No. 31, Brandon To Tampa
It was 6:57 a.m., and I was frustrated driving around the vast commercial strip that is Brandon in a fruitless loop looking for the HARTline bus stop.
I pulled up as the bus was loading.
I am from the Northeast, you see, where “public transportation” is not a fancy term for “the highway.” Up in Philadelphia and New York, bus stops are plentiful, even in suburbia. Buses run frequently. Not so in Tampa.
Ed Pfeiffer was happy about riding the bus as it lurched out of the Westfield Brandon shopping center, westward toward Tampa.
“I like the savings,” Pfeiffer said. “My company picks up my buss pass, so I have no cost of commuting this way.” Not everyone on the No. 31 bus this morning shared Pfeiffer’s glowing opinion.
Yvette Sukhon, a clerical worker for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, said service has gone downhill:
“We had service seven days a week and two express buses and a trip that takes us an hour and a half. It’s insane.”
Sukhon said that to get to Tampa by 8 a.m., she has to get up at 4:30 a.m.
It is worse for others on the bus, she said. Some riders are unable to make connections.
“Sometimes, in a matter of five minutes, a person misses the bus and is an hour and a half late for work,” she said. “It happens two or three times a week. That gentleman in the front there is one of the persons that happens to.”
That gentleman, Billy Doty, sitting alone, alternated between catching up on his sleep and staring out the window.
“It’s too long,” he said, when asked about his commute. “I get on in Gibsonton. I have to leave my house at 5:30, to get to work at 8.”
But that’s only if he makes the connection with the No. 4 bus, which pulls away from the stop at Marion and Whiting streets at 7:37 a.m., three minutes after this bus, the No. 31, arrives at the stop at Marion and Washington streets, a block away.
“I missed the connection just last week,” he said glumly. “I had to wait an hour for the next bus.” As the bus continued west, down Providence Road, onto State Road 60, past the topless bars and truck dealership, Doty tensed. The clock was ticking.
As the bus rumbled through Ybor City, Doty realized he was going to be late to work.
Again.
When the bus arrived later at the Marion Transit Center, Doty walked over to a pay phone. He dropped in some quarters and called his boss, to explain.
“He understands,” Doty said afterward. “But he is still going to dock me an hour and a half.”
The next day, the ride into work from my house — which took almost two hours from my house to the bus stop, riding on the bus and walking from the transit center to The News Center on Parker Street — took about 45 minutes. The 20-mile ride, in my Mercury Sable wagon that gets about 20 miles to the gallon, costs me $2.57 in gas, compared with $1.30 for the bus.
This article was part of a collaboration of work investigating public transportation in Tampa.
