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A new study by the Brookings Institution has shown that over 76,000 households in the Tampa Bay metropolitan are “zero vehicle households.” A zero vehicle household is a household that does not have access to a private automobile. To get to work, these zero vehicle households must rely on public transportation, friends with vehicles, bikes or simply walking.
Unfortunately, the Brookings study concluded that Tampa Bay ranked 94 of the top-100 markets in the country in providing viable public transportation options for zero vehicle households. That means that for many of Tampa Bay’s zero vehicle households, it would take them more than 90 minutes to get to work using public transportation. It should be no surprise that Brookings also found that Tampa Bay has the third-weakest economic recovery among the top-100 markets since the recession’s low point.
These reports got me curious. What if I had to take public transportation to get to work? I currently live near Hyde Park and work in Clearwater. According to Google Maps, my commute would take one hour and 43 minutes by bus. My total weekly commute time would be over 15 hours.
It would be great if I had the option not to drive. The cost of gas and insurance seems to keep going up. Plus, it would be nice to be able to read the paper or play angry birds on my phone, on my way to work. But for me, it is merely an inconvenience that the only way I can get to work is by driving my car. It costs me more money to drive and it means that I am stuck behind the wheel of a car for a large chunk of my day.
But for the 76,000 households in Tampa Bay without access to a car, our poor public transportation system is a much bigger problem. Poor access to public transportation means they have trouble getting to work reliably and it means they face extraordinary commute times when they do take public transportation. Without quality public transportation, many of our neighbors are limited to looking for jobs in their surrounding area, hurting our ability to create jobs. Improving Tampa’s public transportation system will give our neighbors better access to jobs, which will improve their lives and our economy.
From The Streets is a series written by members of the community that looks at transportation in the Tampa Bay area. The writer, Brian Willis, is an attorney and a member of the TBARTA Citizens Advisory Committee.
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