The Trolly Stop Tampa Bay

In 2022, Tampa Bay has seen a recent -29% shift away from walking trips. Jacksonville has the highest in Florida at -35%. In fact, among these two areas, nine significant Florida Metropolitan Areas saw a reduction in walking trips since 2019.

Everyone was walking more before COVID-19.

“In every metro and state that StreetLight analyzed, walking trips declined over the three-year period by at least 20%,” per the report.”

Axios reports this from “Walking in America” from Streetlight Data.

What are the reasons?

According to StreetLight, “Some of this could be remote work, which can make it all too easy to become overly sedentary. And some of it could be part of the downtown recovery story — if a city has fewer restaurants, shops and so on open, there’s less reason for locals and visitors to have a walkabout.”

Locally for Tampa, TSTB knows there are many other factors. Let’s look at trees since it is hot here.

The City of Tampa has many trees across the city, but those canopies are shrinking. The Tampa Bay Times previously reported, “The coverage offered by the city’s award-winning tree canopy has plunged to a level that experts say could have consequences for public health.” There are reasons for this as well.

Florida Legislation has loosened the belt for developers to tear down trees that are not in critical shape or pose a threat. Despite evidence a tree can provide five times its worth or more in urban areas, we can’t seem to keep them and build new things at the same time.

Our own Parks and Recreation Master Plan among other reports state our city trees weren’t planted well. This means many trees that are now growing will be limited due to physical constraints on how and where they were planted. Some could perish easily because they are susceptible to disease and harsher climates.

This all comes down to quality not just quantity. Healthy and active streets have healthy trees.

We agree with Axios on the national reasons, but we know Tampa should keep pushing place-making without headaches to business owners (they should even subsidize them), erect simple signage on already 2-lane, shaded (being continuous over two miles) corridors as ‘pedestrian friendly.’ Finally, the City of Tampa needs to become a leader with this effort. Where are the trees that originally shaded Kiley Garden? Or why can’t we have trees like the ones we see on Chruch Street or Morrison Avenue throughout all neighborhoods in our areas? Last time we checked, local ROW is city-owned.

At least there is some good news in the report. Tampa is now number 50 as opposed to number 58 for Active Transporation (walking and bicycling) Trips.

Check out AXIOS’s dynamic map in the article and if you can, check out StreetLight’s report.

https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/walking-americans-declines-map