When it Comes to Traffic, Density is Destiny
Plus, a smart-looking noodle bar, the best local news summary, and the many things you can do at a library.
CURRENTS
$ = subscription may be required
TOP NEWS
DeSantis administration claims it helped send weapons to Israel — but provides few details. Politico
Pro-Palestinian movement conference planned at USF amid backlash from head of the state's university system. Spectrum Bay News 9
Tampa's $108 million City Center opens its doors. Tampa Bay Business Journal $
Swim advisory issued due to fecal pollution at Ben T. Davis Beach. Patch
Hurricane center monitoring 2 disturbances in the Atlantic, including 1 with 70 percent formation chance. News Channel 8
Democrats propose Medicaid expansion in Florida for young adults. WMNF
Florida fights a ruling that halts its lobbying restriction. WMNF
Publix hit with federal lawsuit over claims it failed to pay workers overtime. News Channel 8
St. Petersburg has plenty of questions about the Rays stadium deal. WUSF
Pasco couple recognized suspect in shooting that devastated their hometown in Maine. News Channel 8
TODAY’S SPONSOR
The Navigator is sponsored by Mary’s Little Lamb Preschool at 7311 N. Armenia Ave. in Tampa. We are a nationally accredited preschool established in 1959.
Free Childcare and a paycheck. We are currently seeking a qualified toddler teacher or teaching assistant. The ideal candidate must be creative, energetic, dependable, nurturing, patient, have a passion about the growth and development of the children, and be a team player. Requirements: pass a level 2 background screening, high school diploma or higher, completed or willing to start and complete the DCF 45 training hours, get CPR/First aid certified.
Interested in sponsoring the Navigator? We need to talk.
BRIEFS
Free Pet Vaccinations, Microchips: Hillsborough County is offering free rabies vaccinations and microchips for dogs and cats on Sunday, Oct. 29, at a drive-through clinic at Larry Sanders Sports Complex, 5855 S. 78th St., Tampa. Hillsborough County dogs and cats are required by ordinance to be vaccinated and registered. Residents also can receive tags and registration for dogs and cats that received their rabies vaccination. Dogs and cats must be 3 months or older. The event will be from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, or until supplies run out.
Arrests Made: Tampa Police detectives identified 29-year-old Bellina R. Rossie of Riverview as the suspect in the Oct. 16 fatal hit-and-run crash in the 2600 block of Causeway Boulevard that left a 43-year-old Hispanic male dead. She was arrested on Oct. 25 and charged with leaving the scene of a crash with death and was being held at Falkenburg Road Jail. Additionally, police arrested and charged Antelo Shavonne Simpson with first-degree murder in connection to an Oct. 25 homicide in the 300 block of East Wellington Court. The victim was a female in her early 70s who was found to have suffered from multiple sharp force upper body injuries. Simpson was transported to Orient Road Jail.
Caged Cardinals, Mockingbird Released: While on land patrol in Hillsborough County, Officer Sutton and Officer Specialist Rorer responded to a call from an Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation investigator about two cardinals in separate cages on a porch at a residence. The officers drove to the residence where they located the two cardinals and a mockingbird. An individual admitted to catching the birds when they were young and had been keeping them as pets. Officer Sutton issued the individual a misdemeanor citation for the migratory bird violation and the birds were released back to the wild.
Dune Update: Sunset Beach on Treasure Island is expected to open on Saturday, Oct. 28, but visitors should still stay off the dunes. After a month of restoring the dunes and planting vegetation, the restoration project is complete. To allow the new vegetation to grow and to protect the dunes, visitors are reminded to stay off the dunes. There will be designated pathways through the dunes to allow people to cross over safely and keep the dunes from being trampled on.
Got news? Send it here.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
No Amount of Transportation Funding Can Fix This
By Stephen Buel
Aside from the humidity, the worst thing about life in Hillsborough County is the traffic. It was already bad when I left southeast Lutz for grad school in 1980, and of course it was worse when I moved back to northwest Lutz two years ago last week.
In July, the City of Tampa released a landmark citywide mobility plan called Tampa MOVES. The plan compared Tampa with five other cities — Austin, Charlotte, Orlando, Pittsburgh, and Richmond — and Tampa came out last or next to last in several key criteria.
MOVES compared how much income residents of all six cities had left after paying for housing and transportation. Tampa not only had the most expensive housing bite at 32 percent of income, but our transportation bite was tied with Orlando for most expensive at 21 percent.
So Tampeños only have 47 percent of their income left after paying for housing and transportation. Pittsburghers have 61 percent of their income. Gridlock doesn’t just waste our time, it threatens our very ability to live here.
