Richard Clark, executive director of Monroe County Transit, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on with travel in the county.
Conch Connect is off to an amazing start.
Clark said, “The service has been an unprecedented start from a freebee perspective. They were pretty amazed at the demand. We officially launched a week ago today. So it ran as of Monday of last week, and we’ve already moved over 2,000 people. We’re on pace to do 100,000 people in year one, which is just incredible. Just it shows that all the work we did prior, saying, hey, we have the demand, and FDOT understanding we did our job. Because they’re such an enormous help in and paying for this. The demand keeps growing and it’s split across all tiers. I looked at heat maps of where people are getting dropped off and picked up, and it’s spread all across Stock Island and Key West. So it really is something that people have been waiting for and using and, like anything, we’re going to have our occasional glitch. The drivers are new, they all live here. They’re all employees of freebee. Sometimes they may make a wrong turn or sometimes payment issues happen. This is week one. So give us 30 days, and hopefully, we’ll keep getting communication from our riders, and we’ll find those weak spots and fix those and things work out. We’ll continue to grow the service. I already have a laundry list of people that live on Big Coppitt saying when can you get to me? When can you get to me?”
There were needs on Stock Island for transportation, for sure.
Clark said, “There were some very interesting things we found when we really dug in and looked at how we’re living here, what people’s needs really are. There are many, many of our islands up and down the Keys that at a certain time of day just those places become food deserts. It’s very difficult for people to get back to the grocery store having worked all day and this is something that we felt was a really good start of allowing people to do those things be it diapers for their child or dinner for the family. So really good use, really local service right now. I’m sure as it grows, we’ll we will add tourists and visitors alike but our goal was always to start and meet that need both for local residents that live and work here and need to get from point A to point B.”
It’s a $2 fare for a ride throughout Key West and Stock Island and the app is available for download. It runs 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.
Will more vehicles be added?
Clark said, “The $2 per passenger is something that we felt really needed to be done to be a really good partner with Key West Transit that offer service locally as well, we wanted to make sure there was a nice clean, everybody’s paying the same amount. So that $2 is because we are a public service and our job is to provide the best service we can to the public. The idea was that we could build a little bit of a safety net there and then utilize those dollars to put right back into the service and expand the service, be it geographically from an hourly perspective or adding a vehicle. We have five Tesla’s right now and one Sienna that’s got a wheelchair lift. So we’re meeting demand today, but we already see in those big surge hours between 11am and 4pm, which is where the demand really surges that our wait times go from 15 minutes or less to pushing 30 minutes. It’s just how it works when demand peaks like that.”
The Freebee organization has had success in other areas as well.
Clark said, “Once we get the ridership and the normalcy and get to see the ebb and flow as you get normal organic growth, we really need to dig in to our business partners. We offer free advertising on the app for all of our business partners here and in the Lower Keys. So that’s something we really need to start focusing on. But I want to make sure that people have the right experience first.”
What are the priorities on the immediate horizon?
Clark said, “The priorities on the immediate horizon are making sure we’re prepared to see a very similar service, geographically located throughout the Keys. We’ve already identified those 5 total geographic areas. So they will all operate differently because everybody behaves differently depending on where you live here. So that’s something we’re really focused on and as we always focus on this time of year, right now Key West Transit and Rod over there and myself, we’re talking quite a bit on the best course of action if we have a hurricane or any kind of storm, where he and I can communicate, where he can focus on the logistics and things that he needs to focus on. But we really need to be able to communicate and as he’s putting people on buses to get them to safety, we need to know that the shelters have availability and there’s room, where they need to go and how we need to move. So we’re trying to make sure that that line of communication between the County, the City and Miami Dade through America’s Transportation, their partner, all of us are on the same page and it’s really just a matter of communication. We’re very prepared, but you just don’t know what you don’t know. So every storm is different, every event is different. We’re going to prepare the best we can and the job one is keep everybody safe.”
The Seven Mile Bridget project is in the planning and development stage.
Clark said, “I’m actually formally on that group, as we listen to the community and right now, overwhelmingly, people are asking for a bike, pedestrian segregated by a safety wall of some sort, so that people can cross. We hear that a lot. Long Key Bridge will be the first one to be done a little ahead of Seven Mile and the one with the most need. Then probably the next really big one, it’s going to take us 10 years, because that’s how far out it takes to plan for a bridge. We’re really starting to look at Snake Creek, the last of our draw bridges, but that comes with a lot of a lot of hurdles. So one that’s going to take some time.”
The transportation master planning group has been reconstituted.
Clark said that “is an elected official from each municipality in the county and we are gathering transportation needs in a priority based system. FDOT asked us to look at that, again. They really liked the way we went through our process last time, where we did a lot of public outreach, brought in a leader from each community and then said, here are our priorities, here’s what we care most about, or what FDOT can do to help us. Last time they came up with a couple hundred ideas, but they took the top 12 to FDOT and FDOT essentially addressed every single one of them and helped us so we’re doing that again. We’ve looked pretty hard lately, they’ve really done a good job at smart infrastructure for traffic lights, a way where you can move that flow of traffic even so you don’t have to have a police officer or somebody standing right there at the corner next to that box, where you can make that flow work accordingly, depending on what’s happening be at a festival or accident or whatever that case may be.”
In the height of tourist season, safety should be first.
Clark said, “We have a lot of people coming to town that for the regular mini season, many of them aren’t used to pulling the boat behind them. Just take a deep breath and expect it to slow down. Be safe, be safe on the water too. I always try to stress to everybody, just slow down. We live in the Keys. It’s okay. And just be safe.”