The 4:45 p.m. express bus from downtown to New Tampa is quickly becoming the hottest seat in town. ...more

July 25, 2008

BRADENTON -- A man who had sex with a teenage girl was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation. ...more

July 24, 2008

The 4:45 p.m. express bus from downtown to New Tampa is quickly becoming the hottest seat in town. ...more

July 23, 2008

NEW TAMPA - The 4:45 p.m. express bus from downtown to New Tampa is quickly becoming the hottest seat in town. ...more

July 22, 2008

TAMPA - William Joel touched himself inappropriately today in front of two girls younger than 16, police say. ...more

July 16, 2008

Commissioners Should Fix, Not Kill, THE Bus Re: David Russell and THE Bus. ...more

June 24, 2008

A car bomb ripped through a busy commercial street in a Shiite area of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 51 people and wounding scores more in the deadliest blast in the capital in more than three months. ...more

June 18, 2008

Parents in the Woodmont community off Gunn Highway successfully protested a planned bus stop and got the school district to change it. ...more

June 14, 2008

Parents in the Woodmont community off Gunn Highway successfully protested a planned bus stop and got the school district to change it. The Hillsborough County school district is eliminating stops and adjusting bus routes to make its transportation system more efficient. But some of the proposals have worried parents for their children's safety. In Woodmont, families were concerned about students having to wait at the corner of Gunn Highway and Cain Road. The walk from the Woodmont houses down Cain is narrow with drainage ditches on both sides and no sidewalks. The traffic and speed on Gunn also bothered them. John Franklin, general director of transportation, met with about a dozen parents in the neighborhood last week on the final day of school to see the route himself. Afterward, he recommended moving the stop off Gunn farther in on Cain Road. Franklin told parents in an e-mail that a safety review showed Cain Road did not have a four-foot walking path as required due to the culverts. The community instead will have two stops that do not require walking down Cain. One stop will be at Cain Road and Piney Lane Drive. A second will be at Piney Lane and Pine Bay Drive. It is a reduction from the four elementary school stops that the neighborhood had last year. Barbara Boler, the parent who brought the Gunn Highway issue to Franklin's attention, said she and others were grateful for the attention and consideration the transportation office gave their concerns. ...more

June 10, 2008

The walk the school district has suggested children take down Cain Road to the bus stop is long, narrow and flanked by drainage ditches. Neighbors in the Woodmont community off Gunn Highway are fighting the proposal, which is part of a broader plan the district has to reduce the number of bus stops countywide. The Hillsborough County school district is starting the second year of sweeping transportation changes designed to make the busing system more efficient. Officials introduced new bus routes and bus stops last year to southern Hillsborough. This year, they are looking at south and central Tampa and northwestern Hillsborough. John Franklin, general director of transportation, said the district has too many stops. The district wants eventually to have "universal" bus stops, where the bus goes to one location for elementary, middle, high school or school choice pickups. More than 90,000 children ride district buses daily. Franklin met with parents at Sickles, Chamberlain and Farnell recently to give an overview of the plan and let them find out if their children's stops would change. Barbara Boler, who has a son in middle school, didn't expect any surprises but learned her neighborhood would lose its four elementary and three middle and high school stops for one new stop at the corner of Gunn Highway and Cain Road. Her discovery wound up mobilizing neighbors who are afraid the new stop will endanger their children. They invited Franklin to come to see for himself, and he met with about a dozen parents in Woodmont Wednesday morning. ...more

June 4, 2008