TECO Streetcar Extension in Tampa, Florida

The City of Tampa is planning an extension of the TECO Line Streetcar, but as of October 2026 no new track has been built.

On its Tampa Streetcar Extension page, the city says it is working with the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) on a major extension of the line to serve destinations in Downtown, the River Arts District and Tampa Heights. The existing Tampa Historic Streetcar System is a 2.7-mile network connecting downtown Tampa and the Channelside District to the Ybor City historic district. The city notes that the system had been used mainly by tourists in the past and says it can be transformed into a viable transportation option for people who live, work and visit downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods.

The federal process for the Tampa extension started years ago. The Federal Transit Administration project profile, updated February 2021, records that the project entered Small Starts Project Development in June 2018. The city's project page still lists the FTA approval to enter Project Development, dated 2018-06-20, and a draft Preferred Alternative Report from April 2019 as previous planning documents. Its current planning documents are partner workshop files dated 2026-05-29, which shows the work was still at the planning stage in 2026.

The planned route runs north on Florida Avenue into Tampa Heights and returns south on Tampa Street to the existing line at Whiting Street.

The City of Tampa says the project will add 1.6 miles to the existing 2.7-mile system, using space along current streets. Beginning near the current end of the line at Whiting Street, the route will travel north along Florida Avenue through Downtown and into Tampa Heights. Near Columbus Drive, it will loop back south along Tampa Street, turn onto Whiting Street, and reconnect to the existing stop at Fort Brooke Garage. New stops will be spaced every 4 to 6 blocks along the extension.

The northern end has moved since the first plans. The city says the current design expands on earlier plans to extend service to Palm Avenue by continuing north into Tampa Heights. The FTA profile describes the purpose of the project as providing direct, one-seat connections between employment destinations in the downtown core, mixed use districts along North Franklin Street and in Tampa Heights, new development in Water Street Tampa, and the existing urban neighborhoods of the Channel District, Harbour Island and Ybor City.

The City of Tampa now plans to keep its historic replica streetcars, which differs from the modern-vehicle plan in older federal and city documents.

Under a heading of project refinements, the City of Tampa project page says the project reduces costs compared to earlier plans by retaining the current historic replica streetcars, rather than transitioning to more expensive modern vehicles that would require significant investment in new track, stop retrofits and operations.

The federal record still describes the older plan. The FTA project profile page, last updated March 11, 2024, says the City of Tampa, HART and Tampa Historic Streetcar Inc. planned to expand the existing vehicle maintenance and storage facility, adjust the overhead power supply along the route, purchase ten new modern streetcar vehicles, and reconstruct existing stations and tight curves to accommodate the new cars. A City of Tampa announcement from December 8, 2020 likewise spoke of transitioning to faster modern vehicles and platforms with level boarding. The two official descriptions conflict; the city project page, which lists documents from May 2026, is the more recent of the two.

The only official cost on record for the Tampa project is the $234.50 million total in the FTA's February 2021 profile, which covers the earlier, larger modernization plan.

That FTA profile lists a 4.0-mile Tampa project with 17 stations, a total capital cost of $234.50 million in year-of-expenditure dollars, a federal Capital Investment Grants share of $99.90 million (42.6%), and an annual operating cost of $4.96 million for an opening year of 2025. It forecast 2,400 daily linked trips in 2019 and 6,700 daily linked trips in 2040. The city's project page does not post a new cost for the 1.6-mile plan with replica cars.

State money is the firmest piece. The City of Tampa announced on December 8, 2020 that FDOT had awarded $67.3 million of State New Starts transit program funding to the project, which FDOT Secretary David Gwynn, speaking at the time, called the largest transit funding award the state had ever given to the Tampa Bay region.

Tampa's local share fell apart in 2021. According to the FTA profile, the city had identified the Hillsborough County Transportation Sales Tax, approved by voters in 2018, as a primary local funding source, and in February 2021 the Supreme Court of Florida ruled the tax unconstitutional. The profile says the city and its partners were developing a revised plan, and it lists every project rating as Under Review.

The Tampa streetcar extension has moved through planning milestones since 2018 but has no construction date.

The Tampa Heights extension remains in planning, and the latest public procurement was a 2024 call for project development consultants.

The city's Contract Administration office posted RFQ 24-D-00031, Streetcar Extension Project Development on Friday, August 9, 2024. A pre-submission conference was held at 2 PM on Monday, August 26, 2024 in City Council Chambers on the third floor of Old City Hall, 315 E. Kennedy Blvd., and submissions were due before 2 P.M. on Thursday, October 24, 2024. The RFQ page lists an award document and was last updated on September 17, 2025.

In her 2025 State of the City address on April 28, 2025, delivered at the Tampa River Center, Mayor Jane Castor said the TECO Streetcar system was on track to serve 1.4 million riders that year, with expansion plans into Tampa Heights underway. The same summary noted the loss of revenue from the All for Transportation initiative. Questions about the extension go to [email protected], the address the project page gives for comments.

The extension would grow a 2.7-mile line that the City of Tampa and HART created as a joint project and opened in two stages.

According to the City of Tampa TECO Line page, the first 2.4-mile segment opened in 2002 and a 0.3-mile extension opened in December 2010. In October 2018 HART introduced three years of free fares and expanded service through an FDOT grant. The extension page says riders have had fare-free service, extended hours and more frequent trips since 2018, supported by FDOT grants and City funding, and that monthly ridership grew from 14,000 in April 2020, the lowest month during COVID, to more than 140,000 in March 2025.

TECO Line service in Tampa runs every 15 minutes on the schedule below, and HART may run extra service for crowds such as the Gasparilla Festival or sporting events. The HART info line is (813) 254-4278.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading the City of Tampa extension, TECO Line and RFQ 24-D-00031 pages, the 2020 FDOT funding release, the 2025 State of the City summary, and the FTA profile page with its February 2021 PDF.