Fox 13 Tampa Bay published a one-sided article on Wednesday, May 6 about the City of Tampa’s El Prado Project. It did not link to the petition signed by over 800 residents that oppose the removal of two El Prado driving lanes. It did not mention a single point from residents who do not support the project. They later revised the article. We appreciate the update that includes additional viewpoints.

It was April 8 when I began posting information about the El Prado Streets and Sidewalks project on NextDoor. This topic has stayed trending on NextDoor for a month. This morning ten of the top twelve NextDoor posts from residents were about El Prado.

Fox 13 knew about this trending story nearly a month ago; a reporter reached out to me asking to talk—I agreed. The Fox 13 reporter never followed through to discuss El Prado. The City of Tampa’s Mobility Communications Coordinator previously worked as a reporter for Fox 13.

In 1926, Lloyd Skinner strategically designed and platted El Prado Boulevard to “afford relief from annoying cross traffic...and slow moving vehicles” and to give “Bel-Mar residents a boulevard beautiful”. The City of Tampa now wants to fundamentally change what the developer intended. We expect the faith to be kept.

On April 10, I created the petition to stop this poorly studied project. There is a long list of reasons why this project is problematic, including the city not following its own mobility policies.

The 2018 study supporting this project is incomplete and outdated:

• The study used traffic data from 2015 to early 2017, South Tampa is significantly more populated than it was a decade ago, and more people means more cars.

• The study skipped an entire segment of El Prado.

• It didn’t consider future volumes.

• It didn’t evaluate how removing two lanes might impact connected residential streets by creating cut through traffic from congestion spillover. Transferring the risk of crashes from El Prado onto smaller, walkable streets is not safer for our community.

El Prado community meetings were not well advertised in 2022. No signs were ever posted; drivers were not informed. Many neighbors impacted by the project did not receive letters from the city about those meetings. My questions in 2022 were not answered by Tampa’s Mobility Department. I wanted to know if they had predicted wait times and queue lengths from proposed lane reductions.

The project will remove 18 trees on just half the project, including 3 live oaks—two of which are grand. The tree advocacy groups have been curiously quiet. Tampa’s plans are not complete and do not tell us what trees are planned for removal in the other half of the project.

There were zero crashes for bicycles and pedestrians on El Prado between 2013-2015. El Prado is not on Tampa’s High Injury Network—El Prado is not an unsafe street. The president of the advocacy group Sidewalk Stompers claims El Prado “can feel just as intimidating as trying to cross Dale Mabry Highway.” El Prado is a median divided road; Dale Mabry is not. A Transportation Research Board study concludes the median divided road is “always associated with fewer collisions” than roads designed like Dale Mabry. There is a difference between feeling intimidated and being unsafe. Are advocacy groups pushing lane reductions over feeling intimidated? Many cities around the country report increased transportation deaths from these Vision Zero projects—this project might make El Prado more dangerous.

There are sign runners and speeders on our streets, in part, because the City of Tampa is not doing enough to enforce the law. They are historically short on traffic cops and give out too many warnings instead of tickets—no consequence. Recently, I was told their work hours were limited when I asked for coverage in the afternoons and evenings. The city doesn’t need to remove lanes to enforce the law. They need more traffic cops.

We all support safe sidewalks, which is why the City of Tampa should start repairing and maintaining the miles of sidewalks that are in disrepair and unsafe—like the one already on El Prado. Making our sidewalks and streets safe doesn’t mean we have to remove driving lanes. Adding crosswalks does not require removing lanes. We are all familiar with the congestion and driver distractions resulting from “lane diets” and bike lanes on Platt and S. Armenia.

The Fox 13 article mentions years of community advocacy, but the two advocacy groups named do not represent all residents who use El Prado daily. One community advocacy group mentioned in the article is Sidewalk Stompers, the other is Walk Bike Tampa. They are both noted as “stakeholders” in at least one Hillsborough Transportation Organization (TPO) document about our streets. Does government view its’ residents (outside of these two groups) as stakeholders?

Last week we received our first letter from the City of Tampa about El Prado. The letter invites us to an open-house meeting to “engage...review design plans, and obtain additional information.” This is poor timing given that the project is now scheduled to break ground in early June.

A Tampa City Council member told me: “At this point the only person who could stop the project would be the mayor,...”

There appears to be a hidden agenda with Vision Zero projects (El Prado) to get us out of cars: reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this article, I discuss this hidden agenda and Tampa’s Climate Action and Equity plans.

