After a string of traffic citations and car crashes during a two year period, immediate past PSTA chair and former Pinellas County Commissioner Pat Gerard found herself without a driver’s license in 2019. A public…
As the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) continues to fail to meet their own ridership projections, one Pinellas County beach town has shown that transit can be provided at a much lower cost to the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
What is to be done with the over $500 million that Hillsborough County unlawfully collected to fund transit? In two separate lawsuits, the county is making contradictory and mutually exclusive arguments. In the lawsuit brought…
What is a county’s responsibility when a citizen initiative puts a tax increase on the ballot? Hillsborough County may be in the process of finding out the answer to that question. Last week saw a…
In a 4-1 decision, the Florida Supreme Court today threw out the Hillsborough sales tax hike for transit approved by voters in 2018 . The 1% sales tax was projected to bring in $16 billion…
Today’s Aviation Authority meeting agenda didn’t list an action item for a contract renewal for Tampa International Airport’s CEO Joe Lopano. In fact, it didn’t list an action item at all, only routine items for…
On his website therickwilson.com, self-described GOP strategist Rick Wilson writes about appearing on CNN and MSNBC. He mentions being published in various national publications and his own “sharp-edged and witty political insight.” He ends by…
Hillsborough County Commission Chairwoman Patricia Kemp (D) today voted for two new local laws that place additional COVID restrictions on local businesses. People in Hillsborough County may no longer stand at bars to eat and…
