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Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
The St. Pete SunRunner
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A beach trip shouldn’t require a car, so we put St. Petersburg’s Sunrunner Bus Rapid Transit to the test the only way that counts: we rode it, timed it, transferred on it, and paid attention to the small details that make people trust a transit line. Starting in downtown Tampa, we take the 100 bus to St. Pete and talk about how regional connections, routing, and frequency shape whether public transportation feels viable in daily life. We also dig into the Cross Bay Ferry’s comeback and why more options across Tampa Bay can change the whole equation.
Once we’re on the Sunrunner BRT, the experience gets surprisingly solid fast. We look at station design, level boarding, real-time arrival signs, and simplified maps that make the system feel intuitive. We talk transit signal priority, dedicated bus lanes, and why corridor choice matters, including key stops like PSTA’s Grand Central Station and access to everyday destinations. For a 10-mile line built for roughly $43 to $45 million, Sunrunner raises a big question for cities across Florida and the United States: how much better could bus networks be if we focused on speed, frequency, and clarity instead of overbuilding or under-delivering?
Subscribe for more from our Florida series, share this with a friend who debates bus lanes, and leave a review if you want more on-the-ground transit breakdowns. What should cities do to keep BRT fast once it’s built?
St. Petersburg, Florida is not a place you would think about when it comes to public transit. But in 2022, they took on creating their first bus rapid transit line. They spent just $44 million to build out this 10-mile route, which has dedicated lanes for about half of the journey. Given the low cost of this compared to other transit projects in the US, my expectations were not that high. But to be honest, I was kind of impressed. So on today's episode, which is the first on our Florida series, we're going to ride a regional express bus from Tampa over to St. Pete, ride the Sunrunner BRT in its entirety to see how the system works, and maybe learn
Why St. Pete Built BRT
SPEAKER_03how more cities across Florida and the US can improve their bus networks with systems like this.
SPEAKER_02We started in downtown Tampa. We took the 100 bus from their sort of downtown bus terminal, which is actually pretty nice. Yeah. We then took that 100 all the way over to St. Pete, and I say all the way over because it took about an hour and 15, 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, something like that. It wasn't the most direct route. You could do it driving in about 40 minutes if you were to just stay on the highway and come the whole way. We were on the highway for a good bit, got up to speed, going pretty fast, but lots of veering off into different little neighborhoods that didn't really add much in terms of additional
Tampa To St. Pete By Bus
SPEAKER_03riders.
SPEAKER_02We got a tour of all of the publics between here and St. Pete's.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02So uh one could call it Publix Transportation.
SPEAKER_03He was really looking for a way to incorporate that. He said it's me on the bus, and I was just like, oh my god. Uh but anyway, uh, this spot that we're starting the day at right here is both very close to the beginning of the BRT system here in St. Petersburg that we're looking forward to ride, but also uh the terminus of a ferry line that the Cross Bay Ferry. Yes, the Cross Bay Ferry that used to operate and soon will be operating again at higher frequencies, uh, going between Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this used to be a more seasonal ferry. It only really ran in the warmer months, and it would also run for uh sports games to get you between the two cities. Uh now it looks like this is gonna be uh potentially a year-round service, and it will take you from Tampa straight to downtown St. Pete to this beautiful little harbor that we're standing at now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it's actually gonna have higher frequencies than before and hopefully be a more uh reliable way to get back and forth and add to the options instead of having to do that bus journey, which was not ideal. Um it was cheap, 225 to get all the way over here. Uh can't complain too much about that. PSTA runs roughly six morning and six evening round trips of the bus that I'm describing, the 100 between Tampa and St. Pete. In addition, there are five flix bus routes a day. Once the new Cross Bay Ferry starts this summer, that will add additional options every one to two hours, although additional schedules are not yet finalized. Let's though go head over and actually go check out this BRT. Alright, so we made it to our first stop here. Uh the next Sunrunner is coming in about 10 minutes. They normally during the day run at 15 minute frequencies, uh and they do run at night at 30-minute frequencies up until a certain hour. It doesn't run 24-7, but um still decent service at nighttime, which is good.
