Streetcar Desired For Use By Tampa Residents

By RICH SHOPES The Tampa Tribune

Published: Oct 23, 2007

TAMPA - As the city's electric streetcar marks its first five years in operation, transportation officials say the next year will be critical in determining the system's future.

An endowment started by the developers of Harbour Island to fund the streetcar could be depleted by 2011.

That has the nonprofit Tampa Historic Streetcar Inc., which runs the system, looking to extend the endowment's life, cut costs and find additional revenue sources. The group's main objective: reposition the service so it becomes a transportation option for more than cruise ship visitors and conventioneers.

The endowment provides about $1 million yearly, including principal and interest. Because ridership has been less than projected, the principal has been tapped faster than expected. About $3.2 million remains from the original $5 million.

Among its plans for the coming year, the streetcar's operating board wants to:

•Continue running only two streetcars instead of four between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday to save about $160,000 a year. That change started Oct. 1.

•Sell naming rights to the half-dozen station stops along the route that are still available for sponsorship, generating about $600,000.

•Extend the 2.4-mile streetcar line three blocks to Whiting Street and promote the line as an Ybor City-to-downtown transit system. The extension could boost fare revenues by more than $80,000 yearly.

City and transit officials will be asked over the next fiscal year to extend the line using $2 million in federal grants.

The move is meant to attract new ridership, primarily Channel District residents who would take the streetcar to work or downtown events, and partiers heading toward the Channel District and Ybor City.

The move also signals a step toward creating a mass-transit system.

The streetcar began rumbling through Tampa in October 2002. Constructed for $56 million, the streetcar was pitched as an attraction for tourists and conventioneers and an incentive for developers looking to build in the Channel District. Extending to Whiting Street would bring the streetcar to the southern edge of downtown and make the line accessible to office workers and merchants.

"We're at a definite turning point," said John Moors, administrator of the Tampa Convention Center and a member of the nonprofit corporation that runs the streetcar. "We need to turn it from convention center attraction to a mode of transportation to be utilized by the public."

If extended farther, the line could connect with bus and eventual light rail terminals before looping back to Ybor City, turning it into a downtown circulator.

So far, the streetcar has a lackluster record. When proposed, then-Mayor Dick Greco predicted the line would give 500,000 rides yearly. This past fiscal year, the streetcar's best, recorded 440,000 rides.

In addition, the endowment, the line's main funding source, is dwindling and might be depleted somewhere within the next four to 15 years, depending on other funding amounts. When the endowment is exhausted, the city will be on the hook to take over the funding.

Supporters say there's plenty of good news. Ridership this year increased by 50,000, and revenue jumped by $300,000.

They also say economic development has blossomed along the streetcar route and convention bookings are up - both at least partly because of the streetcar.

If anything, supporters say, the endowment's erosion underscores the need to extend the line to capture a wider audience and lessen the need to draw down the endowment's principal. About $755,000 in principal is budgeted toward streetcar operations this fiscal year.

"The idea is to utilize all of these revenue sources to the best of their ability so when the endowment does run out, the streetcar can continue to operate," Moors said. "This is a viable business that needs time to grow."

David Mechanik, president of the board for Tampa Historic Streetcar, said the three-block push will add $80,000 more annually to the fare box and bring total annual ridership to 520,000.

Also, revenue from a special tax assessment in the area is poised to increase by $100,000 this year as more offices, shops and condos that don't get homestead exemptions migrate to the district.

"When it started, the focus was on visitors, and Mayor Greco was definitely focused on this more as tourist attraction and less as a means of transportation, but other people were hopeful … and I would be one of them, that we can make this into something more than just a tourist attraction," Mechanik said.

The extension plan is awaiting the completion of a federal environmental study. After that, city and transit officials will be asked to approve a plan and hire a contractor to lay the tracks. Work could start next year, provided federal funding is approved after the environmental study.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or rshopes@tampatrib.com.