Tampa mayor rails for light rail

Now that Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio has less than a year remaining on her second term in office, she can speak a bit more freely about what the city needs to accomplish in order to remain competitive with metro peers nationwide.

Iorio, a staunch advocate for improving Tampa's transit system, told a May 10 luncheon audience at the Centre Club that a light-rail system is imperative to attracting the types of companies that are overlooking the region.

“We stand alone among the major metropolitan areas of this country that doesn't have a modern transit system,” Iorio said, speaking with more of a fire-and-brimstone pitch than most of her speaking engagements over the last seven years. “We got away with that in the 20th century, but that was a different time.”

Large corporations will no longer consider expansion sites that lack mobility options, Iorio said. She pointed to Denver, Charlotte, Dallas, Salt Lake City and Phoenix as Tampa's current competitors.

Iorio advocates approval of an additional penny sales tax in Hillsborough County that will largely fund a 46-mile light-rail system routed through densely populated parts of town. The system would dovetail from the proposed high-speed train connecting Tampa and Orlando, for which President Obama pledged $1.25 billion in federal funds earlier this year.

Ed Turanchik, a former Hillsborough County Commissioner and longtime proponent of passenger rail, told the audience that the train will substantially reduce travel time between both cities along Interstate 4. With construction set to begin next March, “we're 10 years ahead of California at this point,” said Turanchik, who is now a consultant to Columbia, S.C-based Wilbur Smith Associates.