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Pinellas County adds new beach trolley service during spring break

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Updated  March 2, 2022 5:15am EST
Pinellas County
FOX 13 News

Businesses, trolley bus services ready for spring breakers

Briona Arradondo reports

CLEARWATER BEACH, Fla. - Tampa Bay is preparing for spring break crowds, with businesses hiring more staff and Pinellas County adding a new trolley service to the beach.

Crowds are already picking up at Clearwater Beach.

"Spring break has already started. We’re in full season, I guess we should say. It seems like it’s a little bit earlier than last year," said Glenn Sutch, the owner of Coco’s Crush Bar and Grill. "We built a brand-new kitchen right behind me, so we’re going to have a lot more food. We increased staff by about 20 percent. We have security for safety reasons at night. We have and age policy for spring breakers at night as well."

Getting to the beach will be a bit easier too. Instead of staking out a parking space and paying, there’s a free trolley bus from downtown to the beach. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority partnered with the city to launch the service Monday through April 30.

"So what we’ve done is we have free parking here in downtown Clearwater and then trolleys coming to whisk you to the beach, right to the beachfront," said Brad miller, the chief executive officer at PSTA.

The service is back after two years, and they expect the trolley to ease the pressure off the roads. 

PSTA said the trolley will run:

  • Every 30 minutes, Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
  • Every 15 minutes, Friday-Sunday, 10 a.m. - midnight.

Free parking is available at:

Trolleys will pick up at those locations and drop off in the park-and-ride area at Clearwater Beach Marina.

"During spring break, we average about 50,000 cars going to the beach. If we can get 10,000 people riding this, it’ll take a lot of load off the traffic here," said David Allbritton, a Clearwater city councilman.

Over the bay in Hillsborough County, Visit Tampa Bay said hotels are booked and busy.

"Right now, we're hitting pre-pandemic records. Hotel occupancy for February in Hillsborough County on the other side of the bay is over 80% occupancy," said Santiago Corrada, Visit Tampa Bay’s president and CEO. "Last year, things were picking up, but you still really weren't at a spring break that was pre-pandemic. I think now we can probably see a pre-pandemic spring break back with us. So I think all the preparation we've seen throughout the pandemic. And since last April, we've been seeing record visitation numbers. I think has prepared us for what might come."

Business owners and area leaders hope for pre-pandemic numbers this March and April.  

"I think we’re coming back into some kind of normalcy here, so we’re looking forward to it," said Albritton.