Maybe if the City of Tampa continues to push globalist Vision Zero projects against our wishes with our taxpayer dollars, we should petition to de-annex ourselves from the City of Tampa!

There are additional drastic changes in the works for South Tampa roads.

TAKE ACTION

Speak up now to stop this El Prado lane reduction project:

• Attend the May 13 Open House Meeting at Jan Platt Library from 6:30-8pm.

• Sign the Petition. www.change.org/SaveElPrado

• Write to the Mayor. Jane.Castor@tampagov.net

This article was originally published here.

For those of you in Tampa, you might not be aware our city has a Climate Action and Equity Plan. There are numerous city projects that have not received adequate public input, especially regarding our roads and land use.

For example, driving lanes are being removed on historic El Prado Boulevard and the community is upset. The city agreed to hold a public meeting but I was told by a city councilman “The city staff are now about to start the construction stage” and “they tell me the purpose would be to inform the public.” (i.e. not make any changes)

In Tampa’s Vision Zero Action Plan, they highlight a “data-driven and collaborative approach”. As I explain in my petition, the latest Vision Zero project has hardly been data-driven, their study is a decade old, and didn’t project future volumes or consider the dangerous impact of spillover (from congestion) into our residential streets—not designed for through traffic. Their “study” skipped an entire segment of the Boulevard. In 2022, my questions addressed to the city were not answered. No signs have ever been posted on El Prado for public meetings, not then, not now.

Vision Zero is not about saving lives, it is about reducing carbon or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Removing driving lanes for bikes is not their only plan for reducing carbon emissions. Their plans call to densify Land Use “TO INDUCE ALTERNATIVE MOBILITY CHOICES.” Ultimately this is all to “help the City to decrease its GHG emissions.”

In other words, they don’t want you driving in cars. This is made quite clear in their Climate Action and Equity Plan, which describes increasing population density to eliminate the need to drive:

Planning for our Vision Zero congestion nightmare pays well, up to $115,876/year.

The city introduces this “new” job listing as: “This is professional work in urban planning in pursuit of Tampa’s Vision Zero initiative.”

Tampa’s Climate Action and Equity Plan suggests establishing policies such as “Re-evaluate, decrease and, where appropriate, eliminate off-street parking requirements.” They want to decrease and eliminate parking.

I thought the concern was 15-minute city prisons? They are aiming for 10 minute neighborhoods.

They want to collect data about vehicles on the road and archive it, so they can track and monitor progress of reducing vehicular use. Keep in mind some of that data might be about your movements and is collected by companies such as Flock:

The City of Tampa links to the Vision Zero Network, explaining it “was created to build momentum and advance Vision Zero in communities across the U.S.”

Vision Zero Network makes it clear they are using a “carrot and stick approach” and tells us they encourage “disincentivizing single-occupancy driving” with congestion pricing:

Remember the real goals here and how NYC eventually implemented congestion pricing. The pricing is not a flat fee. It sounds like a hidden algorithm. According to the Metropolitan Transit Authority “The toll amount depends on the type of vehicle, time of day, whether any crossing credits apply, and the method of payment. There are also discounts and exemptions that apply to certain drivers or vehicles entering the Congestion Relief Zone.”

Let’s not forget how intimately Vision Zero is tied to the United Nations, afterall Sustainable Development Goal #11 says “Bike, Walk or use Public Transportation.”

The UN and actions of WHA, UNRSC, WHO, and UNGA “led to Vision Zero...as a viable road safety strategy” and they promote Vision Zero as a model for countries and citizens in road safety programs.

We are a sovereign nation, we do not answer to the UN or globalists.

Governor DeSantis just signed HB1217, an anti-Net Zero law. The legislation states:

“Net zero policy” means any policy, program, or initiative designed to achieve a balance between total amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere with an equal amount removed from the atmosphere.”

It also states:

Will this law help us stop the whacky transformation of our transportation infrastructure to achieve net-zero? Will it stop the densification of our communitites to achieve net-zero? I hope so. In the meantime...

This is our community—not a globalist playground. We are Floridians, American citizens, not global citizens. Efforts to remove driving lanes could result in increased congestion, ugly barriers in the road, increased deaths and accidents, as well as a future where residents are encouraged to use public transit through negative motivations such as congestion pricing or smart parking pricing. It is time to stop Vision Zero and Tampa’s plans to densify our communities. Speak up and tell your city council and Mayor what you think about these plans.

This article was originally published on X.