Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Recap of June 20 HART Finance Committee Meeting

Highlights of the Transit Development Plan (TDP) were presented during the most recent HART Board Finance, Governance & Administration Committee meeting, held June 20. 

The TDP is a 10-year transportation blueprint and business plan for HART to meet the mobility needs of this community. The State of Florida requires local transit agencies to produce yearly progress reports of their TDP and undertake a major update of it every five years. This year, HART is undertaking a major update.


Visit http://www.gohart.org/TDP for TDP info
  Since April, HART has been seeking public input for its TDP, receiving feedback from residents on the types of new and enhanced transit services they would like see over the next decade. In addition to public input, the HART Planning Department has been incorporating new available data into the TDP update, such as 2010 Census numbers, ridership trends and funding projections. An overarching vision plan has been developed, as well as an action plan, which focuses on bus service and other cost-affordable strategies.


Residents may view the most current TDP at http://www.gohart.org/tdp, where they can also submit their feedback. The TDP is scheduled to be finalized in August.  
Leading into the TDP presentation, Betty Kennedy of Baycare highlighted Legislative Transportation Days, a recent example of how more legislators, businesses and community leaders are becoming aware about the benefits and challenges of public transportation.   

HART Board Member Sandra Murman
hosts a group for
Legislative Transportation Awareness Day
During May, HART partnered with Baycare to host this successful event, which created awareness about the important role public transportation plays in decreasing the cost of healthcare and dependency on government programs. For instance, by teaching people to use public transit to get to their doctor's appointments for preventative care, less taxpayer money is spent on expensive hospital room stays for emergency care.

More than 50 legislators, business owners and community leaders participated in Legislative Transportation Awareness Days, including representatives from the offices of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Kathy Castor.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandra Murman hosted a mixed group of business, community and state leaders for a tour of the route 30 running from Downtown Tampa/Tampa International Airport to Town ‘n Country.  The group caught the bus heading west from Marion Transit Way in downtown, for lunch at Westshore Plaza.  Shortly after lunch, the group was on its way back to downtown.  Overall, the group was impressed with the cleanliness, convenience, and cost of the service.

Upcoming Meetings

In honor of Independence Day, the HART Board will not have its regular meeting Monday, July 4. The next Finance Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 18, 9 a.m., at the HART Ybor Office. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments to this blog are moderated by HART staff. Constructive comments are welcome; any obscene, threatening, or otherwise inappropriate comments will be deleted before posting. Questions about specific service ("is my bus on time?") cannot be answered here, and should be directed to the HARTinfo Line at (813) 254-HART (4278). General questions may be addressed in future posts.