PSTA Cuts Safety Harbor's Snapper Van, Adds 11-Cent Card Surcharge as Route 90 Gets a Reprieve

Safety Harbor loses its on-demand transit van, and anyone who pays a bus fare by tapping a card will pay 11 cents more. The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority board voted Wednesday, Aug. 26, at its headquarters on Scherer Drive in St. Petersburg to eliminate the Snapper service that linked Safety Harbor riders to Countryside Mall, approve the card surcharge and raise ferry fares. Four other services that had been on the review list, including the Grouper Airport Shuttle to St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport and Clearwater Beach, survived.

Route 90, which runs between south St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach, got the closest thing to a stay of execution. Board members postponed that decision until the end of the year so staff can pull more ridership data. The route keeps running in the meantime.

What riders will pay

The 11-cent surcharge applies to credit and debit cards tapped onboard, pushing a single ride from $2.25 to $2.36. Pay another way and the fare does not change.

The ferry increase is tied to diesel. Under the schedule PSTA advertised for the hearings, the surcharge kicks in when fuel tops $4 a gallon, adding $1 on the Clearwater Ferry and $2 on the newer Tampa Bay service. A higher copay for the Transportation Disadvantaged bus pass, from $11 to $13 a month, was also part of the package; that one still needs sign-off from a separate local board before it takes effect.

PSTA has not published a start date for the new onboard card charge.

Safety Harbor's Snapper is done

Snapper in Safety Harbor averaged about 87 riders a month, by PSTA's own count. That is the lowest performer of anything the agency put under the microscope this year, and it is why staff recommended pulling it.

The agency has described Safety Harbor as a lower-density area where fixed routes and connector service have repeatedly failed to catch on. As a substitute, PSTA has floated Direct Connect service near Enterprise Road and McMullen Booth Road. Snapper's Clearwater service, where ridership has been climbing, stays; PSTA thinks it can bring the cost per rider down by pairing some trips with its Access paratransit runs.

Gloria Corrigan, who heads the Transit Rider Advocacy Committee, told the board before the vote that cutting a route cuts more than a line on a map. Riders lose ways to reach jobs, stores and doctors' offices, she said, and the network that remains becomes less cost-effective, not more.

Where each service landed

Service	Riders/month	Outcome
Route 16	3,193	Kept
Route 58	2,918	Kept
Route 90	730	Delayed
Snapper (Safety Harbor)	87	Eliminated
Snapper (Clearwater)	Growing	Kept
Grouper Airport Shuttle	Not stated	Kept

Route 16 connects downtown St. Pete with Gateway Mall, Northeast High School, Meadowlawn Middle School, the Mirror Lake Library and the Sunshine Senior Center. Route 58 serves St. Petersburg College's Seminole campus, Seminole City Center and Osceola High School. PSTA staff concluded there is no alternate route that covers either one, and riders at the Aug. 19 hearing said the same thing in blunter terms: one man told the board he cannot get to a 7 a.m. shift any other way and cannot afford a daily Uber.

This was not a budget emergency

Worth being precise about the reason for all of this. PSTA is not staring down a shortfall that forces cuts. The agency began reviewing routes in February, weighing ridership, operating cost, revenue and the subsidy required per ride, and it says its tentative property tax rate of 0.7250 mills produces a balanced fiscal 2027 budget with no service reductions and no fare increases at all. That rate would be the third straight annual decrease.

So the cuts and the surcharge are a choice about efficiency and the tax rate, not a rescue.

The Grouper Airport Shuttle survives, but not untouched: PSTA has proposed trimming dedicated bus service on slower days and raising its fares. And Route 90 riders have until roughly December, when staff bring the ridership numbers back and the board takes the question up again. Meeting agendas and board contact information are posted at psta.net.

For more on how county and agency decisions hit your wallet, browse our government and politics coverage or the latest Pinellas County news. You can find everything we publish at Pinellas County Community Website, follow along on Facebook, and if you ride Snapper, Route 90 or the ferry, tell us what this changes for you and join the conversation in our Community Forum.

Header photo: Grendelkhan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)