At today’s PSTA board meeting, board member and Pinellas County commissioner Janet Long said she was “stunned” to hear that the average cost per rider on bus route 444 is $53.85. Long asked why PSTA…
TBARTA, the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Agency, operates a little known commuter van pool program involving about 100 vans. It’s a form of transit that costs much less per passenger mile than other forms of…
Multiple and extensive free ridership programs across PSTA’s network in April failed to stem the the ridership plunge at this beleaguered Pinellas transit agency. As the Guardian reported last month, PSTA ridership for its fiscal year is…
President Trump’s “budget blueprint” for fiscal year 2018 calls for halting funding to transit capital projects (so-called “New Starts”), with the exception of projects that already have grant agreements in place. It also appears that no new grant…
Brandi Gabbard, 40, a broker and associate at Smith & Associates Real Estate, is running for the District 2 seat on the St. Pete City Council. The seat is currently held by Jim Kennedy, who is…
Why should residents of the Tampa Bay area care about a procurement by Tri-Rail, a transit agency in southeast Florida? Because $57 million of state funds annually go to fund Tri-Rail. The three counties in…
“The TDC dollars can be used for transit”, said Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long in a PSTA executive committee meeting on October 12th. Long was referring to the Tourist Development Council (TDC) and the tourist…
“We need leadership to develop a grassroots support for more taxes to generate revenue to pay for the construction of public mass transit”, said one attendee during a Cafe con Tampa event on Friday (August 26th)…
The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority August July board meeting turned into a political “Spin Bin” on Wednesday as political spin was applied to a multitude of embarrassing situations. First, evidence of Florida Ethics Law violations by board member Ben Diamond…
PSTA staff is recommending a hike in the property tax millage rate to 0.75 mills, the maximum allowed by Florida law. The current rate is 0.7305 mills. In other words, if the hike is approved, the millage…
This is the first ever Tampa Bay Guardian editorial, and we hope it’s our last. But we believe we must comment on the recent botched Pinellas County ordinance banning “fracking” that actually allows the very thing it sought to…
At today’s PSTA board meeting, Oldsmar mayor and PSTA Board member Doug Bevis said that reallocating miles from some bus routes to other routes means “we are cutting”, even when the total number of miles remain the same. However, Bevis began his…
At the annual Hands Across The Sand event in Treasure Island, FL, the Suncoast Sierra Club used a helicopter to take aerial photographs. However, helicopters are powered by aviation fuel, which the Sierra Club labels a “dirty fuel”. A battery-powered aerial…
PSTA has not cut bus service since the defeat of Greenlight Pinellas, despite a written promise to do so. PSTA’s top leadership did not respond to multiple requests for comment on these findings.
