Can Sunrunners lose some of their dedicated lanes?

When Sunrunner was launched almost three years ago, authorities called it a breakthrough in Tampa Bay transport.

More and more bus routes were taking over lanes on Tampa Bay roads as the “first rapid transit system of all kinds” by Brad Miller, CEO of Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority. These services may reduce shipping times, but light rails remain a distant dream.

But now, Sunrunners could lose some of the dedicated lanes that make it very efficient on the state highway, Pasadena Avenue in Pinellas County. The state Department of Transport has released another proposed bus lane along 34th Avenue south of Pinellas. And a new ridership threshold around Tampa Bay orders the transport initiative.

“We’re a great deal of exploring the number of people who are in the country,” said Whit Blanton, executive director of Forward Pinellas, which helps fund transportation projects in the county. The state’s “the rationale” is that if you are trying to drive a lane (from the vehicle), you have a very high standard for services that propose to replace it. ”

However, urban Tampa Bay said faster passage is needed to replace roads stuck in cars. The new road project does not face the same barriers as transportation, he said.

“I really don’t care about roads that aren’t operating at their maximum capacity,” Blanton said. “But for transportation, obviously the state is far more concerned that it’s not fully utilized. So it’s a sort of double standard.”

He was criticized from the beginning

After Sunrunner debuted in October 2022, the Naysayers chorus grew. Gov. Ron DeSantis was immediately involved.

“We all see buses that are nearby or completely empty across the county,” writes Barbara Haselden, who led the county efforts against light rails and currently sits at the Pinellas Transit Agency Board. The first road “is the most functional route across the Southern Pinellas peninsula, and (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Bureau) has ruined it with years of attempts to maintain its relevance as a ridership tank.”

This year, Haselden will be appointed to the state transport board to review and make recommendations on Florida Transport Policy.

Desantis swiped Sunrunner last year to promote the state’s annual transportation bill.

“There are potentially local governments in Florida… () anti-assignment states and want to close lanes, so it’s so miserable that people abandon their commute altogether,” he said. “This bill would prevent the community from preventing agenda and motivational lane reductions in order to drive people out of their cars.”

Soon after the bill passed, the State Transit Department announced new requirements for a dedicated bus lane project. Sunrunner’s successor will need 6,000 riders per day to move forward.

Currently, buses are not offering services to Tampa Bay. One fareless route in Tampa has around 5,000 riders on weekdays, while the other popular routes average around half the average.

Now, Florida’s Department of Transportation is conducting what is called a routine review of the state’s lane reuse projects, including Sunrunners. Blanton said the local transport secretary told him in a “worst scenario” that the Sunrunner could lose some of his lane.

That loss could force Pinellas to return the money to the federal government, awarding $22 million based on the Sunrunner’s special lane.

“If there are no reasonable lanes dedicated to the bus or car spin, we’ll remove the “R” from the BRT (bus rapid transit),” said Darden Rice, Chief Planning and Community Affairs Officer at the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority. “There’s nothing prompt about buses stuck in traffic.”

Other bus routes are tied down

The leaders of Pinellas County Transportation had already begun construction of a successor to the Sunrunner, known as Spark. This will take you to a dedicated bus lane south of Eckard College, 34th Avenue.

The state then changed courses.

Florida officials asked the Pinellas commissioner and the local mayor to confirm that they wanted to reuse the lanes for the bus.

The local leader voted for Jesus. But last year, the state cut back on bus restricted lanes anyway, Blanton said it was hoving services before it started.

“The 34th Avenue bus project was evaluated and the decision was made not to move forward as the project did not meet the standards established at the time,” said Chris Carson, a spokesman for the local Florida Department of Transportation.

Hillsboro County hopes to take over some of the Lanes on Florida Avenue and Tampa Street for the rapid bus routes from downtown Tampa to the University of South Florida. Tampa paid to make fares free on that route in 2025, and riderships surged to over 5,000 riders each week. It is sufficient to meet state standards.

However, fares may return next year. As they began collecting fares, the ridership fell for the Sunrunner.

Was Sunrunner successful?

In its first year, Sunrunners averaged almost 3,100 riders a day, missing out on the predictions Pinellas gave to the state in 2015.

Rice said it will take years for the service to reach ridership estimates as the public gets used to the new route. So, Rice said the opening year benchmark for 6,000 daily riders is unrealistic for most Florida transportation systems.

Less than a year after the Sunrunner was launched, board members of Pinelas Transit voted to recover the fares after facing pressure from Pinelas County Sheriff Bob Guartieri.

The ridership fell sharply. From last October until now, around 2,000 people have been riding Sunrunners per day.

According to federal transport management, the pandemic has weakened the use of transportation nationwide. By September 2023, about three-quarters of riders returned to buses and trains, local events that seemed to have kept riders apart, including last year’s consecutive hurricanes and rays moving to Tampa.

Max McCann, civic appointee of the Pinellas Transit Board, has denounced another factor in Sunrunner’s low ridership. This is a slow shift in the city of St. Petersburg towards dense development along a route that is still dominated by one family home.

This is a fundamental principle of urban planning, Rice said: the most successful transportation route is home to thousands of people nearby in apartment buildings that can be walked to the station.

St. Petersburg allows larger buildings around one station on 22nd Street. However, along the remaining routes, developers can only build a few stories.

Derek Kilborn, planning director for St. Petersburg, said the hurricane slowed progress by building more homes around the Sunrunners. But now, increasing density near Central Avenue is his department’s number one priority, he said.

But McCann’s concerns are already scarce to boost Sunrunners’ ridership as national scrutiny grows.

“The day I cut the ribbon for the Sunrunner, why wasn’t this done already?” McCann said.

Sunrunner works well with other metrics. Contrary to Desantis’ claims, cars and buses similarly reduce the time they’ve been caught in traffic along the first roads north and south. Since the service was launched, crashes have been reduced by 40%.

The question is whether the state is seeing enough improvements to those.

“When I try to undo the progress of a critical transit project, it doesn’t seem like time will go wrong for me,” Rice said.

Jason Kayle, 38, of St. Petersburg, did not want the Sunrunner to take over the lane. He wanted light rails instead.

However, when he crashed his car on Gandhi Boulevard eight months ago, he began to rely on the rapid bus service. Now he wants to maintain the fastest route to the beach.

Saba Dubale, 33, chose to live near Sun Runner Stop, knowing that her boyfriend would use it to reach work on a beach drive when he had a home car. She often works faster on the bus, she said.

“It feels like the Sunrunners are different to other bus routes in St. Petersburg,” she said last Thursday, as buses lined up with cars from the past during rush hour. The traffic light is programmed to turn green as the bus approaches. “It feels like a centre-city train. You jump off, you jump off.”

The car still has two lanes along First Avenue South, Duvare added.

“They don’t need any more lanes. We need to transport more.”