By CAROLE DICKEY

Concerns over exploding growth in the Wesley Chapel area prompted the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce government relations committee to call for a meeting of minds.

On May 14 the committee met with Michael Carroll, transportation manager of Pasco County Public Transportation (PCPT), and William Ball of Tindale-Oliver & Associates, Inc., a planning and engineering firm.

The topic under discussion was bus routes to serve the needs of residents and businesses. To those present, it wasn’t a question of whether or not to go the bus route, but when and how many. With congested traffic, spiraling gas prices and escalating costs of owning and operating a car, all seemed in agreement that busing seemed a logical and inevitable way to serve the needs of residents and businesses alike. The increasing amount of bus riders over the past few years seems to support that conclusion. In the year 2000, PCPT made 136,000 trips, Carroll said. They expect to exceed a million trips this year.

Demand for bus services is expected to accelerate even more over the next several years.

“We have three major shopping centers coming on line in the next five years,” said Peter Hanzel, a director at the chamber. “There’s Wiregrass, the Groves and Cypress Creek, we’re going to have a major hospital, we already have about 15-20 major communities. So we’re kind of looking at this large concentration of people here.”

He also reminded the others of service industries – several hotels and restaurants – in Wesley Chapel.

“So they have a requirement to bring employees in,” Hanzel said, adding that many of those employees would be dependent on public transportation.
Carroll reported PCPT is ready to go into an agreement with Cypress Creek Town Center for an easement that would provide for several buses to be there simultaneously.

“They will build the facilities and we will use them,” Carroll said. “They don’t want a park and ride, they made that very clear, but it does help the service make, possibly, a transfer center.”

Carroll also talked about proposed cross-county busing from New Port Richey along State Road 54, that might extend to State Road 56. He also said they are talking with many new community developers in terms of what public transportation amenities they’d like to see the developers provide.
“It could be as small as a bus shelter at bus stops in your area or as large as a transfer facility where you allow five-six-10 buses to pull in and people can make transfers between routes,” he said.

Ball pointed out some of the obstacles to providing services for the Wesley Chapel and Land O’ Lakes areas.

“The struggle that we always have when you have a smaller transportation system that is evolving and growing is do you do a better job of those services you already have out there today or do you expand to new service areas,” Ball said. “It’s a tough balance, a tough tradeoff, when do you expand the services.”

For the past six to eight years Carroll has focused on increasing the quality and level of existing services, Ball said. Bus trips have reached the 1 million plateau and bus services are more efficiently used, he said.

“I think it’s now time to start looking at that service expansion,” he said.

Committee member Sharon Rogers will be working closely with Ball as they develop a transportation plan. A part of that will be determining the primary rider profile, such as people going to work or shopping or having access to medical facilities and planning bus services to meet those needs.

“My idea is to start small, but have a five-year projection with all these communities and the growth of the shopping centers, employees, maintenance, all that,” Rogers said.