraging at best,” said Buckhorn. “…For those who choose not to give voters the ability to choose their own future, the burden is on them to come up with a solution.”
Odds are the half-cent sales tax would not have passed in November anyhow. But that should be the prerogative of the people–not ideological commissioners who have been known to prioritize the loudest constituents over the most pressing needs.
That stark reality underscores another scenario, one that may have to play out if we are to reach even modest mass transit goals during our lifetime. It’s past time that cities of a certain size–not just counties–were given the legal right to put a referendum issue on the ballot. So far, the Florida Legislature has ignored entreaties from Buckhorn and other major-city mayors to make that change.
But why? Surely, it’s not ideological. What’s wrong with a democratic, pragmatic solution to address a sic(k) transit syndrome that keeps us out of step with major metro economic development in the 21st century?
Or if you want to wax idealistic: What’s wrong with self determination? Why not allow Tampa, absent the usual unincorporated albatrosses, to determine its own transit fate? Electrical shuttles around downtown won’t be enough.
And as for TIA, that billion-dollar expansion and renovation project–the one that Gov. Rick Scott and the FDOT approve of–is going swimmingly.