SPEAKER_02First impressions of the station though, they're very nice, they feel clean. It's on a very nice sort of shaded street with a lot of street activation, like places all around it. The signage telling you when the bus is coming is very nice, and also very simplified maps. Yeah. Uh that not only show you the bus route, but also shows you the local bike trail too
First Look At Sunrunner Stations
SPEAKER_02that cuts through and follows a lot of the bus route.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And then uh important too, we've got level boarding, basically, is what it looks like for the the platform. So should be easy to get on and off, would be easy for folks in a wheelchair or mom pushing a stroller or something like that.
SPEAKER_02So kind of feels like this should be a light rail station, but I'm excited to see BRT in Florida.
SPEAKER_03Well, I will say though, this whole project was built for $45 million. Yes. Which for a 10-mile route is pretty phenomenal. I mean, just to I don't want to make this comparison, but I'm going to anyway. Like we're getting roughly 10 miles of light rail in Austin for seven and a half billion dollars. So when you compare the four for 45 million to what would definitely be billions to do it, uh, I think this solution makes a lot of sense. And if the ridership continues to grow, we'll talk a little bit more about ridership later on. Uh, then maybe light rail eventually would be an easy upgrade.
SPEAKER_02The local transit agency here in St. Petersburg, Florida is the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority. And not only do they run the Sunrunner here, but they also have a little downtown circulator called the Looper. And the Looper is a free service that you can use in downtown St. Pete, really meant for tourists or maybe residents downtown. And it's these little 15 to 20 minute uh frequency shuttles that will take you all over the downtown area to connect some of the cultural institutions, the pier, dining and shopping. So another just really cool free way to get around and experience downtown St. Pete. Let's go to the beach, beach, let's give you away.
SPEAKER_03First impression so far is that moves along pretty efficiently.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we made it from the downtown first street station up to 32nd pretty quick. Uh we did notice that the bus has some signaling priority. So as the bus approaches a green light, it can signal to the light to stay green longer. Also, if you arrive at a red light, it will notify the traffic management system to allow the uh lane to be prioritized so that you get to green faster, which also
Signal Priority And Lane Design
SPEAKER_02helps with times.
SPEAKER_03Totally. And it's interesting. So this is running on a one-way street in one direction and it's doing the same thing two blocks over in the other direction. And on this one, at least, it is running in the far left lane, and the stations are on little islands. Uh, so you kind of have traffic on the other side, which is kind of the opposite of what I thought it would be, but it feels like this runs pretty smoothly. Um, and it's bus only in the left lane plus left turns, actually, is what it seems like here. Uh, sorry, there's a left turning lane inside of it. So it's it's a little bit finicky.
SPEAKER_02I think that's two lane street.
SPEAKER_03Right, okay. Um, an interesting model though, yeah, for sure. Um near the station, uh, there is a Walmart as well as the kind of Grand Central bus terminal here. Uh important to have high frequency transit to grocery stores like Walmart here, um, as well as the connections. And we noticed some pretty big development along the line as well.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, the the density of housing sort of squeezed in between the two sides of the BRT is actually pretty nice, especially when you're going towards the downtown area of St. Pete. So, all in all, definitely see the reason why you know they chose this corridor for trying out St. Pete's first BRT.
SPEAKER_03Totally. It also feels like they have the space too, and it's just like you got the space, use the space. So I'd be curious to see what it looked like at rush hour, but cool. Uh, we're gonna check out the area around here and eventually we'll pop back on and head all the way down to the beach. So we just got off the one BRT bus over there, and then the kind of central bus terminal is right here. So easy access for connections for folks to make.
SPEAKER_02We made it to the PSTA Grand Central Station. This was actually opened in 2008 and really serves as the hub for all of the local buses and the Sunrunner running through this area of St. Pete. It can accommodate about 12 buses at a time, and it looks like they also have some coordinated transfers as well. So, yeah, really nice little bus hub right in St. Pete.
