The Trolly Stop Tampa Bay

“What if there was an opportunity to have what we call vertiports in Orlando and Tampa, and there could be thousands of these vehicles flying back and forth on the I-4 corridor?” Perdue said to members of the House Economic Infrastructure Subcommittee. “So, you can think about movies that you’ve seen that are science fiction. The Jetsons, yeah, is one of those … that’s a classic. This is actually becoming a reality.”

Florida DOT Secretary Jared Perdue has been cheerleading, this unproven and unscaled technology despite just two years ago a Tampa-based tech-bro company, Deloitte, published a study predicting by 2024 EVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing) would fly commercially. Here is an article published by Smart Cities Dive about it.

Ignoring billions of dollars on highway work on I-4 and with even upcoming projects and maybe-ish Brightline, Purdue doubles down to state representatives, “I think you’re going to see rapid, rapid development over just a few-year time span, and it will be an efficient and affordable mode.”

To compliment SB-1420 (bill anaysis states “consider applications for funding submitted by public and private entities seeking to develop and establish vertiports in this state. The bill defines the term “vertiport” as a system or infrastructure with supporting services and equipment used for landing, ground handling, and takeoff of manned or unmanned vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.”) which was approved by DeSantis, Perdue’s pie-in-the-sky anti-congestion wizardry could rely on new bill filed in Senate SB-266.

SB-266 was filed by “filed this year by Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, would provide a sales-tax exemption on the sale or lease of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.”

Article link below:

I-4 to look more like scene from ‘The Jetsons’? Florida transportation secretary says that’s ‘becoming a reality’

TSTB thinks that despite EVTOL/VTOL has been discussed for commercial use since 2014 in professional circles, we are still a long way for this technology to be safely expanded and scaled for passenger and commercial use. While companies like Volocopter wowed the press at Tampa’s Airport, they only met limited success in overseas testing which was later dismantled. Going back to FDOT Secretary Perdue, we still don’t understand why no one in Florida’s Senate or House is asking him why he is specifically pushing prototype sci-fi products why he has numerous projects planned or under design or being built, right now, for I-4.

In Tampa, just two properties among many more in Westshore were purchased for $80 million for a highway expansion with a planned, intermodal station for transit (to Tampa’s airport) but that does not matter to Tampa International Airport or FDOT Secretary Purdue who wants EVTOL.