An excited crowd listens to Mayor Dick Greco and
lines up to take trips in the air-conditioned streetcars.
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 20, 2002
TAMPA -- This city's new streetcar system started off with a clang
Saturday.
Actually, clang clang.
Just before 10 a.m., seven canary-yellow cars lurched forward from
Centennial Park in Ybor City, tugged by 600 volts of electricity and buoyed
by dreams of urban renewal.
The conductors stepped on the clang buttons in their floors twice --
giving the streetcar signal for "giddyap" before the convoy hummed 2.3 miles
to Channelside.
"Here we go. Heyyyy," said Kay Mullen, hoisting a pink rose above her
head as other passengers clapped and cheered.
"I've been waiting 18 years," said her husband, Harris Mullen, co-founder
of the Tampa and Ybor City Street Railway Society.
"It's pretty much like we envisioned," he said. "A little bigger. A
little better."
The $53-million TECO Line Streetcar System is modeled after the one
dismantled in 1946. Before falling victim to automobiles, the old cars moved
millions of residents to work and play.
The new line is all about economic development, one piece in a puzzle
that includes Ybor City, Channelside and downtown Tampa.
For now, organizers hope to transport 950 passengers a day.
In the future, they envision spurs to Tampa Heights, Hyde Park and other
nearby neighborhoods.
"All these things make other things happen," said Mayor Dick Greco. The
streetcar "will help the (Florida) Aquarium. It will bring more hotels."
Before the cars made their first run, Greco addressed about a thousand
people in Centennial Park. Special guests included U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and
U.S. Rep. Mike Bilirakis.
The city has squirreled away enough money from grants and other sources
to safeguard taxpayers if the system bombs, Greco said.
"If nobody rides this trolley for eight or 10 years, you're not going to
have to pay for it out of your pocket," Greco told the crowd.
But nobody wanted to think negatively Saturday.
In the park, a brass band blared Dixieland music while a woman in a
purple dress passed out bead necklaces. Along the route, hundreds of people
waved and took pictures.
"Everybody wave at the cabbies," a tour guide said as one streetcar moved
through Channelside. "They're mad that we're here."
Passengers giggled.
Outside the St. Pete Times Forum, a band from Busch Gardens played the
1970s hit "I Can See Clearly Now" as the first round of passengers
disembarked and hundreds of others waited to board.
The chorus: "It's gonna be a bright, (bright), bright, (bright), sunshiny
day."
"This is the greatest thing to happen to Tampa," said Ed Wederbrand, 60,
of West Tampa. "We need it. Who cares what it'll cost."
Wederbrand said one of his earliest memories was taking the streetcar
with his mom from Seminole Heights to shop downtown.
Emily Johnson, 83, remembered the old cars, too. She drove one.
"It wasn't as plush as this," said the former conductor, who flew from
Arizona to attend Saturday's event with her niece, Sheron Granger of
Lakeland.
Among other changes, the new cars are air conditioned.
Johnson described how passengers once kept cool: "Put the window down,
stick your head out."
Organizers expected 20,000 people Saturday to take advantage of free
fares, which continue today from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Beginning Monday, fares are $1.25 one-way.
"We are hoping it helps," said Scott James, owners of The Spitting
Gargoyle store in Ybor City. "Time will tell."
He might be encouraged by people like David and Marilyn Furman.
Until Saturday, they weren't impressed with Tampa.
Downtown is "unbelievably dead," said David Furman, a Charlotte, N.C.
architect who commutes to Tampa on weekends while his wife interns at a
state prison. "I didn't even see homeless people there."
But now, the Furmans can walk from their condo on Bayshore Boulevard to
the streetcar station behind the Tampa Bay Convention Center. Ybor is
minutes away.
"Now we can have an urban experience without our car," David Furman said.
At least in theory.
Saturday afternoon, the Furmans still had not ridden a streetcar.
The lines were too long.
Link to this story the St. Petersburg Times website:
Riders Turn Out for New Trolleys |