SPEAKER_03That bus was a paid
The Grand Central Bus Hub
SPEAKER_03actor. So I can't say that I've taken a BRT to the the beach before. I think we're gonna rename this the Beach Rapid Transit. And it honestly was fast and pretty efficient, and like we had dedicated lanes for I'd say the first two-thirds of the route. Uh, it started to fizzle apart as we got closer to the beach. We ended up on a pretty classic Florida strode, three lanes in either direction with a big center median, and they they did not set aside any of that space directly for the bus.
SPEAKER_02But but
Fast Ride Toward The Beach
SPEAKER_02I will say, you know, I didn't think we're in like peak season yet for tourism, but definitely approaching it and the trip down, as you said, it was quick, even without the dedicated lanes. So, all in all, like a really, really positive experience, and people were riding it throughout the whole day as we were using it.
SPEAKER_03So unfortunately, it does turn out that the transit agency and the city and the state actually did initially set aside transit-only lanes for the buses in this section that I described as a classic Florida strode. Uh, in the moment we didn't quite realize it, but when you go and look at street view here, as I will do in a second. So the main corridor in question, the BRT, roughly runs straight down this, kind of hovering on either side of the central Ave, dedicated lanes all the way to about here, uh, where it then merges onto Pasadena Ave here. And when you zoom
Bus Lanes Removed And BRT Creep
SPEAKER_03in, you'll actually notice bus-only lanes down this whole stretch here, leading all the way, I'll skip ahead here basically, leading all the way up to this bridge where they start to disappear. So basically from here to here, which would be a fairly busy stretch of road, I would imagine, at rush hour, if you live in this area and you have more context for us, definitely let us know. Um these were removed, and you can see uh even in Street View where they were removed, but I found online a news story, these were removed about six months ago, so end of 2025. Um you can see the bus-only lanes right here. I'll go back a little bit. And then when you switch, this is from February 2025. Here we go, I finally got it to work. When you go to January 2026, they are now gone. So again, you can go back, boom, red lane right here, bus only, 2026, gone. So obviously not ideal. There was a group of folks who organized, including some Florida State reps, which might not be surprising if you're in the know of how Florida politics goes at this point in time. Uh I found this one really cringe ad from a state representative who was running on the fact that she helped get this bus lane removed. Let's go ahead and take a listen. It's only a minute, and I think it's worth hearing.
SPEAKER_00Florida State Representative Linda Cheney announced that the bus and turn lane on Pasadena Avenue will now be open to all traffic. Cars are now allowed to use the bus and bike lane for more than just turning.
SPEAKER_04Voters were asked if they wanted their tax dollars to pay for a mass transit system. It was a resounding no. Yet it's 94% subsidized by our tax dollars. The congestion and safety concerns of this road created real challenges for our local commuters, families just trying to get to work, parents trying to get their kids where they need to go, and emergency responders to avoid it, return into action. Today, you, the taxpayers, get your road back.
SPEAKER_03So, some pretty cringe-worthy stuff there for sure. I'm sorry to put you through that, but these are the people who are against projects like this. So this was a pretty positive episode. Uh sorry to put a slight negative damper on it, but this is something that Chris and I have actually talked about on the show in the past when it comes to BRT and one of the potential risks with it. Uh, the phrase we use for it, and this is not our phrase, I've heard this from other folks as well, is BRT creep, uh, where the project can slowly creep back from, you know, even in the development phase when they're coming up with it, it may start with full dedicated lanes everywhere with permanent, you know, curbed infrastructure or elevated infrastructure or whatever it may be. And then as the budgets of the project start to go up and up and up, well, they start to, you know, oh, well, we can do it with flex posts, or we can do it with just paint, or oh, well, it can share lanes with traffic in this section. And all of a sudden, what was your really nice BRT project gets watered down more and more and more and more until it is just a bus that maybe gets to go a tiny bit faster. Um, it can also happen after the project is done. So in this case, you know, the lanes we're in, you had the dedicated lanes for an even longer section of the route, and now uh we're starting to see some of that be pulled back. So uh hopefully that doesn't continue. I would imagine that the rest of the route is fairly safe considering um, you know, there are a lot more options for cars to take, and there's still plenty of car lanes