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 still going strong after being implemented 40 days ago.
Clark said, “It’s been an unprecedented start. We’ve had, I literally rebooted the summary, so far to date, we have moved 7,711 people, and that’s of five seconds ago. Our initial goal was, we were hopeful to have somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people annually ride the system. We thought that would be a good way, a really successful start. We knew there was demand based on what Key West Transit was doing on their system. With our efforts, marketing and making sure that everybody knew we were coming into play, we’re probably going to push over 100,000 people in our first year at the rate it’s going. So it’s an amazing number, and it’s shockingly local. It’s 85% of our rides are people that live here. So these are people going to work and going to Publix and getting their prescriptions and doctors. I mean, it’s really good to see that we’re contributing to the people that that live and work here. They’ve done a great job. The intent all along with our $2 fares was to build a credit bank, if you will, within the service provider, so that when we hit enough, we could add to the service and adding to the service, be it longer hours or stretch the boundaries. But there’s so much demand on what we’re providing right now, we’ve already, after that first 30 days, added another full eight hours of peak vehicle and driver, just to try to keep up to the demand. So we’re in a great place. We need to keep up with it. There are growing pains. There are things we’re still figuring out. It’s only been 40 days. So sometimes things get a little off kilter, but we try to correct them quickly. I will say the added bonus I have found with Freebee as our vendor, there were five of them that bid on it, and we chose Freebee. All of us unanimously chose Freebee. The one thing that you really don’t know until you’re in it and you’re working with a partner, their customer service has been so fantastic. They really try to reach out to people. They really try to correct whatever error happened, and it’s been a really nice, pleasant surprise that they care that much about the way they treat their customers.”
The Freebee app is a free download and that’s how you initiate the service.
Clark explained, “You download the ride Freebee app, and it’s going to geo locate you. That’s how it knows you’re in Key West, Stock Island. If you’re outside of that area, the next closest thing is going to be Islamorada. Islamorada has had pretty darn good bit of success up there too. At our last board meeting, we had the conversation. I spoke about where we were, talked about what was working and what we need to work on. Really, what we’d like to see is this continue. Let’s get a year under our belt, and then let’s see what it takes to go to that next service offering, which statistically will be most likely Key Largo from a population base. But we have to get there, and we have to continue to work through and hope that everything continues to go as well as it’s going today. We’ve got a lot on our plate from a transportation perspective right now. Long Key Bridge, their planning, development and environmental work is wrapping up. The FDOT is looking on funding mechanisms for Long Key Bridge. It’ll be the first bridge that really gets underway. We met for the first time last week, the small group of people who have local interest and knowledge of the Seven Mile Bridge, our really first kickoff for our group, with FDOT to start considering what are the impacts? How does the bridge go over? Do you go east? Do you go west? Considering all of those things, and it’s going to be a very public process over the next probably two and a half, three years, to really get in and look at how that bridge is going to flow and move and what differences we need to make them? We had some fabulous concepts. I mean, one of them was just a fabulous idea, was maybe we ought to do a full blown park master plan for the parks that are on either side of the bridge and it was really smart stuff that you just have to think about. So we’re getting there. It’s a very long process, but we’re certainly going to be very public about it and FDOT is doing a great job at outreach, making sure that we get to hear from everyone.”
In terms of the three year plan, a number of projects are already underway.
Clark chuckled, “We’re about a year and a half ahead of schedule, which is good. It just shows me that we’ve got such an amazing partner in FDOT that believes in us, that knows that Monroe County needs the support of the state in order to start growing our transit system so that we can alleviate the traffic on Overseas, and all the way into Key West. There’s real parking concerns everywhere. We need to figure out really good, creative ways to get people to and from where they need to go and out of their personal cars. So we’re a great spot, a year and a half ahead of schedule to date, which is good, which just means we raise our goals and reset. The first goal really is to make sure the service we’re offering continues to be a success, and make sure we listen to those people that are riding it and listen to the drivers too. Let’s find ways to make it better. The reason we started in Key West is because we really wanted all of the facets that we’re going to work with in the future. Key West has some transit service already, and they’re going to be one of our big partners from a municipality. So there’s not just the demand, but we want to stress test. How are we going to work this out with our municipal partners? How are we going to interact with the best service to fit each individual community? Because they’re all different. So it was just a really good place for us to start and see all the different stressors that go into building a transit system.”
Electric vehicles are another test.
Clark said, “We can do that locally and so that’s the nice thing, is, when we can do those things, we will. Overseas, when you’ve got 125 miles from Florida City down, all the way down, you really need a more traditional. It’s very clean compared to where it was not too long ago, but we’re going to probably have to go with a little more traditional fuel, but we’re always looking and always trying to find the best ways to make it go.”
Is funding continuing to be provided by FDOT and USDOT?
Clark confirmed, “They continue to provide funding. I had a great call with our national regional secretary who’s headquartered in Atlanta, just a couple weeks ago, and she said, we really needed, let’s get everybody on the phone. Let’s figure out the best way for USDOT to engage and try to help us. This is a large undertaking, and we really need all of our partners. FDOT just hasn’t stopped being such a great partner. They continue to find ways to help us pay for service. They were 100% of our marketing efforts. They said, we’re invested in this. We’re going to show you we’re invested in this and they had a contractor of theirs that does marketing for new service, and FDOT picked that entire bill up. It was really great and you don’t often get partners like that. The partners who are that willing and ready and able to help are few and far in between.”
How are officials feeling about where we are as compared to where we were?
Clark said, “Cautiously optimistic. I have high expectations, and I know our county commissioners have very high expectations, so we certainly have had a lot of success. We’ve got some grants that we’d really like to see come through this year from the federal level that would really help us with our local service. We also applied for a ferry grant to look at Inter Island Ferry. They look at that as 100% walk up service, which means they grade it as if every person that gets on there is pulling a car off the road, because you’re walking on to it, and then we’re taking you up the road. If it’s more than 40 miles, which Key West and Marathon, Marathon up to Islamorada, Key Largo, those services really take on a new meaning for to get us up and down the Keys and off of Overseas. We do live in the Keys. We’ve had a lot of rain lately. All the kids are back in school. Just slow down. It’s that time of year, August, September. It’s mostly just folks who live here, just take a deep breath, be safe and really pay attention, because there’s a lot of kids who are still trying to figure out the right routes to and from school.”