Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
County officials last week signed a three-year agreement with the state that will allow for the establishment of a bus shuttle service to and from Tallahassee via Big Bend Transit (BBT).
The buses will travel from Monticello to locations in Tallahassee, where riders will be able to access established StarMetro routes to go elsewhere in the capital city. The service will be offered six days a week (Monday through Saturday), excluding the holidays of Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Jr.
Shawn Mitchell, BBT branch manager, told the Jefferson County Commission on Thursday evening, July 7, that the plan was to run three shuttles in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening to carry passengers to and from Tallahassee.
He said the plan was to have one of the Tallahassee stops be at the Amazon Center that is going up on the east side of the city for people who found employment there.
“So folks who are working in Tallahassee, let’s say they get off at 5 p.m., up to seven o’clock at night there will be a bus leaving Tallahassee to get them back to Jefferson County,” Mitchell said.
In respond to a commissioner’s question, Mitchell said if the demand required it, night routes would be established, such as if the Amazon Center established a 24- hour work schedule.
He said covered bus stop locations would also be established in Jefferson County for the ridership. The stops, he said, would be placed on FDOT right-of-way. Initially, he said, one stop would be at the Winn Dixie on U.S. 19, another at I-10 and U.S. 19, and a third at Joyner’s on SR-59 in Lloyd. Others stops could possibly be established later, depending on the need, he said.
“It’s going to be a living thing,” Mitchell said. “It’s not like it’s set in stone for any stop or route. We just want to make sure that we touch everywhere in the county that needs to be touched.
He said the BBT would be seeking community input going forward to decide about additional stops and such matters.
The $500,160 grant awarded to the county, he said, provided for the establishment of solar bus stops, complete with trash receptacles, bike racks, and proper lighting for night and early morning hours. Some of the locations also would include parking, he said, in case persons wanted to drive their vehicles to the sites and leave them there.
Per the grant, Mitchell said, the BBT would provide the planning and operation. It would then invoice the county for the service and the FDOT would reimburse the county in turn.
He clarified that the county’s reimbursement would be only for the service, as the grant was paying for the installation of the bus stops and other incidentals associated with these structures.
“The money will be 100 percent reimbursable to Jefferson County,” Mitchell said. “So there will be no financial impact to the taxpayers of Jefferson County.”
The BBT, he said, would continue to provide its traditional service. This is for local travel, where clients get picked up at their homes, taken to a location and brought back for a dollar each way.
“The new service will be a fixed route dedicated to out-of-county travelers,” Mitchell said. “This new service is work related. If we can’t get them the jobs here, we want to take them to the jobs.”
The cost of the ride will be $1 each way, he said. As for bus schedules and other information, it would be posted on the organization’s website and via its push app, which he said showed a map that indicated where the bus was located at any time and how long until its arrival at any particular bus stop.
“With gas the way it is now, we’re looking for an explosion of travel,” Mitchell said.
He said he couldn’t yet say exactly when the service would begin, but it would be very soon. As for accountability, he said, the BBT would provide the county with quarterly reports on the ridership.
“You’re going to get the information by the stops,” Mitchell said. “So you will know exactly how many people per stop, the time periods, all that data will be provided.”
Mitchell said that per a survey that the FSU College of Business had done for the BBT, the expectation was to start with 25 daily trips to and from Tallahassee. The figure, he said, was based on the fact nearly 60 percent of the county’s workforce commuted to Tallahassee.
“Our expectation is that the more cost-effective the service, the greater will be its utilization,” Mitchell said.