PSTA – “really exciting to see that we are getting people out of their cars”

In a presentation about PSTA’s new Sunrunner bus line yesterday, PSTA’s Director of Communications & Marketing Whitney Fox said it was “really exciting to see that we are getting people out of their cars.” Fox was talking about a “very small survey” (her words) which showed that half of passengers would have taken their personal…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

PSTA falsely reports bus ridership for year 15% higher than actual

PSTA staff have provided its board with inflated year to date bus ridership data two months in a row. Seven months in to its current fiscal year, PSTA’s official report for April shows a 52% decline in ridership on PSTA’s network of routes compared to last year, yet the same document reports ridership increased 2.3%…

PSTA makes its buses free, but ridership still drops 43% in less than 3 weeks

On March 19th, PSTA decided to waive bus fares on its network due to the Wuhan virus pandemic. Despite its service now being 100% free, records show that PSTA’s ridership still dropped by 43.2% from the first week of March to the last week of March. Further declines are expected in April. A recent Tampa…

All other employees had to submit job applications, but not HART & PSTA chiefs

Neither recently fired HART CEO Ben Limmer or current PSTA CEO Brad Miller ever submitted employment applications for their jobs, public records obtained by The Guardian show. All other employees, including the lowest paid ones, are required to submit signed employment applications in which they must certify that the information they provide about themselves is…

PSTA’s Central Avenue BRT project loses out in federal funding process – again!

At PSTA’s Legislative Committee meeting on February 5th, PSTA’s federal lobbyist Harry Glenn spoke of a list that the FTA  has.  “It’s actually a list of projects…that kind of gives the Congress an expectation of what projects they [the FTA] expects to get funded in the next year,” Glenn said. The FTA is the Federal…

Commish – “there are lots of situations” for drivers to defuse on PSTA buses

At yesterday’s monthly PSTA board meeting, Pinellas County commissioner Pat Gerard somewhat surprisingly commented that “riding the [PSTA ] buses all the time, you see what kinds of things they [the bus drivers] deal with every day.” “They can defuse a situation pretty quick,” Gerard continued, speaking about the PSTA bus drivers. ” And there…