on those roads. Uh, in this last stretch area, there are only a handful of bridges that go over the ocean. And I would imagine that traffic probably backs up a bit. But definitely frustrating to hear that state representative be like, oh, it's we're trying to make it easier for folks to get back and forth. And it's well, you're trying to make it easier for folks who are going back and forth in a car, not the people uh who are riding these buses on a regular basis. So um, with that though, we'll jump back into the rest of our thoughts here. Uh, knowing that at that moment in time we did not quite yet realize that this stretch of road had had the lanes removed. And the frequencies were pretty good too. You can tell that they definitely like probably get clumped up a little bit in the non-dedicated lane section because I think like the first one we caught, uh, we waited about 10 minutes. So that one maybe was closer to 15 minutes. Then we got off to go walk around at that Grand Central Station and it was only nine minutes for the next one, so it's not exactly every 15 minutes, but still running at fast enough frequencies that you're probably not needing to worry about checking a schedule, which is like huge when you're trying to convince people to ride the bus.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for the first attempt at BRT, Beach Rapid Transit, in the St. Pete,
Frequency, Fares, And Ridership
SPEAKER_02Tampa area, I think it is a pretty good example of what cities can do. This opened in 2022, in October of 2022, and it was originally a fare-free service.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and right off the bat, it was crushing it and beating expectations. They were seeing about a hundred thousand riders per month, which is a lot for uh for a new service. And just to give some comparison, uh, we were talking before this system was put in, there was essentially like a trolley route that ran down this, and it wasn't an actual trolley, it was when it was like bus trolley things, and they would see on average a thousand to fifteen hundred riders per day, so thirty to forty thousand riders per month. So going from 30 to 40 riders, thousand riders per month to a hundred thousand during that fare-free period was a huge bump, but they ran into some issues.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as we've talked about on a previous episode where we talked about should buses be fare-free, there are definitely some downsides to having uh no fares on the bus. One of those that we highlighted is obviously politically it is easier to cancel a bus service when it is listed as free because people don't always like the idea of other people using a free service. That's an episode all of it on its own. Yeah, but probably what the biggest issue was for this one, uh, there is a fairly large unhoused population in the St. Pete Tampa area, and there were a lot of complaints from riders about who was riding the bus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I don't even know all the details of if it's complaints from riders or people who live in the area. I'm sure with all sorts of projects like this, you do end up with quite a bit of NIMBYism, people who don't want easier access to the beach from the city uh to get out here and whatnot. So, um, but that ultimately forced the system to they they got rid of their fare-free nature of the system about a month early and converted it to the price of $225, which is what it is today. Yep. Uh $225 per ride with a daily fare cap at five bucks.
SPEAKER_02And just to be clear, we are also not advocating for not allowing unhoused folks to ride public transit at all. That is not the stance that we are taking. We're not actually taking a stance on whether it should be fare-free or not. I'm not. Oh, I don't think it should be fare-free.
SPEAKER_03You can go back and watch our fare-free episode if you're interested in more in the nuance, just like broadly, not just this system, but with a fare-free system, like you said, you can cancel it easier. But uh if you do charge a fare, generally speaking, the argument amongst people who think you should charge a fare is that it won't affect ridership that much. Uh, and that all of a sudden you now have this extra money that you can use to make the service even better. Now, in this case, when they did implement the fare, they actually did have a huge drop in ridership initially, going from that 100,000 riders almost getting cut in half. Um, since then, the numbers have climbed back up, and as of 2025, uh they were seeing about 75,000 riders per month, but still not up to that 100,000 that they were seeing uh back when the system first opened. Earlier in the episode, we mentioned how cheap this route was to get started. So here's a bit more info on that. So the Sunrunner BRT is a 10 mile long line with 30 stations in total, counting the entire round trip loop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that 10 miles came in at a cost of about 43 million dollars, which compared to systems around the country seems like a steal.