Other regions have done far more to tame their traffic than we have. But even in places that have invested heavily in transit, congestion is a problem that defies simple solutions.
The MOVES report was a thoughtful and eye-opening piece of work. Sure, some of it was utopian wishful thinking — reducing household transportation costs to just 5 percent by the year 2050, or eliminating all 333 of Tampa’s annual roadway deaths or life-altering injuries. But most of the report was commonsense.
The report identified a reasonable series of projects to complete by the year 2050, and estimated their cost. It is $2 billion, with a B.
And how much do you suppose the City of Tampa spends each year on transportation projects? It’s just $11 million, with an M.
In the absence of Hillsborough County’s sorely needed 1 percent sales tax for transportation — presumably on hold until the county can find the right time to resubmit a version that will pass legal muster — Tampa just announced the creation of an office to help locate transportation funding.
It’s unjust that Tampa should shoulder this burden alone. Because 79 percent of the 351,000 people who work in Tampa actually live outside the city. Tampa’s traffic woes are mostly created by residents of Carrollwood and Brandon, Town ’N’ Country and Riverview, Oldsmar and Wesley Chapel, St. Pete and Clearwater.
But transportation funding is not the real cure for transportation problems. Smart development is the solution.
Seventy-two percent of Tampeños drive to work alone while only 52 percent of Pittsburghers do so because the latter city was first settled by Europeans in 1717. It became a dense city back when rapid transit meant you owned a horse.
Cuban fishermen are believed to have lived in the Tampa Bay area some time in the mid 1700s, but real growth did not begin until Willis Haviland Carrier gifted humanity with the air conditioner. By the time that Frigidaire introduced a household cooling system, cars had replaced horses and Tampa was doomed to sprawl.
The underlying reality of Tampa’s sprawl is that no amount of funding is going to make it any easier for Lutz residents like me to get downtown. Density is destiny. Which is why we need dense cities.
There is a fascinating fact in the Tampa MOVES report. An estimated 21 percent of all those Tampa jobs are accessible by a 15-minutes walk. So the city’s highest transportation priority should be to get those employees out of their cars and onto their feet, or bikes, or scooters.
Even if Hillsborough County does eventually get its hands on a dedicated source of transportation funding, the 79 percent of Tampa workers who live outside the city need to allow the bulk of county funding to be directed at changing the habits of the other 21 percent.
Because the best way to help out suburban and rural residents like me is to invest in making it easier and more attractive for urban residents to get out of their cars.
Thus, development policy is the real transportation battleground. Dense housing keeps people off the roads. Far from requiring developers to provide parking when they build housing, the county should do everything in its power to keep developers from building any more parking than necessary.
Streets like the one I live on, with widely spaced homes featuring two-, three-, or even four-car garages, create congestion that no amount of funding can remedy.
The political dynamic that typically frames discussions about transportation policy is tension between two tribes I’ll call “build more roads” and “walk/bike/ride.”
Like so many of our current political divisions, these divisions are counterproductive. We all have far more in common than we realize.
BITES
Doodle Noodle Bar: This Westchase addition has a little something for everybody, from dumplings, fried tofu, and classic “summer” rolls to pho, noodle, stir fry and rice, and vermicelli bowls. And it stays open late. The interior walls and floors are stark black-and-white 2D drawings, so visiting it is like entering another dimension populated by a giant panda and puns on pho (“Thanks pho coming,” and “Twenty pho hour kitchen”). The star of our meal was the Red Light Special, a generous, fragrant portion of noodles, chicken, red curry broth, cucumber, carrot, beansprouts, onion, cilantro, lime, and fried onions — mmmmm. The vermicelli noodles in The Original were slightly under-cooked, but the accompanying veggies and fried pork egg roll mostly compensated for the oversight. Sweet-spicy chili sauce enhanced the crispy hunks of fried tofu, and peanut-topped peanut sauce added dimension to the summer spring roll. Fun for kids and the young at heart. Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sun., 9620 W. Linebaugh Ave., Tampa, 813-575-1946.
New Restaurant Openings
There is no shortage of new restaurants coming to the Tampa Bay Area. Here’s a list of places. Some are now open; others are coming. Call ahead before visiting.
Cinnaholic, 927 S. Howard Ave., Tampa: vegan cinnamon roll shop where you can design your own or choose from creative menu favorites. Opens Oct. 27.
