PSTA claims increased ridership, yet has no underlying ridership data

PSTA’s response to an extensive public records request shows it has no underlying data to base its ridership claims on. PSTA (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority) said that they had “no records” when asked for data showing what the ridership counts are, much less that data broken down by route or date. After five years of…

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PSTA’s one month Sunrunner update: children, beer & deflection

PSTA staff will give a “Sunrunner one month update” report to the PSTA board tomorrow morning. The presentation includes social media impression claims, survey results, a dozen children…and beer. However, completely absent from PSTA’s presentation is a comparison of the number of Sunrunner boardings in November with PSTA’s own projections for ridership. These projections were…

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PSTA unlawfully discloses confidential information on every Sunrunner bus

Last week, we rode PSTA’s much promoted new Sunrunner bus line and documented discrepancies between what PSTA was saying and doing (article). We found serious operational deficiencies. However, the most serious problem we found on the Sunrunner was a legal one. The rather serious legal problem for PSTA is this: every Sunrunner bus that PSTA…

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PSTA backpedals on Sunrunner claims, continues gaslighting

In May, PSTA claimed that its new Sunrunner bus “is designed to meet the demands of work commuters and attract tourists and new riders into PSTA’s comprehensive transit system.” PSTA is now backpedaling, perhaps due to ridership numbers catastrophically below their own projections (as we reported on two days ago). In their “SunRunner One Month…

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Sunrunner 1st month ridership far below PSTA’s projections and falling fast

Three years ago, the Tampa Bay Times reported that “studies of the [Sunrunner] route connecting downtown St. Petersburg with the beaches estimate it would have 4,500 daily rides.” On June 2nd this year, PSTA told St. Pete City council that “the projected ridership is 4,000 riders per day.” But actual ridership has fallen far below…

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Our test: PSTA’s new Sunrunner bus line doesn’t operate as promised

“The bus will leave when I’m finished cleaning,” the PSTA driver told the Tampa Bay Guardian reporter. We repeated our question: what is the scheduled departure time? “It’s hard to keep the schedule,” the driver said and kept disinfecting the driver area, a process that took about two minutes. With just two other passengers on…

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What is real purpose of Pinellas County Commish Egger’s term limit petition?

Term limits for Pinellas County commissioners has been a flashpoint ever since 73% of Pinellas voters approved 8-year term limits in 1996. The county commissioners waged a court fight along with others, mostly at taxpayer expense, and refused to put those voter approved term limits in to the county charter. The commissioners lost in circuit…

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Pinellas transit loses over half its riders, spending more than doubles

Three months in to its fiscal year 2022, PSTA’s bus ridership year over year has declined another 20%, according to its own official reporting. PSTA, which is the taxpayer-funded Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, ended its fiscal year 2021 (FY2021) with ridership 46% lower than it was in FY2015. The data thus shows that the ridership…

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The Tampa Bay Times’ deceptive & legally suspect fundraising campaign

Florida’s largest newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, has a fundraising campaign this week in which it asks for donations to “fund local news.” However, donations do not go to the Times. Also, they may not be tax deductible, despite the Times unconditionally stating that they are on its fundraising page.   “You can make a tax-deductible…

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