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SunRunner ridership down
Kailey Tracy reports.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The SunRunner, the bus that shuttles people between St. Pete and St. Pete Beach, broke ridership records its first year with more than one million riders.
Those numbers, though, have dropped close to 40 percent after PSTA implemented a fare in October. PSTA started charging $2.25 one month earlier than anticipated.
The board voted on the change in August after Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told them certain homeless riders, ones who refused help, were attracted by free fares and were causing problems riding the buses for long periods of time throughout the day.
"As you’re walking down the beach access and there are showers there where you can rinse off your feet when you come off the sand, there are people there naked, urinating, defecating," Sheriff Gualtieri told the board at its August meeting.
"We get complaints from the tourists too. This is not good," he said.
Calls for service along the route at the beach jumped more than 500 percent, Gualtieri told the board. Since fares were implemented, though, he said they’ve seen a drastic drop in calls.
"Problem solved and implementing the fare fixed it. It worked," Gualtieri said at the December PSTA meeting.
The number of riders altogether dropped too, though, from 91,326 in September to 55,713 in October when the fare started.
"Since we implemented fares on October first, we've seen a decrease in our SunRunner ridership," Stephanie Weaver, PSTA’s Communications and PR Manager, said. "However, when you introduce a barrier to a free service, you are going to see a drop. So, we did expect the ridership to drop," she said.
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"The fares were implemented sooner than we originally planned. So, we didn't have the marketing or education out there to educate people on how to pay, because again, the SunRunner is very different and how you pay versus our entire system. It's cashless," Weaver said. "It's going to take some time to introduce this new boundary for a previously free service. So, we're confident that it's going to rebound," Weaver said about the number of riders.
She also pointed out that, according to a study done by FDOT and Forward Pinellas, crashes along the route decreased by about 25 percent after the SunRunner started.
"Also, there was a study by FDOT that traffic conditions actually improved on Pasadena Avenue, which shows cars are moving freely because of the SunRunner being introduced," Weaver said.
The SunRunner was a $44 million project. Half of it was paid for with a federal grant, and the state, PSTA and the City of St. Pete paid for the rest.
PSTA service centers across Pinellas County offer Flamingo cards to pay for the fare. Riders can also download the Flamingo Fares app and load money onto it. Riders can use tappable credit or debit cards to pay as well.