Zukku, Ling's Dumplings, and Han Hand Rolls, Heights Public Market, the food hall inside Armature Works, 1910 N. Ola Ave., Tampa: three new concepts from the Zukku Sushi founder Ferdian Jap, managing partner of Majestic Restaurant Group, featuring sushi, dumplings, and hand rolls respectively. Tampa Bay Business Journal
Lepley’s Kitchen and Lounge, 6310 N. Florida Ave., Seminole Heights, Tampa: Southern comfort food with a Caribbean flair (soft opening 4-11 p.m. Sat., Oct. 28, and Sun., Oct. 29). Tampa Bay Times
Kichi Taiyaki, 2020 W. Brandon Blvd., Suite 150, Brandon: Japanese dessert cafe
Got restaurant news? Send it here.
THE LIST
Each week, we’ll bring you a new one. Got any ideas? Reach out.
The Library is More Than Books
Your Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative card enables you to do a lot more than check out books and put holds on bestsellers. Library cards are free for anyone who lives or pays property tax in Hillsborough County. The library has reciprocal arrangements with other area libraries, including many Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Polk counties. Patrons do need a home library card, a photo ID, and verification of current address to use reciprocating libraries. Nonresidents can get cards by paying a fee. Many libraries offer special events, such as storytime, lectures, and informational meetings. Here, perhaps, are a few of the lesser-known things that a powerful little library card may enable you to do:
Download or stream digital movies, music, eBooks, audiobooks, and more for many screens, including phone, car, or TV.
Reserve meeting spaces.
Access equipment from The Hive, which offers innovative tools, classes, and resources for new and experienced makers, creators, artists, and innovators (for recording songs or podcasts; photo editing for social media; building a robot, pilot, or drone; drawing, painting and photography; designing and 3-D printing a prototype; learning to sewing, soldering, or coding).
Have Internet access.
Wood working at The Foundry, a makerspace with power tools and free open build hours..
Search databases
Discovery Pass access to some area museums.
Reserve study rooms.
CURRENTS
$ = subscription may be required
BAY AREA
United flight attendants protest at Tampa International Airport. Axios Tampa Bay
USF’s response to letter disbanding pro-Palestinian student groups still unclear. The Oracle
Tampa mulls a new fire station across from Sparkman Wharf. Tampa Bay Business Journal $
Plant City man dead, 2 others in the hospital after 3-vehicle crash near Lakeland. 10 Tampa Bay
Tampa woman shares her story of surviving a stroke at only 34 years old to raise awareness. ABC Action News
Suspicious death investigation underway in Thonotosassa: Deputies. Fox 13 Tampa Bay
Women in Tampa seize the venture capital world. Axios Tampa Bay
A Largo lake where gator attacked man was drained. Where did the gators go? Tampa Bay Times $
Yes, that’s right—the Florida Orchestra is performing songs by Drake next month. Creative Loafing
Punk legends Descendents and Circle Jerks are coming to St. Pete next year. Creative Loafing
Mahaffey Theater will open new fine dining restaurant led by seasoned St. Pete chef. Creative Loafing
Banned from your phones but not the stage: TikTok star Chris Olsen to speak at USF. The Oracle
Basketball hosts social before new season tips off. The Oracle
Josh Allen gets Bills off to fast start in 24-18 win over Buccaneers. 10 Tampa Bay
FLORIDA
Proposed rollback of child labor law in Florida gets pushback; critics say kids would be exploited. Florida Phoenix
Advocacy group launches probe of PragerU Kids videos in Florida, Oklahoma schools. WUSF
Florida boosts its citrus budget. WMNF
A new RSV treatment is in short supply. Here's how to keep your baby safe. WUSF
Blue-green algae is lessening in the Caloosahatchee River. WUSF
Florida researchers find small stowaway while tagging stone crabs. News Channel 8
POLITICS
Ron DeSantis blames mass shootings on ‘liberal, soft on crime policies’. Florida Politics
Ron DeSantis vows to ‘reorient’ U.S. foreign policy to counter China. Florida Politics
Trump rakes in millions at MAGA-studded Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. Politico
Most GOP voters want to pull the plug on future debates. Tampa Free Press
Ron DeSantis claims U.S. troops in Syria are ‘sitting ducks’. Florida Politics
Jason Pizzo isn’t hopeful about flipping Senate seats, but sees a path to Governor in 2026. Florida Politics
COMMENTARY
These days, it’s Florida developers who are sneaking in and swiping natural resources from the public. Florida Phoenix
TELL YOUR FRIENDS
If you like the Navigator, please share it with your friends.
ABOUT US
Editors: Judith M. Gallman and Stephen Buel
Contributing editors: The Navigator is seeking contributors