SPEAKER_03An absolute steal, especially given the amount of dedicated space that this got. I also think like all of the stations look great. They're not too fancy, but they are enough to make the bus a more appealing option than it was before. Like
Cost, Safety Gains, And Replication
SPEAKER_03100%. Like that, yeah, I don't know. They they look nice, the displays make it easy to know when the next bus is coming, the maps are very clear. Uh, the the route, this doesn't always have to be the case, but it's fairly straight, so it just feels really easy and intuitive to use.
SPEAKER_02Another positive for this line, it did come with street improvements. As we talked about earlier, it does run in that far left-hand lane and sort of has a dedicated bus lane plus a lane for turning. And because of these sort of traffic calming measures and these more controlled measures on the street, we actually saw crashes down come down by 40%.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which I mean, we talk about uh it's been a long time, but we did episodes on like Vision Zero and things like that, and it's a lot of work Florida's gotta do in terms of that. So to see the improvements like that on this corridor, which I'm curious if they even thought that those results were gonna happen as a result of this, because it doesn't feel like this was a uh traffic calming measure for the most part, but but ultimately some of those results happened because of this, so um pretty cool to see. Overall, though, again, for the money, this just feels like an absolute slam dunk of a project, and just kind of proves that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to have an effective system here. Like they took a corridor that had the extra space on the road, they uh used their political will or whatever it may have been at the time to use that space for the bus. They dialed up the frequency just enough to make it so that you don't have to think too much about it, and the stops are clean and easy to navigate. So, overall, I mean this is a slime duck, and I would love to see more cities take this model and try to replicate it elsewhere.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I do think that the system is something that could be easily uh duplicated in other cities, so many other examples around the country where we have these fairly large roads through urban centers that have plenty of space uh to do it. Now they're not all gonna come to a really nice beach though.
SPEAKER_03Right. And I mean, as far as destinations on this one, this one is a little bit non-traditional in that sense that, you know, uh we always talk about like, oh, it's good to have a hospital or a university or something at the end of a line. Here, the draw is the beach, it's like recreation. So uh as well as I would imagine a lot of folks working here. Uh, you've got a lot of resorts and restaurants and bars and that sort of stuff. So I'd imagine folks commuting from kind of downtown St. Petersburg, uh, as well as some of the suburbs that we came through on the way over here, uh, add to it. So um, you know, you got the beach on this end, you got downtown on the other end. In between, you do have the Walmart and that Grand Central station. There was some development. Uh, it it did the density kind of went down as we got closer to the beach, but still enough to justify the route. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02From here, we are going to take the Sunrunner back into downtown St. Pete eventually. There's a lot more things that we could talk about, but I think we're gonna take some time and hang out at the beach. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. We could bring you a lot more content, but this is this is nice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the beach, yeah. We will, you know, we might just end it here, forget the rest of the Florida trip. Um, but no. Uh so yeah, we are gonna ride it back. Uh, I'm sure we'll have more to say, so uh I'll leave some some room to do that. But uh, if you're not subscribed already though, this is gonna be just one of the early episodes of our Florida trip that we are on right now. Uh, today we're here in St. Pete.
Florida Series Plans And Wrap
SPEAKER_03We're headed to Orlando. We're gonna be doing an Orlando Using Only Public Transit episode. Yes, yeah. We'll do Orlando Using Only Public Transit, where we've got interviews with uh uh some advocates in Orlando. Then we're taking the Bright Line, which I'm pretty excited about, uh, from Orlando down to Miami. Uh, we're gonna do Miami using only public transit. We're gonna check out their new BRT down in Miami, which I'm also very excited about. This is a very BRT heavy trip. Uh, and then we'll also have uh interviews scheduled with some advocates in Miami as well. So a lot coming on this trip that you definitely want to make sure you are subscribed to see.
SPEAKER_02If you have not liked this video, please feel free to go ahead and subscribe, share it with your friends. That helps us out so much. Also, please leave a comment. We do read them. You can see in previous episodes that reviews those comments to make episodes and bring people on the show.
SPEAKER_03Honestly, a lot of this trip, some of it was inspired by comments and emails that we got from folks in Miami and Orlando. So uh, but with all that being said, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangent Tuesday.