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Today during its regular meeting, the HART board voted to submit the following recommendations to the Florida Legislature regarding the HART/PSTA consolidation study:
- Regularly scheduled formal joint meetings of the HART and PSTA Boards; and
- Develop a Strategic Coordination Plan to identify projects that make sense for HART and PSTA to undertake together, such as information systems and customer information; and
- Jointly set benchmarks, cost-efficiencies, policies and a timeline for continued collaboration, beginning May 1, 2013.
In addition, the HART Board officially noted its opposition to any request of the Florida Legislature to modify the Joint Powers Authority process to circumvent any otherwise required referendum.
The boards of the HART and Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) are scheduled to meet jointly Monday, Jan. 14 to finalize a report to the Florida Legislature, due Feb. 1, per the legislation that mandated the HART/PSTA consolidation study.
In other matters, the HART Board voted to form a Transit-Oriented Development Steering Committee to make recommendations about ways to improve economic development by better coordination of new construction and redevelopment around transit corridors, such as MetroRapid North-South.
"This is one way we can get all of our transportation players together so we can make our system work better," said Tampa City Councilman Mike Suarez, who serves on the HART Board and introduced this proposal.
The TOD Steering Committee will be made up of land use, economic development and transportation professionals from city, county, transit and planning agencies, as well as public and private development professionals. Committee objectives include integrating bus rapid transit station/development within community settings, leveraging public/private partnerships to take advantage of a market rebound, using land as equity in partnership with others consistent with federal guidelines, and seeking grant funding for TODs with an emphasis on community.
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