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511 Service on the Horizon for Tampa Bay Metro Area

Is your drive to and from work a daily gamble? An incident free, quick ride one day, and a two hour long   traffic jam the next?

Are you frustrated with searching through radio channels for a traffic report?

Would you like to know beforehand if you should take a different travel route?

Soon, finding out about traffic congestion and travel delays before you hit the roads will be as easy as dialing 511 on your phone or logging onto a website. The Florida Department of Transportation and its partner, Mobility Technologies, plan to roll out a Tampa Bay 511 system by mid to late August of this year.

When available, travelers will be able to dial 511 on a phone or log on to

www.511tampabay.com to get real-time traffic information for specific routes and roadway segments, including anticipated time of travel delay, traffic accidents, roadway blockages, and lane closures. In addition to this information, the website component will also include motion images from existing traffic cameras, e-mail alerts, links to stakeholder websites, and customer feedback. Eventually, the 511 system will likely

In order to gather the data from which traffic information is based on, a roadside sensor network will be installed along the major Tampa Bay area interstate network, including I-275, I-4, and I-75. The network will consist of solar powered, wireless communication technology that utilizes microwave radar and acoustic sensors to gather lane by lane data on travel speeds, lane occupancy, and vehicle counts. The basic data gathered will allow for the calculation of travel times.

Many other states, including Washington, California, Arizona, and Minnesota have already implemented similar systems in their major metropolitan areas. Evaluations conducted so far in these states indicate that the 511 system serves as a valuable tool for communicating real-time traffic conditions to the traveling public.

New Formed Vanpool Hits the Road

Employees from the VA and Moffitt hospitals recently formed a vanpool under the Bay Area Vanpool Program. The group hit the road last month in their Bay Area Vanpool commuter van, commuting together five days a week between Riverview and the USF Area – to their respective places of employment. By riding in the vanpool, the participants each save an average of about 35 miles a day - over 8400 miles each year - on their personal vehicle’s use. With five current participants, this vanpool also eliminates four cars from the road - eight trips a day - during peak commute times. For the VA and Moffitt hospitals, four parking spaces have been freed up for others to use.

Other benefits of vanpooling also make this commute option ideal for commuters who typically find driving to work expensive, stressful, and unproductive:

Vanpool programs benefit employers by reducing parking demand at the worksite. Employers that support vanpool programs at their worksites may also see an increase in job satisfaction and employee retention and a decrease in employee absences and tardiness. The New North Transportation Alliance staff is available to assist in promoting vanpooling at the worksite, or in establishing preferential parking and/or transit-vanpool benefit programs.

Vanpool Q&A

Q: What is a Bay Area Vanpool?

A: It is a group of up to 8 people who share rides “to and from” work in a Bay Area Commuter Van. The monthly vanpool expense is shared among vanpool participants.

Q: How does it work?

A: People interested in vanpooling should apply through Bay Area Commuter Services (1-800-998-RIDE). Once enough people with similar commute schedules and routes are found, the vanpool can begin. One of the vanpool members volunteers to be the primary driver/coordinator of the van. Under the Bay Area Vanpool program, the primary driver gets limited personal use of the van during off-hours in exchange for picking up fellow vanpool members, arranging for van service, and keeping a monthly ridership log.

Q: What if I get sick during the workday and need to leave early?

A: Vanpool participants are eligible for participation in the regional Guaranteed Ride Home Program which provides up to eight FREE taxi cab rides home from work a year in case of emergencies - including personal or family emergency, sickness, or unexpected overtime - that require a vanpool participant to leave work earlier or later than the rest of the vanpool.

Q: Where does the driver pick up vanpool members?

A: Each vanpool group is responsible for arranging where the driver will pick up other riders. They may decide to pick each person up individually, or to meet at a designated pick-up location, such as a park & ride lot. A list of Park & Ride lot locations can be found at www.newnorthalliance.org/parknride.htm.

Q: What about insurance and maintenance/repairs for the van?

A: Insurance coverage is provided with each vehicle as well as a comprehensive maintenance and repair program, allowing participants to ride to and from work in comfort and safety.

Summit Brings Business Community, Government, and Others Together

for Long-Range Regional Transportation Planning Efforts

The West Central Florida Region, which includes Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk,

Hernando, Cit

Due to the region's growth and its effects on the transportation system, West Central Florida faces a number of challenges that need to be addressed in the Long-Range Regional Transportation Plan. According to the West Central Florida MPO Chairs Coordinating Committee (CCC), these include:

With an update of the 2025 Long-Range Regional Transportation Plan currently underway, the CCC recently hosted a regional transportation summit in order to get input from the business community and others concerned with the regional transportation system. Participants were given the opportunity to view various design alternatives for specific corridors and to indicate which improvements they would most and/or least like to see occur in our region. The design alternatives displayed at the Summit showed how corridors would look with various improvements, such as road widening, bus rapid transit, high speed rail, and high occupancy vehicle lanes, and indicated how different system users would likely be affected by the improvements.

If you would like to provide input to the CCC on regional transportation improvements, you may go to http://ccctransportation.org/survey2.htm to complete a survey providing your thoughts on regional transportation issues.

Want to save money & make better use of your time by carpooling or vanpooling-
but don't know anyone to share the commute with?
We may be able to help! Join the regional rideshare database by following the link on the Commuter page of our website, www.newnorthalliance.org,  or by calling 813-974-9799 to speak with a New North Transportation Alliance representative.

Vanpool from Riverview to USF Area looking for more riders.
The newest vanpool to the New North area has room for two more riders. The vanpool travels from Riverview to the Moffitt Cancer Center and VA Hospital. Work hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. If you are interested in joining this vanpool, call Bay Area Commuter Services at 1-800-998-RIDE.