Movement - Brad Miller

Can you explain the relationship between affordable housing and transportation?  

The Federal Government publishes a metric, that your housing plus transportation costs combined should not exceed 40% of your income. A majority of residents countywide—true in St. Petersburg as well—exceed that. This highlights a need for more affordable housing, but just as impactful is lowering your transportation costs. The further away from a concentrated area of commerce like Downtown St. Petersburg you live, you'll have a lower cost housing cost, but your transportation costs increase. In addition to direct transportation costs, you may also see indirect costs like traffic ingestion, which only gets worse over time. 

As a city, you can invest $20M in multifamily affordable housing developments and that will impact a small number of households. Investing that amount in a transportation medium like the SunRunner means providing 3,000 people a day with a low cost or [currently] no cost option of getting around in St. Petersburg. So, there is such a connection that people often don't make between transportation and affordable housing. 

What does it mean for a city like St. Petersburg to gain a BRT line like SunRunner?

Investing in transportation is advantageous to developers as well. Mainly because you don't have to build a huge parking garage, especially in Downtown. It's been shown everywhere in the world, that you can build more intense more lucrative development, if you don't have to invest in structured parking. 

This year we were finally able to launch the first rapid transit in the Tampa Bay area, and it happened in Downtown St. Pete with the SunRunner. Transit-oriented development, is really a big focus of the city and PSTA—encouraging developers to create transit oriented development, more intense development around the SunRunner corridor and around the stations. It relieves pressure from other areas of the city that don’t necessarily want to have more intense development because now we have sustainable transportation infrastructure in place to move people efficiently and without personal vehicle congestion. 

Having St. Petersburg be so supportive of providing alternative transportation options that lower people's cost speaks to its commitment to addressing the affordable housing crisis. 

What is PSTA's role in connecting with the community to make sure that transportation needs are being met? 

I think it is so important that we reflect, collaborate and integrate with the community in which we are providing the transportation. I think maybe in the past it was okay for us to be a “bus company” that just was assigned to make sure the buses arrive where they are supposed to and on time, but It's changed now where if we're going to be reflective of St. Pete, we want to be reflective of everything that it has to offer. So, things like having SunRunner be designed with local artists, leveraging it as a way to expand a tourist’s access to Downtown, engaging local Downtown businesses through the Gold Card program—the transportation mediums need to be connected to the community. We’re very proud of how we have tried to make transit more than just a way of getting somewhere, but make it part of the experience.  

Complete this sentence. Downtown St. Pete is a place to _____.

Take an alternative mode of transportation to something that will knock your socks off, whatever it might be. There's no other place in in the whole Tampa Bay area that is more has more alternative transportation options. 

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