As GoLine’s Beachside Circulator celebrated its first anniversary last week, I did something I hadn’t done before.
I rode the Central Beach shuttle.
For nearly nine hours – I took breaks only for lunch and a couple of restroom visits – I sat in the air-conditioned, 12-seat bus as it repeatedly circled the two-mile loop that services the beachside business districts along Ocean and Cardinal drives.
Too bad I didn’t bring a book. Or need a nap. Or feel inspired to do some deep thinking. Because it might’ve been a fine way to spend a lazy, summer day.
Not only did I have plenty of time to do any, or even all, of the above. I had the necessary solitude, too.
Most of the day, in fact, I was the shuttle’s lone passenger, accompanied only by the driver, a friendly woman named Connie.
Just once during the long ordeal was I joined by another rider.
Otherwise, I might as well have been rolling through a latter-day episode of the “Twilight Zone.”
To be fair, I was informed four other passengers had jumped aboard for short, one-way rides – from the south end of the beachside boardwalk to the Vero Beach Hotel & Spa – in the early-morning hours before I began my seemingly unending tour of Central Beach.
But even the most enthusiastic shuttle proponent would have difficulty finding reasons to be optimistic about the bus service launched to ferry Ocean Drive hotel and restaurant workers to their jobs as a way to ease the parking shortage along the beachside’s busy retail and dining strip.
“A lot of people don’t like to ride the bus,” Connie said. “Most of the workers still park their cars on the street.”
She ought to know: Working three 12-hour shifts and one half-day stint each week, Connie has been driving this particular route since GoLine introduced the free shuttle service last July.
Not only does she know her passengers, but she also knows the beachside workers who prefer to drive their own cars.
As the day rolled along, Connie pointed out the cars of several hotel and restaurant workers who parked in the public spaces on Ocean Drive, from the south end of the boardwalk to Humiston Beach Park.
“I know their cars,” she said, “because I see them go to work.”
The only round-trip rider on this day was Mary Moore, a regular shuttle passenger who said she takes the bus because her boss encourages it – and because it’s convenient.
“I leave home a half-hour early just so I can get the bus,” Moore said. “I don’t want to worry about having to move my car, and I don’t want to get a parking ticket.”
As was the case with the day’s other four passengers, Moore said she worked at the Vero Beach Hotel & Spa, which put up $40,000 to cover the local share of the $160,000 it cost to operate the shuttle in its first year and has done so again. (The rest of the funding comes from a Florida Department of Transportation grant.)
To this point, however, it appears to be money mostly wasted: It is hard to see how the Beachside Circulator’s ridership numbers – even during the busy winter season here – justify the cost.
A full year after the service was introduced, most beachside hotel and restaurant employees still don’t take the bus.
And they’re not alone.
Rarely, if ever, do beachgoers, shoppers or diners board the bus, which, for most of its daily, 12-hour run, operates without passengers and does nothing but burn gas.
“After 9 in the morning and until about 3 in the afternoon, I know I’m not going to get anybody, so I can do it quicker,” Connie said of the 20-minute route she regularly completed in less than 15 minutes because there were no passengers waiting at a dozen designated stops. “Without traffic, I could make it around in 10 minutes. But that would throw off the schedule.”
Not that anyone would notice.
“There have been times when I’ve had six or seven people on the bus,” she said, “but it’s not going to get better until all the employers make their people ride.”
Until that happens, don’t board the shuttle expecting to meet new friends or experience a busy, mass-transit feel. You’ll be disappointed.
But you won’t have any problem finding a seat.
