Pinellas County’s public transit agency will cut fewer routes than expected amid a budget crunch, its board of directors voted Wednesday night.
Now, the board and staff of the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority face another quandary: They have to find the money to offset the cost, about half a million dollars. And they have two weeks to do it, before the board makes a final vote on the next year’s budget Sept. 27.
Facing a shortfall, agency staff told board members months ago that they likely would have to reduce service to balance the budget or else cut positions or pay. They gave board members a list of a dozen possible cuts, including eliminating six of its lowest-ridership routes, making a handful of route changes and ending most service at 10 p.m. Those cuts would total about $3 million, double the amount the agency needed to save.
The post-10 p.m. plan was scrapped. Route 90, which mostly transports resort workers from St. Petersburg to St. Pete Beach, was saved, with a proposal to turn it from a loop into an out-and-back route. Route 58, the only one serving St. Petersburg College’s Seminole campus and Seminole’s city center, was also moved off the chopping block, though staff suggested cutting a little-used portion of it in the Carillon area.
That left $1.5 million in cuts in the proposed budget. Among them were routes 813 in Dunedin and 814 in Safety Harbor, the agency’s two lowest-ridership routes.
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