ST. PETERSBURG — The U.S. Department of Transportation will spend $21.8 million to build the first dedicated bus corridor in Tampa Bay, President Donald Trump announced in a tweet Thursday night.
The 10-mile bus rapid transit route will connect downtown St. Petersburg with St. Pete Beach. Buses will have their own lane for much of the route. Once the buses hit the Corey Causeway, they’ll run in mixed traffic.
The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, the city of St. Petersburg and the Florida Department of Transportation had already agreed to contribute a total of $22 million for the nearly $44 million project. But it was unclear until the president’s tweet whether federal money would come through.
Usually, it’s a local congressman who announces when the federal transportation department has agreed to help pay for a local transportation project. But this time Trump took to Twitter to reveal 10 projects across the country that will receive a total of $765 million in federal money.
“USDOT is committing $21.8M for the FIRST transit project of this kind in the Tampa Bay region,” Trump’s tweet said. “It will connect St. Petersburg to popular beaches through state-of-the-art transit buses with FREE WiFi. Will be a major help to heavily populated parts of the Great State of Florida!”
Brad Miller, executive director of the Pinellas transit authority, had told board members Wednesday that he expected to receive federal approval within the next few weeks. He told the Tampa Bay Times Thursday it was unexpected to receive the news from the president’s Twitter account.
“I guess this is 2020, this is a different time,” Miller said. “We get it in a presidential tweet. It’s still very exciting.”
Miller said the agency hopes to award a construction contract in June with work beginning in July. The project is expected to take about 18 months to build. That means people could use the new bus system in late 2021 or early 2022.
The route will start in downtown St. Petersburg, where it will run along First Avenues N and S. Buses will turn onto Pasadena Avenue S and then travel down Gulf Boulevard. The agency proposed 17 stops and said buses would run every 15 minutes.
Pinellas transit officials said the bus rapid corridor will employ bus and turn-only lanes for 65 percent of the project, or 6.75 miles.
These lanes, which will be painted red, can be used by cars that are turning into a business, side street or driveway. But in order to give the buses their own route, officials will have to convert one lane along First Avenues N and S into dedicated east-west transit and turn lanes. That means those stretches would be reduced to two lanes for regular traffic.
Construction has already begun on the route, including a terminal recently completed on St. Pete Beach, Miller said. The agency has also placed an order for new buses.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, who has supported the project, said in a statement Thursday that the federal money has been “long-awaited and is much needed.”
“Our hope is that it not only makes going back and forth between our vibrant downtown and the beaches easier, but helps to move the larger conversation around regional transportation forward," Kriseman said.
The project was floated more than a decade ago and gained traction in 2015. County officials have called it one of the most important transportation initiatives in the region.
It has also faced strong community backlash and has gone through various modifications as planners have sought to address concerns of officials and residents in St. Pete Beach. Most recently, the Pinellas transit authority said it would use standard 40-foot buses instead of 60-foot buses and would end the route at 45th Avenue and Gulf Boulevard instead of extending it to The Don Cesar hotel.
The St. Pete Beach City Commission voted against spending any money on the project and approved a resolution last summer saying the project could come into their city, but just barely. They wanted the line to extend no farther than the intersection of 75th Avenue and Gulf Boulevard.
Belleair Bluffs Commissioner Joseph Barkley, who serves as the chairman of Pinellas’ transit authority said that it was unusual to receive the news in a tweet but that the agency is excited to get to work immediately on the project.
“We’re in a position where other authorities around the state and around the country can look to us to see how these kinds of rapid transit facilities and operations can dramatically add to the local economy,” Barkley said. “They can provide not only opportunity for jobs in the construction process, but opportunity for employers and tourists and others."
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