PSTA Says 25 of Its 40 Bus Routes Could Disappear if Amendment 3 Passes

Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority officials warned Tuesday that roughly 25 of the county's 40 bus routes could be eliminated, along with as many as 120 agency jobs, if Florida voters approve Amendment 3 on Nov. 3. The preliminary scenario, presented to PSTA's Transit Riders Advisory Committee, would leave Safety Harbor, Treasure Island and Gulfport with no PSTA service at all, strip coverage from large parts of St. Petersburg and Clearwater, and put the new Tampa Bay ferry and the 727 Airport Express in jeopardy before either carries a paying passenger.

Where the $34 million comes from

PSTA is funded largely by property taxes, and Amendment 3 does not touch tax rates. It shrinks what can be taxed.

Chief Financial Officer Debbie Leous told the committee that estimates from Property Appraiser Mike Twitty's office show PSTA losing about $15 million in property tax revenue in fiscal 2028, with the loss growing to roughly $22 million the year after. On top of that, the agency could lose much of the nearly $3 million it collects through agreements with local governments, because those cities would be absorbing their own revenue hits.

Then the losses compound. Fewer buses means fewer fares, and some grants are tied to ridership. Federal pandemic relief money that has been propping up the operating budget runs out in fiscal 2027.

Leous said wiping out the administrative departments she walked through in her presentation would cover only about half the gap. Deep service cuts, she said, would be unavoidable.

What riders would lose

Rather than thinning every route, PSTA said it would likely protect the busiest corridors and cut the rest. That leaves about a dozen core routes countywide.

• Jolly Trolley: Chief of Planning and Community Affairs Darden Rice said 33 years of trolley service, backed by Clearwater, Dunedin and Tarpon Springs, would have to end.
• 727 Airport Express: The long-requested direct bus between downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa International, which local news reports have said is set to begin in early October, would end before it started.
• Tampa Bay ferry: Boats for the new year-round St. Petersburg to Tampa service are arriving in the bay this week. Its operating budget comes from St. Petersburg and Tampa, and Tampa's share is property tax money. Rice said the service would be in serious jeopardy. The Clearwater ferry faces the same math.
• PSTA Access: Door-to-door service for eligible riders with disabilities, now available countywide, would shrink to the federal minimum: three-quarters of a mile from whatever fixed routes survive.

That last change is the one that reaches into neighborhoods people do not usually think of as transit-dependent. Shore Acres, East Lake, Tierra Verde and parts of St. Pete Beach would fall outside the Access footprint. Rice said seniors who have stopped driving and rely on affordable rides would lose coverage too, and she pushed back on treating the cuts as lines vanishing from a map. What is at stake, she said, is whether people can still reach a job, a dialysis chair or a grocery store.

Rice described the resulting system as dramatically insufficient for a county with a population this size.

The other side of the ledger

Homeowners would keep real money. Amendment 3 would raise the homestead exemption on most non-school property taxes to as much as $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and would cut the annual assessment-growth cap on non-homestead property, including rentals, commercial buildings and second homes, from 10% to 5%. School taxes are excluded from both changes.

Using the countywide average non-school tax rate, the Pinellas County Property Appraiser's Office estimates a homeowner receiving the full exemption could save roughly $1,200 in 2027 and about $2,400 in 2028. Those are projections, not promises. An actual bill depends on the property's value, whether the owner qualifies, and what tax rates local boards set.

What happens between now and November

The amendment needs 60% support to pass and would take effect Jan. 1, 2027. It reaches voters with a rewritten ballot question: a Leon County judge ruled the original title and summary misleading, and the state's redrafted version is now titled "Increased Homestead Exemption, Lower Cap on Increases in Non-Homestead Property Assessments."

Nothing PSTA presented Tuesday has been voted on or adopted. It is a planning exercise for a revenue drop that only happens if the amendment passes. Riders who want a say will get their next opening at PSTA board and committee meetings this fall, where any actual service reductions would have to be approved in public before a single route changes. Details on the amendment as it affects local bills are available from the Pinellas County Property Appraiser.

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