Big changes arrive for Palm Tran
Instead of Uber, Lyft or your gas-guzzling car, Palm Beach County officials would like you to consider taking the public bus.
Buses that used to hourly will soon arrive
20 to 30 minutes.
There will be evening and weekend service on many routes for the first time.
And in another first, all buses will have free Wi-Fi. Many also will have cellphone charging stations.
It’s all part of the first changes to Palm Tran, Palm Beach County’s public bus system, in more than 20 years.
“We haven’t kept pace with growth,” said Clinton Forbes, Palm Tran’s executive director. “We looked at all the inefficiencies and found ways to minimize the impact on existing routes while becoming more usable and direct.”
In a special promotion, you can ride anywhere in the county for free from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3.
Rides before and after tryout period cost $2.
Palm Tran reported 9,000,000 rides a year in 2017 and hopes ridership will climb to 10,000,000 with the new routes and time changes.
Making fixes
come every this
After three years on the job, Forbes said he has discovered Palm Tran had many inefficiencies.
Workers took the bus to their jobs at local malls but found service shut down in the evening, before the mall closed.
He said he found some routes only had one rider; any route with fewer than 15 boardings a day has been modified, he said.
Palm Tran rider Larry Yates,
59, of Lantana, said he is thrilled that there will soon be more service on evenings and weekends. He takes the bus to volunteer at a Palm Springs senior center, for his appointments at the Veterans Administration Medical Center near West Palm Beach and to a Boynton Beach bookstore for his chess games. Yates, who has spastic paraplegia, gets around in a motorized wheelchair and has found Palm Tran offers him a chance at independence.
“The bus drivers are acting professional and doing their job and making room for people in wheelchairs like myself,” said Yates, who has been riding the bus for 17 years. “I have not had the anger and frustration that I have had in the past when riding Palm Tran,” which he attributes to several changes made in recent years by Forbes.
“We haven’t kept pace with growth. We looked at all the inefficiencies and found ways to minimize the impact on existing routes while becoming more usable and direct.” Clinton Forbes,
Palm Tran’s executive
Adjusting routes
In south Palm Beach County, Palm Tran is making several changes to existing routes.
— Route 94, which runs near Florida Atlantic University to downtown Boca Raton, will run every 20 minutes instead of every 40, and will now have weekend service.
— A new route in Delray Beach, 88, will run from the Lakes of Delray neighborhood near Atlantic Avenue and Jog Road, make its way east on Linton Boulevard and end up at the Plaza Delray shopping center near Linton and Federal Highway.
— Some routes are making new stops, including the Delray Beach and Boynton Beach Tri-Rail stations, Camino Real in Boca Raton and Dreher Park Zoo
Beach.
Forbes said the reworked itineraries are already showing positive results: Route 4, which extends from Greenacres north on Haverhill Road to the Veterans Administration Medical Center near West Palm Beach, had about 8,000 boardings in June, up from 3,000 in June 2017.
For those concerned about navigating their journeys on Palm Tran, Forbes said 80 employees will be stationed at bus stops during the free period Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 to guide new riders in the right direction. in West Palm