Tafuro Communications

Mark Sharp gave a presentation at today’s Exchange Club luncheon addressing the need for a transit plan for the Tampa Bay area and really seems to understand the value of providing mobility options and how it will affect people and organizations decisions to visit, relocate or do business here.

I commended him on Facebook where he is currently the most actrive local elected official, consistently utilizing the medium as a platform for discussion.

In serving five years on the National Ad 2 board I have had a part in planning Ad 2 conferences in eight different cities; San Francisco, Nashville, Phoenix, Orlando, Louisville, Denver, Atlanta and Cincinnati.

Each conference required a mix of meeting space, catering, office and printing services, restaurants and entertainment options as well as required a simple transportation plan.

Each year we improved our process for selecting a host city and have had as many as four different Ad 2 chapters bid to host our mid-year retreat.

Each year one of largest deciding factors is mobility. Can we get around on foot or use some kind of transit option?

Coordinating 40 people in cabs is difficult and expensive and chartering a bus would be risky due to the fluidity of our attendance numbers over the course of the retreat.

I am looking forward to being a part of what unfolds for Tampa Bay.

I don’t make it to downtown St Pete often for a night out unless I coordinate with a friend close by for a place to crash because driving is out of the question and a cab to pricey.

However when I do make one of the stops is typically the Independent.

So I was excited when I read today on the St Pete Times website that the owners are trying to open a Tampa location in Seminole Heights.

“We have wanted to expand to Tampa and noticed that the neighborhood didn’t really have a neighborhood spot with good beers. We heard through the grapevine that that was something on the top of people’s lists.”
The City of Tampa is supposed to decide on a zoning request which successful and the purchase goes through the Independent aims to open by late summer.

Three Seminole Heights neighborhood groups support the application with restricted closing hours which should make the passage of this pretty simple.

UPDATE  1/28/09

Owners of a proposed German-style deli and tavern won initial approval from the city council Thursday to sell beer and wine. A final vote is scheduled Feb. 5.

I am really looking forward to this as a nice Seminole Heights pub is the prefect middle ground for me in Forest Hills to meet up with friends from Tampa Heights and/or South Tampa.

I somewhat wish the hours would be expanded at least till 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. A beer and wine pub with food is much different then a MacDinton’s type establishment and SoHo free-for-all that these restricted hours are likely a response to.

It has been a while since I lived South of Gandy and regularly had to make use of the absolutely terrible Gandy Boulevard. Nevertheless, every time I see something on the subject of the crosstown expressway extension, I think about how anyone living in the surrounding neighborhoods could be opposed to it.

According to traffic counts from last year, up to 48,500 cars use the Gandy toll road daily. The above article also noted that the number of Pinellas to Crosstown through traffic vehicles is not yet known.

Going out on a limb, let’s try to estimate.

According to the 2000 census and this Wikipedia article the population in the Gandy-Sun Bay South neighborhood was just under 17,000. This site which sources 2007 data from OnBoard LLC estimates the population of the entire 33611 zip code is now just over 32,000.

We can assume that the entire 32,000 residents in 33611 do not use Gandy Blvd. every day and certainly not at rush hour. However, let’s be very liberal and say that 75% do use it, this would count for 24,000 vehicles or half of the estimated total cars.

After living SOG (south of Gandy) for two years, I relocated to Davis Islands and then on to South Howard for a total of about three years. In three years I can say I barely ever made a local trip using Gandy Blvd. due to the traffic. I shopped at the Hyde Park Publix or Kash N Karry and for the occasional trip to Target or a bigger Publix, I would go at off hours and utilize Euclid and Himes instead.

That said, we can assume that most people living north of Bay to Bay probably have similar driving habits. It’s the same concept that keeps most South Tampa residents off of South Dale Mabry and instead using Church, Manhattan, Westshore and MacDill.

After our above local estimate of 24,000 we have to account for the other half of the cars that use Gandy Blvd daily. I personally believe it is safe to say that around 18,000 vehicles which use the road each day are through traffic and not local business customers; therefore, they would be diverted by building an elevated extension to the Crosstown.

The potential to remove even close to that much congestion from Gandy Blvd. should have local businesses and residents screaming for the relief.

I’d like to note the irony in the 50 year planning currently being discussed; that will prepare us for the population that will be here in 2050.

Are we not actually working on a plan closer to 2060 then?

We re-elected Anthony Arena and Jim Mills as chair and vice chair for the coming year and approved with one modification all 12 Budget Review Subcommittee recommendations to be presented to the BOCC.

Our speaker this month was Paula Harvey, Division Director of Planning and Zoning Services who discussed with us the County’s Comprehensive Plan Amendatory Process.

Hillsborough County Citizens Advisory Committee
Appointed by Commissioner Brian Blair

I received in the mail this week the official Participant Guidebook for the Realty Check Tampa Bay exercise I am participating in next Friday the Tampa Convention Center.

The guide book is a step by step how to for the event with a great deal of background information on the exercise as well as Tampa Bay’s growth projections as compared to other cities.

The exercise will basically produce Lego enhanced zoning maps that show the Tampa Bay region’s future population and job distribution as decided by the team of 8-10 people assembled at each table.

The teams will use red Lego’s (commercial) and yellow Lego’s (residential) to “build out” the Tampa Bay region. The height of the stacks of Lego’s will designate the density of any one square mile on the map.

Interestingly Reality Check’s exercise occurring just after the State Legislature’s creation of the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority.

Ironically though Tampa Bay was defined differently by the two with Reality Check leaving out Citrus and including Polk counties while TBARTA included Citrus County with Polk County voluntarily opting out of the group.

Part of the Reality Check exercise is to designate new and/or improved transit and roadway corridors through the region which means the map does not equally match what the new authority will be overseeing.

Personally I don’t think it will be much of an issue though. In all reality considering the proximity to Orlando and Tampa Bay the post likely plan for Polk County will be to build whatever future required link between the two metropolitans is needed, (most likely in the I-4 corridor).

The variable will be in weather or not Tampa Bay and Orlando build systems that can be linked… i.e. we build light rail they build tri-rail.

Anyone who knew me in the preteen years can testify that Legos were the lifeblood of my childhood. Anyone who know me today knows that quality of life in Tampa Bay is a top priority for me.

Today the Tampa Tribune made me aware that someone had decided to combine the two for me!

Citizens Can Help Plan Lay Of Land
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBKSFEL6YE.html

Here’s a short description of the exercise from the Realty Check Tampa Bay website (http://www.realitychecktampabay.org).

“The tabletop exercises are designed to increase awareness and to educate about the interrelationships among regional land use, transportation systems, and natural resources. Participants, led by trained facilitators, join 10-person groups to use a detailed map to plan future growth by placing Lego® building blocks to represent additional homes and jobs. These individuals are asked to determine where new residents will live and new employment will locate. “