The ridership has dropped 43% since fares were introduced on the Sunrunner on October 1st, this PSTA internal document created by its CEO Brad Miller shows. PSTA is the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority. The Sunrunner…
On Tuesday September 12th at around 10:35 AM , PSTA CEO Brad Miller and PSTA Board Chair Gina Driscoll greeted a rider as she stepped off a westbound Sunrunner bus. The location was the stop…
A preliminary PSTA investigative report obtained by the Guardian states that the driver of a Sunrunner bus involved in an accident on May 3rd at 8:05 AM was speeding and not wearing his seat belt…
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…
“The long and short of it is that the only thing we cannot do is spend DOT funds on producing wraps,” asserted a PSTA marketing staffer in the PSTA Legislative Committee meeting on May 8th.…
Four unelected St. Pete Beach city commissioners took to the dais just as the city was deciding on whether to grant conditional use permits (CUPs) for three huge redevelopment projects, each around $500 million in…
Today’s PSTA (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority) board meeting was a resplendent exercise in flattery, hypocrisy, corruption, blood and gore (meeting video). Yes, all five. The first task that the PSTA board took on, within the…
“We are trying to better understand why the Sunrunner ridership drop was larger than anticipated,” PSTA CEO Brad Miller told our news outlet TampaBayGuardian.Com. In this lengthy article, we will cover ridership and other issues…
The City of St. Pete Beach is hiring! While that isn’t noteworthy in and of itself, what is noteworthy is the job description: “collect and help analyze transit usage data as a passenger on public…
In his re-election bid, St. Pete Beach Mayor Alan Johnson appears to have violated Florida campaign law at least twice. First by claiming to have a political endorsement he didn’t have, secondly by also touting…
Two days ago, St. Pete Beach Mayor Alan Johnson posted a graphic on his campaign Facebook page in which he falsely claimed to have received the endorsement of newly elected Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott.…
PSTA executive Abishek Dayal said in this Tampa Bay Business Journal (TBBJ) interview that he is “hoping the BRT project spawns some other interesting projects in the region. That could be extensions of BRT or…
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…
