DUNEDIN — Many motorists at certain times of the year are driving around downtown looking for a place to park in front of restaurants.
That's one of the mobility issues that city officials hope to address by initiating a six-month pilot project involving loopers, small shuttles that provide free short-term trips.
Dunedin commissioners have voted 4-1 to award a bid to Beefree of Miami in the amount of $127,830 with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Three proposals were received and reviewed by city officials.
Beefree has also agreed to solicit feedback from other city partners, including PSTA, Forward Pinellas and "anybody that kind of has a transportation niche in the downtown," city Community Development Director George Kinney said.
City officials expect the service to continue if the project is successful. Beefree, doing business as Freebee, was formed in 2012 and has more than 250 employees. It operates services in more than 30 communities in South Florida and provides a free electric taxi service in St. Pete Beach.
The pilot planning effort would provide for a fixed-route looper combined with on-demand vehicles.
"While the program emphasizes a fixed-route system, future on-demand service could certainly be a natural byproduct of what we are looking at and could be something that is recommended as well," Kinney said.
That will be part of a presentation city officials will discuss in a few weeks.
"The provider has also agreed to solicit feedback from other city partners, including PSTA, Forward Pinellas and anybody that kind of has a transportation niche in the downtown," Kinney said.
Following this effort, the provider is expected to prepare a schedule and implementation time frame to be provided to city officials, who will bring that back to the commission in a formal presentation.
What city officials like about Freebee is the parent company embraced the city's multimodal plans and other initiatives.Â
"They pride themselves on servicing transportation for the disadvantaged and transportation-dependent. They were also very good in their proposal about talking about their environmental sensitivity," Kinney said.
The company doesn't recommend charging fees for the passengers for several reasons, such as allowing more users' dollars to be spent locally at establishments, thus increasing the city's tax base.
The Center for Urban Transportation Research has released a study "demonstrating how the most common point of conflict, safety, and aggression for public transit ridership is associated with the pay box," a Beefree memo said in answer to questions raised by city officials.
"By removing the pay box, the cost of operation and staff training is lessoned while also dramatically increasing both safety and a more positive community perception," the center said.
City memos say the pilot project is expected to include three vehicles operating for 10 hours per day. Funding reductions are expected as sponsorships are acquired, assuming the pilot is successful.
Beefree will be providing overall management and implementation of the services with goals including but not limited to identifying the most efficient routes, determining long-term operational costs, identifying partnerships and funding opportunities, estimating income and expenses and identifying long-term capital needs, Kinney said.
Jason Spiegel, representing the company, said two vehicles would be providing the looper service.
"Essentially, you wouldn't be waiting any more than then 10 minutes to be picked up at any of those stops there," Beefree chief executive Jason Spiegel said.
Most commissioners said they were excited about the service.
“This is a much-needed service in Dunedin, and I think it's good," Commissioner Robert Walker said.
Though he said he liked the proposal, Commissioner Jeff Gow was the lone dissenter on the vote to move forward with the pilot program.
Noting that Dunedin has been designated as a walkable city, he expressed concerns that "we are talking about implementing something that takes that away."
"People are still going to try to park in front of restaurants downtown. We are still going to have traffic downtown," Gow said.
Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski said that not everybody can walk everywhere they are going to and "some people don't know where they are going," such as hotel guests.
"When we first started this, the idea was to go by all our parking lots and do the loop up and down Main Street and get people from the parking lot to where they are going so they can park far away if they want to, and not have to be circling," she said.
That was the main reason they started talking about the looper, she said.
Commissioner John Tornga was pleased about everything he read about the program, he said, adding that he thinks the city needs to start the service as quickly as it can.
Commissioner Moe Freaney asked if the optimum time had been considered to start the program because city officials want good data.
Starting during the slower season could provide good data to understand who would be using the service during the off-peak months of the years, Spiegel said — understanding that when they get into the peak months, ridership data is going to rise.
"Obviously, it would be optimal to start during the season and to be able capture all the tourists and everybody that's in town today, but at the same time you are going to be looking at is this as a permanent solution for the downtown and it could be a year-long program that would operate during the those off-seasons, and I think that data is very important to look as well,"Â Â Spiegel said.
