We might as well make this "BRT Week" at Tampa Rail. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to explore some of the existing online content regarding where Hillsborough County explicitely stands with BRT, given developments in Pinellas County recently.

The Big Bang in BRT locally seems to center around a BRT workshop held in Largo last month. The workshop catered to all the local players, and if impressions mean anything, seems to be where the troops lined themselves up for the mobilization we're hearing about this month. In fact I don't really know if there's any new mobilization afoot, or if I'm just now paying attention to it all, but here we are.

Either way, the good news is that in Hillsborough County at least, BRT development in no way blocks, intercepts, or otherwise diminishes the push for fixed guideway solutions. True to the recent WMNF radio interview, the plans are out and out separate at worse, or a precursor to LRT investement, at best.

This article which ran last July and which highlighted the Congressional funding for the locally based National Bus Rapid Transit Institute (at USF), also offers insights to Hillsborough's positioning of BRT in the overall transit picture. None of the routes being discussed, or portrayed in an MPO Needs Map, demonstrate an LRT planned route being planned over with BRT to any great degree. Rather, BRT is looking to settle down initially along Florida or Nebraska avenues in a very linear schema. I also find many of these sentiments expressed in this December article, also by the St. Pete Times.