SWFBUD Budget Hearing Bike Ride Leaves at 5 PM Sharp

Today's SWFBUD Budget Hearing Bike Ride will leave promptly at 5 PM from in front of the garden center on Central Avenue. Please get there early and make sure you're ready to ride at 5 PM if you'd like to join the bike ride to the Hillsborough County budget hearing, where you can comment about the county's proposed budget, which calls for closing Flatwoods, the Upper Tampa Bay Trail and all county parks two days a week.

Volunteers And Fees To Keep Hills. Co Parks Open 7 Days A Week?

Mark Thornton, Hillsborough County's parks director, left a message on my cell phone today indicating he hopes local groups in the county will volunteer to help the county's parks stay open seven days a week after County Administrator Pat Bean proposed a budget that would shutter parks two days a week.

Thornton also indicated there could be user fees at the parks -- along with the volunteers -- that would make up for the lack of funds to hopefully maintain the seven-day-a-week schedules at parks such as Flatwoods.

I mentioned on WMNF, 88.5-FM, today that SWFBUD would be willing to consider those options if it comes down to keeping parks open seven days a week.

The Hillsborough County budget hearing is 6 PM Thursday at the People's All Life Center next to King High School at 6105 East Sligh Ave. SWFBUD is leading a 5 PM bike ride to the county budget hearing, leaving from in front of the Seminole Heights Garden Center at 5800 Central Avenue.

SWFBUD Interviews County Commissioners After Friendship TrailBridge Meetings

SWFBUD interviewed Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris, who seemed supportive of fixing and re-opening the Friendship TrailBridge.


Then, SWFBUD chatted with Hillsborough County Comissioner Al Higginbotham, who also sits on the TrailBridge committee.

Tour de France? How About a Tour de Florida?

How about we have a Tour de Florida and start it at the re-opened Friendship Trailside Bridge? That's one speaker's idea during today's Friendship TrailBridge meeting.

SWFBUD Blogging Live From The Friendship TrailBridge Meeting

I'm blogging live from the Friendship TrailBridge meeting at the Weeden Nature Center in St. Petersburg regarding the future of the Friendship Trail. A committee of officials and citizens from both Pinellas and Hillsborough counties will hear a report, which says it will cost $15 million to fix the old Gandy Bridge that serves as the Friendship Trail.

SWFBUD wants both counties to fix the bridge, which has structural problems. Both counties own the trail-bridge.

$4 million was scheduled for improvements, but now there are four different options, including demolishing it for $13 million and fixing it for $15 million. Partial improvement and repair of the limited end portions is $10 million. New piers and bridge demolition would be $17 million.

An engineer is giving a powerpoint to show the "internal structural defects" for the 1956 bridge. In 1995, the new bridge for westbound traffic opened.

The TrailBridge is one of the longest pedestrian bridges over water in the world -- 2.6 miles long.

Problem is there is deterioration -- and the powerpoint shows nasty cracks and deterioration in the beams and steel tendons. The bridge has been closed since November 2008.

It's a packed house here in a meeting room, including Adam Beland, owner of Bicycle Outfitters in Seminole and Dottie Jessup of Chainwheel Drive in Clearwater. I'd say about 100 people are here.

SWFBUD To Be On WMNF Radio Tuesday

We all know that the county closing Flatwoods park two days a week is wrong, but SWFBUD also opposes Hillsborough County closing another valuable bicycle resource two days a week -- the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

The county has invested millions of dollars to build and improve the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, which SWFBUD hopes will be extended to connect into the Suncoast Trail.

In fact, the county received DOT money (yes, Transportation funds) to improve the Upper Tampa Bay Trail's infrastructure such as the bridge above Gunn Highway because not only is this trail a recreational resource it also is a key TRANSPORTATION corridor for bicyclists, too.

For the life of me I don't understand how Hillsborough County can "close" a massive stretch of land like Flatwoods or a trail corridor like the Upper Tampa Bay Trail and both are major regional resources that would make it foolish to close.

So, SWFBUD asks you to oppose the closing of not only Flatwoods for two days a week but also the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, too.


Tune into WMNF Tuesday at 1 PM. I'll be on the air representing SWFBUD regarding the impact of Hillsborough County park budget cuts on bicyclists. Host Mitch Perry said he'll probably get around to SWFBUD around 1:20 PM.

SWFBUD Mentioned in Bicycling Magazine's August Edition

SWFBUD goes national again. This time, SWFBUD made Bicycling Magazine.

Check out the current August edition of Bicycling with Lance on the cover and turn to page 30, the hubbub section.

Halfway down the page SWFBUD makes an appearance, calling for governments in Florida to be proactive in preventing bicyclist fatalities.

The back story: Several months ago I crunched the transportation numbers on the number of bicyclist fatalities by state in the US in 2007 and learned that Florida leads the country with the highest bicyclist fatality rate AND in the raw number of bicyclist fatalities (more than California, which has twice the population).

I wrote a media release about my SWFBUD bicyclist fatality findings and Bicycling ran with it.