TAMPA, Fla. — If you've gone into downtown Tampa, chances are you've seen the TECO Streetcar on the road. City leaders say more than a million people ride the streetcar every year.
The streetcar took to the streets on October 19, 2002, after a 56-year hiatus. It provides a glimpse into Tampa's past while propelling us through the present and into the future.
Michael English is the President of the Board of Directors for Tampa Historic Streetcars.
"They were constructed on original wheels and axles and everything. So what we're using are cars that really look just like the cars that ran until the 1940s," said English.
English's push was supported by the mayor of the time, Dick Greco. The main streetcar station is named after him. There's also a statue there in his honor.
"Dick Greco loved them because he rode them as a kid," English said.
The streetcar has been a constant as downtown Tampa continues to grow.
"When we opened the streetcar system, there were very few people living in any of those areas," he said.
Hillsborough County's fastest-growing zip code includes downtown Tampa. That's evident in the street car's ridership. More than a million people rely on the street car; 76,000 people hopped on last month, making September the busiest month ever.
"People are riding it, not just for fun, which they always did. Now they're riding it to get to work, to go to school. It has just been astounding," he added.
That success is paving the way for more access to alternative forms of transportation. Mayor Jane Castor said that expansion is in the works to promote the alternative to driving.
"We need to make sure that we continue to expand not only the services that we currently have but that we continue the streetcar down Florida Avenue, up Palm, and back around Tampa Street so that we can connect the entire area. Then from there, we will take bus rapid transit East and West to East Tampa to West Tampa, and then north all the way out to USF," she said.
But there is a bump in the road. The Florida Department of Transportation awarded the city $67 million to expand the service as long as the city can match the funds.
That money was supposed to come from the All for Transportation surtax which is currently in the middle of a legal battle.
"We were counting on the transportation referendum to be able to provide that funding. And it's one of the areas that the community, I think, is woefully under-informed on. And that is, especially with the millions of dollars that are coming down in grant funding from the federal government, that we as a community and as a region are going to miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars of grant funding because we don't have the necessary matches to be able to obtain that funding. And that really is a shame for our community to be able to move ahead," she said.
It's a problem English believes won't stop the streetcar from moving forward.
"We are moving forward with our expansion plans to move up to Tampa Heights. And a lot of that has to do with having such a smart, visionary mayor, a smart Department of Transportation, and smart city administration. People who now understand that transit has to be a major component of how people live here because we've gotten so big and so congested," English added.
Starting in November, every Sunday, the streetcar will become "transpor-tainment" when Winter Village Express returns to celebrate the holiday season.
