Some of the myriad complaints about Tampa's hosting of the Republican National Convention involved a lack of decent transportation. With a majority of the GOP delegates housed in hotels in Pinellas County, many delegates were in no mood to wander around Tampa by the time their buses delivered them to the Tampa Bay Times Forum for the three days of political activities inside the air-conditioned hall.
While Pinellas County's transit agency and county commissioners are close to deciding on putting up a ballot measure regarding light rail within the next year, the subject is a dead one in Tampa/Hillsborough County.
In fact, the only discussions that have surfaced regarding a possible revival of a transit referendum is about lobbying the state legislature to pass a bill that would allow cities to hold their own tax referendums. Current state law only allows counties to place such measures on their ballot.
The idea is that if such a law were enacted, the city of Tampa could vote to put their own transit measure on the ballot. Though the 2010 light-rail tax went down to a huge defeat in Hillsborough County, it actually was successful in both Tampa and Temple Terrace.
The problem with this talk is it really hasn't gone too far.