Public Meeting Number 2

The latest assignment was to attend a second public meeting. If you're a consistent reader of this blog, you know meeting one went pretty poorly.

This meeting was on an issue I can actually relate to. I'm not saying building pools on random businesses lots weren't, I very well may use one in the future, but they weren't something to relate to.

This meeting was about expanding Bruce B. Downs from Bearrs Ave. to Pasco County Road. The length of this comes to about 3.4 miles. It's said that about 60,000 cars go through this stretch of road every day. If you have ever attempted to drive through it during morning or evening rush hours, it can be a frustrating or borderline homicidal. In fact some people like it so much they like to express there gratitude towards each other with the middle finger.

The meeting took place at Tampa Palms Elementary School. My first thoughts were this didn't look anything like the cafeteria at my old Elementary School. It was much nicer and newer than any past experience of mine. There were way more people than I'd imagined coming to a public meeting at an Elementary School. There had to have been at least 150 in attendance.

When we walked into the meeting, the people at the door handed us a pamphlet of exactly what was going to be discussed during this meeting. The pamphlet had four different scenarios of expansion for Bruce B. Downs. There wasn't any question of the needed for expansion. The meeting focused on how to go about expanding it.

It started with a small ten minute introduction to the facts and ideas of the meeting. This was really strange. It was taped and the women on tape seemed very robotic and emotionless. It reminded me of the introductions to Universal Studies rides when in line. Disregard this paragraph if anyone hasn't been to Universal Studies.

When the introduction was finished and the ride, I mean meeeting was ready to take off the officials were introduced, along with different options for plans of expansion.

Various people were then aloud to take the podium and say how they felt about the different expansion plans.

One guy who stood out was someone from Charlotte, North Carolina who's previous experience included helping shape the master transportation plan there, talked about Eight lanes having "failed everywhere it's been used."

He seemed like he knew the most out of public who attended the meeting. Then again, he just seemed the most confident with what he was saying. However, as Farhad Manjoo explains, that doesn't always mean someones knows what they are speaking about, ( pathetic use of class topics for brownie points? Never!).

Some of the arguments for the expansion to eight lanes were that it would save us from having to go through construction twice. One individual illustrated an example of expanding to six lanes, and as the community grows more, doing it all over again years down the road.

I agree with this point, because the community of North Tampa will keep expanding, more-and-more people will be living there. The traffic is bad enough now, something does need to be done. The plan of expansion will cost about 104 million dollars. The community will be forced to pay 52-55 million through a sales tax of an extra penny on every dollar, ( will be later voted on this upcoming November).

If it's decided to just expand to six lanes, then it would cost 52 millions. If we decide to expand to eight lanes, it will cost 55 million.

The main reason I'm in support of the eight lane expansion is because if it's expanded to six lanes and needs to expanded again down the road, it will be a big waste of money. It's been estimated to cost the tax-payers 21 million more dollars, than if we just do it all at once.

Why not for once plan ahead?

The plan is supposed to start the summer of 2011 and end by 2014. This seems a little ridiculous. As we all know construction is rarely finished in its estimated time. My parents pool took longer than three years for god sakes, (yes I'm exaggerating). They can't tell me it's going to be done in less than three years.

One more wrinkle to this whole plan is mass transit. Bills Edwards explained that mass transit by rail is the "only way." He talked about how trolley buses and regular buses don't work with the public. The plan is to ultimately have a train rail connect to the bullet trains to grant access across Florida.

This plan will at the earliest be approved in 2018. I like the idea of the train transit, and it could potentially reduce an immense amount of traffic. The problem is though that is could be potentially one of the most expensive debacles in recent memory.

We don't yet know what will happen to Bruce B. Downs. It will play out in the upcoming months to years. I'll say this public meeting was way more interesting to attend. It sparked my interest in the debate and got me thinking.

Until next time, understand, next time you find yourself in traffic on Bruce B. Downs, just realize that there's something we can do to help.