Health & Fitness
Jeff Brandes Returns From The Great Northwest Filled With Ideas for Pinellas Mass Transit
Florida Senator Jeff Brandes traveled to the far corner of the country — specifically the Pacific Northwest — for some solid ideas on mass transportation issues at home.
Last week, the chair of the state Senate Transportation committee went to Portland, Oregon for a conference of local legislators. They were invited to discuss what makes successful transportation policies, as well as how to adjust them for their own cities.
The city of nearly 600,000 people located in north-central Oregon has become the “gold standard” of mass transportation. In 2012, Travel + Leisure magazine ranked Portland as the best pedestrian and transit-friendly city in the U.S. The city provides its residents a diverse collection transportation options, including light commuter rail, streetcars, buses and zones of limited automobile access.
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Brandes was just one of a number of state and city legislators from all over the country whose job was to learn from one of the most successful mass transit systems in the country.
The key metric in designing the need for any mass transit systems is examining vehicle miles traveled (VMT). According to the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) in 2006, there was an average of more than 3.5 million trips made each day in Pinellas County. By 2035, that number could increase by ten percent to nearly four million trips per day.
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“We really looked at how we would pay for transportation infrastructure in the future,” Brandes said. “We have a challenge in America. We have created an infrastructure based on fuel tax.”
With advances in automobile technology—improved gas mileage, hybrids and electric cars—returns from fuel taxes are beginning to fall. Since 2007, state and local gasoline taxes collected in Florida have dropped by nearly $46 million, a decrease in available funds to maintain and develop roads. However, during the same time the gross vehicle miles traveled has increased.
“As car efficiencies increase, the revenues from fuel taxes decrease,” Brandes said. “We still have a burden on our roads.”
“The question is how do we move to a more equitable charge?” “For vehicles that get 50-60 miles per gallon, they pay essentially very, very little for the roads they drive.”
The main issue was how to change drivers paying tax on a gallon of gas to paying per mile driven. Oregon attempted this model, but Brandes doesn’t see it as being successful in Florida.
“If we are trying to install something in every car and every gas station,” Brandes said. “That model isn’t going to work.”
Brandes wants Floridians to have a choice. For example, he would like to see the state working with insurance companies to be able to install devices in vehicles to monitor driving patterns as they do to lower insurance rates. Other options could be as simple as a fixed mileage fee, or as sophisticated as adding software to newer vehicles that upload mileage data monthly to the state.
“Oregon has done the yeoman’s work in exploring mileage fees,” Brandes said. “If Florida would enact anything like that, it will be entirely different.”
“All that would be predicated on getting rid of the gas tax” Brandes said. “Or get a credit for it.”
The push for mass transit in Pinellas County must include innovative ways of approaching the problem, according to Brandes. Portland limits the number of new parking spaces in downtown, in addition to actively promoting development that will encourage the use of light rail.
Of course, Florida culture is quite different from Oregon. For mass transit to work, especially in Pinellas/Hillsborough, it has to match the “flavor” of the region. Most importantly, whatever improvements do actually take place; it will literally need to “bridge” Tampa and St. Petersburg.
What Brandes took away from the Portland conference is that this—if Tampa Bay was going to have realistic mass transit; it cannot be done with light rail alone. He feels that raising $5 billion to start, even with a one to two cent increase in taxes, could bring rail systems to communities—perhaps enough to connect the two counties by rail—but it certainly not enough to address the problem of getting cars off the road effectively.
The Portland trip did give Brandes a few ideas on different ways to cut down drive times in the region, noting that it takes less time to go from TIA to the Don Cesar Resort on St. Pete Beach than it would to go to Madeira Beach, which is closer to the airport.
Although he is not counting out light rail, Brandes’ focus in the future would also include alternatives, such as bus rapid transit and managed traffic lanes.
“I would be challenged to think that Pinellas County could do (mass transit) for $1.5 billion,” Brandes said. “And come up with anything that will meaningfully take traffic off the road. I would be challenged to see how it would work.”
“If Pinellas and Hillsborough are willing to put together a $5 billion dollar package for light rail,” he added, “we should probably look at other options.”
Co-written with Phil Ammann.