TAMPA - A regional transportation sales tax possibly involving Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties might help create a regional rail network, Pinellas County leaders suggested Monday.

Undeterred by Hillsborough's recent defeat of a county sales tax increase to pay for light rail and other transportation projects, Pinellas officials continued to discuss plans for light rail in their county.

They stressed making connections to Tampa's proposed high-speed rail station, joked about a future headline saying "Rays win World Series, throngs arrive via rapid transit at the ballpark (in Pinellas County)," and raised the possibility of a regional rail effort.

"We have to move forward," Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said. "We would probably do things a little differently from what Hillsborough did," he said referring to the rail, transit and road improvement campaign that Hillsborough voters soundly rejected.

Meanwhile Hillsborough County transit officials on Monday agreed to pause before deciding what to do next about building a light rail line, following the Nov. 2 county voter rejection of the one sent on the dollar a sales tax increase.

Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority planners still must complete research before the HART board recommends specific routes and determines just how much the system would cost. Money is available to complete planning, but a local funding source is required to gain federal matching funds to build light rail, officials said.

"It is not proper today to move forward," said Hillsborough County commissioner and HART board member Mark Sharpe, a light rail advocate, who along with other board members advocated further feedback from voters.

Across Tampa Bay, however, the Pinellas County task force of nearly two dozen business and elected officials – a year behind Hillsborough in planning – on Monday endorsed light rail as providing "the most bang for the buck."

They set their sights on completing plans for specific rail, bus and highway improvements by the end of 2011, saying that unlike Hillsborough, there would be no tax vote before details on routes were determined.

"I want to look at a map when I vote and be able to see how this is going to affect me," said Cathy Harrelson of the Suncoast Sierra Club during Monday's Pinellas transportation workshop.

Despite moving ahead with its own plans, some Pinellas leaders thought their county, as well as Hillsborough and Pasco, might consider a broader approach using a regional transit tax.

That could require some legislative help.

Under current state law, voters in each county would separately have to approve a tax increase before funds could be collected and administered by the fledgling Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, a seven-county regional planning group the state Legislature created.

However, if the Legislature created a transportation district among several counties, similar to what it has done in establishing the Southwest Florida Regional Water Management District, then only a majority of voters across all of those counties would have to approve a transportation sales tax, Pinellas officials suggested.

The state of Georgia recently took that route to create transportation districts, but Florida has not done anything similar, assistant county attorney Dennis Long said.

Other funding proposals discussed Monday afternoon included a Pinellas-only sales tax increase of up to 1 cent on the dollar accompanied by a decrease in property taxes that support the county's bus system, something Hillsborough did not propose. Chances of such a tax passing in Pinellas could be greater than in Hillsborough because Pinellas is the state's most densely populated and built-out county.

That could mean a rail tax might be more amenable to residents than in Hillsborough, whose sprawl and conservative voting base in outlying areas contributed to the recent referendum defeat.

Another possibility would be to increase the Pinellas tax on gasoline by 5 cents a gallon, both to encourage use of transit and to raise funds for rail, roads and buses. That would be in addition to a sales tax increase, which would not necessarily be as high as the one cent on a dollar that Hillsborough voters rejected.

Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel, who chairs the Pinellas County Transportation Task Force, said the group, at its Dec. 13 meeting, could recommend a specific tax proposal to the county commission or decide to table such a proposal for a year or so until the economy improves.

But Seel, in outlining the prospects for light rail, bus and road improvements, was as enthusiastic as Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio in advocating light rail.

Iorio on Monday said at a state rail commission meeting in Tampa that Hillsborough was not going to give up on planning for light rail.

Pinellas leaders, however, said it was not necessary for Pinellas to wait for Hillsborough to act.

The initial Pinellas light rail line would run in a corridor between Clearwater, the Gateway Area and St. Petersburg.

A rail leg would be planned to cross the Howard Frankland Bridge to Tampa when that bridge is expected to be reconstructed to handle rail more than a decade from now.

"We don't want to build short rail legs," Seel said. "Clearwater to Gateway to St. Petersburg would be the longest light rail line in the United States," Seel said. "That's pretty cool."

Reporter Keith Morelli contributed to this report.

tjackovics@tampatrib.com(813) 259-7817