Jeff Brandes (again) wants to abolish TBARTA

Sen. Jeff Brandes has refiled a bill seeking to abolish the Tampa Bay Regional Transit Authority – an agency Brandes has vocally criticized as “doing nothing.”

The proposal, SB 426, would dissolve TBARTA, which oversees regional transit planning in Tampa Bay. Brandes filed an identical bill for the 2021 session (SB 1130), but it never saw a committee hearing.

“TBARTA is one of the most duplicative entities that we have in Tampa Bay,” Brandes previously said. “It is essentially the appendix of the transportation planning process, we could cut it out, and nobody would miss it. We should sunset TBARTA.”

– Kelly Hayes, Florida Politics