The Tampa City Council may fund a pilot program offering a year of free-fare service on HART's Route 1, which connects downtown to the USF area and is one of the bus system's busiest routes. HART Facebook
The Tampa City Council may fund a year of fare-free service on one of the busiest Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) bus routes.
The City Council is eyeing the pilot project on Route 1, which connects downtown - and the TECO Line Streetcar system- to the University Area and USF area via the Florida Avenue corridor. That’s the same corridor eyed for a streetcar system extension and a potential bus rapid transit system. The route, along with Route 6, has the highest ridership in the HART system, with more than 3,000 passenger trips a day. In a presentation at the City Council’s September 3rd meeting, HART Director of Planning and Scheduling Justin Willits says the route has “a strong connection to the streetcar” with the most passenger transfers to the streetcar in the HART system.
In the presentation, Willits says there are 32,400 residents and 56,100 jobs within a quarter-mile mile of Route 1. He says 18 percent of those residents don’t own a vehicle; 26 percent are under the poverty line; 64 percent are minority; and 14 percent have a disability. Move out to a half-mile and there are 64,000 residents and 103,000 jobs.
During that meeting, the pilot project narrowly moved forward in a 4-3 vote. City Council members Lynn Hurtak, the driving force behind the fare-free pilot program plan, Luis Viera and Guido Maniscalco and Alan Clendenin voted to support the move. Council members Gwendolyn Henderson, Bill Carlson and Charlie Miranda voted against it. At the meeting, Henderson cited equity, saying she’d prefer offering free fares based on a person’s economic status, not the route. Carlson said funding the route is the responsibility of the HART board, which has the ability to go to voters seeking approval of a property tax increase above the long-standing rate of one-half mill (or 50 cents for every $1,000 of taxable property value). He also cited potential backlash when people come to rely on the free fare and the pilot program sunsets.
HART was established back in 1979 as a countywide public transit authority. Prior to that, the city operated its own bus service. Under the countywide system, HART has often struggled with underutilized routes and an underfunded system. Willits noted funding and service issues at the September 3rd meeting.
“Until the city steps up to fund better bus service, we are going to be in the same situation we have been in since 1979,” he says. “That’s my opinion. That’s really where we’re at here. We’re not going to change much without a real strong leadership on bus service. And those light rail projects we all want, whether it's from downtown to the airport or the streetcar extension, are all great projects and I think we all agree they should happen. But without a really strong local bus network, they’re going to struggle and their ridership projections are going to struggle.”
On September 9th, Viera, the current chair of the HART board, detailed the pilot program at HART’s Finance and Audit Committee meeting.
“This supports the people who use the HART bus,” he says, adding it will “make life easier for the folks who use that route without any further fiscal burden on Hillsborough County taxpayers whatsoever.”
Members of the HART committee pushed for “fiscal guardrails,” saying they wanted to guarantee no HART money would be spent on the free-fare plan and that the end date of the pilot program is tied to when the city’s funding is used up, not to a 12-month timespan. They also wanted an outreach plan to let the public know the fare-free program is temporary.
At the September 3rd Tampa City Council meeting, the combined projected cost to improve frequency on Route 1 from 20 to 15 minutes and provide a year of fare-free service was nearly $1.5 million. To fund it, Hurtak’s motion moved money in the proposed 24-25 budget from electric vehicle charging stations. The ADA will require the city to fund complementary paratransit service along the route corridor. That is expected to add another $150,000 to $200,000.
The next Tampa City Council budget hearing is September 17th. The next HART board meeting is September 23rd.
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Chris Curry has been a writer for the 83 Degrees Media team since 2017. Chris also served as the development editor for a time before assuming the role of managing editor in May 2022.
Chris lives in Clearwater. His professional career includes more than 15 years as a newspaper reporter, primarily in Ocala and Gainesville, before moving back home to the Tampa Bay Area. He enjoys the local music scene, the warm winters and Tampa Bay's abundance of outdoor festivals and events. When he's not working or spending time with family, he can frequently be found hoofing the trails at one of Pinellas County's nature parks.