Tackling Transit
October 9, 2007 at 2:30 pm by Wayne GarciaTomorrow’s issue of Creative Loafing will feature my cover story on the man who is supposed to lead us out of our transportation morass and unclog those highway traffic jams: former Bucs LB Shelton Quarles.
It was Quarles, after all, who Gov. Charlie Crist drafted in the late rounds to be chairman of the new Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, the seven-county agency that has two years to come up with a unified transportation (and mass transit) plan for Tampa Bay. It also has the power to borrow money to build roads and transit systems, as well as asking voters to approve possible tax increases. Given the complexity of the issue and the enormity of the political egos and turfs involved, Quarles’ appointment raised more than a few eyebrows.
What do you think? Stroke of brilliance or debacle in the making?
Here’s a link to the entire cover package, and as a PoHo Extra!! (TM pending), here are some outtakes of my conversation with Quarles’ fellow TBARTA board member, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who said she started as a TBARTA skeptic given how many other transportation agencies already exist:
“Then I became a true believer, because I realized that it was the only way to do it. It really became apparent to me that unless we had a regional authority, we were never going to get there [and have an operational transit and roads system]. It absolutely forces statutory language, that there shall be a regional transportation plan and it will include transit.
“It isn’t that we are short of plans; we seem to have plenty of plans. But there’s been no group that had the authority to pull it all together. And this group can fund it, can bond roads.
[Regarding Quarles as TBARTA chairman:] “It’s not a typical appointment to an authority. It’s not often that a sports figure is appointed to head up an authority like this. It’s not something where you make this connection. [But Iorio said Quarles brings something to the transit equation that it doesn't have, with its myriad MPOs, DOTs, ISTEA funding, etc.] All the different acronyms. We’ve got all that. We do that. Then it’s got to be sold to the public. I think it helps us to have a well-known professional NFL player to help sell the plan to the public. It’s a different type of spokesman.
“[Quarles is] going to be someone who has real appeal with people, who has name recognition, who comes at it from a different angle. I view it in a positive way.
“There’s still a lot of fundamental work to be accomplished. For the next two years, nothing quick is going to happen. I think there are some incremental steps that need to be taken, [such as merging the Hillsborough and Pinellas bus systems]. I am going to try my hardest to make sure that TBARTA’s work is talked about in Tampa.”
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