418 E. Georgia St.

Tallahassee, FL 32301

22 November 2008

 

Mayor Pro-Tem Allan J. Katz

City Commission
300 South Adams Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301

 

Dear Commissioner Katz:

 

            I am writing to you as chairperson of the city’s Transit Advisory Committee. The TAC advocates decentralization of the Star Metro bus network, and we were delighted to see you support this concept at Wednesday’s commission workshop on the status of the StarMetro Renaissance. We are particularly encouraged by your suggestion that Star Metro should pursue decentralization in the near future. We believe that it is possible to carry out such a program within a one- to two-year time frame, and that doing so would greatly increase the usefulness of the system to Tallahassee residents at little additional operating cost.

 

            As part of the decentralization of service, the Transit Advisory Committee also advocates the improvement of bus stops and related cross walks on major arterial roads. In January 2008 we sent the mayor and members of the commission an illustrative 2-page study showing how such a stop might be configured on Apalachee Parkway near Governor Square Mall. In a reconfigured bus system, passengers will need to cross  arterial roads after they alight from buses or before they board them, and to do so safely, they need crosswalks at every stop. There is a need for many such stops, and unlike operating funding, capital funding to build them may come from higher levels of government as part of a stimulus package. We hope that you might support this aspect of bus service improvement, as well.

 

            The TAC recently established a web site setting forth our objectives for transit improvement in Tallahassee. Visions of transit route decentralization and the bus stop report can be found there. The site’s URL is: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~gthompsn/TAC/default.htm. We invite you to visit it. The January letter may be found there under “Special Reports/Super Stop.”

 

            Again, thank you for your support of transit improvement in Tallahassee.

 

                                                                        Sincerely yours,

 

 

 

 

                                                                        Gregory L. Thompson

                                                                        Chair, Transit Advisory Committee