All aboard the parkway express

Imagine a day when people who live in Citrus County will drive to the northernmost terminus of the Suncoast Parkway at U.S. 98, park their car and board an express bus headed south.

The bus would make pits stop at each of the three interchanges along the parkway in Hernando County and drop off passengers at "park-and-ride" hubs. Then the bus continues southward into Pasco County, making stops at key interchanges.

The bus eventually ends up in Hillsborough County where passengers could debark and spread out to various locations via shuttles, other buses or even a light rail system and head to the Westshore Plaza, the Tampa International Airport or even to Interstate 75.
Right now, it's all a pipe dream.

There's no money to pay for such an elaborate transit system. Nor are there any planned connector routes or terminals where people would get off the bus and wait for another connection.

But in 2020, who knows?

The Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA) and the Florida Department of Transportation are initiating a conceptual study of regional transit along the Suncoast Parkway and will examine the feasibility of regional express bus service operating with regular vehicle traffic.

The agencies will examine potential federal and state transit money to plan, organize and implement the feasibility study to connect Citrus, Hernando and Pasco counties - which are linked by the parkway - with the rest of the metro Tampa area.

"Feasible" is the operative word, said County Commissioner Dave Russell, who is the county's representative to the TBARTA board.
"It has to be feasible or it won't get funded," Russell said.

The study will examine how many jobs such an ambitious transit system will create, whether there is a large enough passenger base to draw from and the method for moving passengers from their stops along the Suncoast Parkway.

"You've got to have that transportation network in place (first)," Russell said. "You can't just dump people off in the middle of nowhere without a means to get around."
For example, one of the transit "hubs" in Hernando County would be the airport and adjacent industrial park.

People who board the express bus in Citrus County to get to their job at the industrial park would get off at the nearest parkway interchange, at Spring Hill Drive, and be picked up by another transportation mode.

That is where Hernando County's current mass transit system, THE Bus, could come into play, Russell said.
Critics have said THE Bus is under utilized. This would allow the system to take on a greater purpose, Russell said.

The study will also examine the feasibility of installing "hot lanes" along the Suncoast Parkway, which are dedicated lanes to be used only by buses or carpool vehicles so as not to slow down the regular traffic.
The study is expected to take 12 to 16 months to complete, said TBARTA Executive Director Bob Clifford.

But the idea of a regional transit system using the Suncoast Parkway is envisioned sometime between 2020 and 2050, he said.
Clifford said residents of Hernando and Citrus counties, who participated in surveys, said they preferred some type of scheduled regional bus service that connects them with the urban areas of Tampa.

While Tampa is looking at light rail to supplement the buses, Hernando and Citrus are not at that point yet, Clifford said.

"That's a future discussion," he said.