{"id":233505,"date":"2026-04-16T00:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/233505\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:09:10","slug":"st-pete-beach-may-let-freebee-contract-expire-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/233505\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Pete Beach may let Freebee contract expire in September"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach will begin looking for more affordable transit vendors next month as officials could allow the city’s contract with\u00a0Freebee<\/a>\u00a0to expire at the end of September.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

St. Pete Beach may allow its contract with Freebee to expire in September and will begin looking for more affordable transit vendors next month
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According to a city presentation, Freebee costs the city $536,700 per year to operate
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Recent data shows only 15 percent of residents using the service\u00a0
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Ridership has been down 45 percent since the city directed Freebee to begin charging non-residents $3 per ride last October<\/p>\n

At their meeting on Tuesday, city commissioners directed staff to explore alternative transit options after a presentation showing the Freebee costs $536,700 per year to operate<\/a> with only 15 percent of residents using the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see us explore other options. Let some of the more private operators come in and get involved,\u201d said Mayor Scott Tate. \u201cOpen up for competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridership has been down 45 percent since the city directed Freebee to begin charging non-residents $3 per ride last October.<\/a> The fee along with advertising dollars offsets the city\u2019s cost by up to $10,000 per month, according to Resident Services Director Mandy Edmunds.<\/p>\n

Freebee has been operating in St. Pete Beach for nearly 7 years<\/a> and replaced the PSTA buses and trolleys which drove into Pass-a-Grille.<\/p>\n

Resident Christopher Hollands has not owned a car for 8 years and estimates he uses the Freebee up to 5 times each week. Hollands said he relies on the Freebee for transportation and does not want to see it go away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a real setback for me. And I think I think quite a few. Especially the older riders and handicap,\u201d he said. \u201cIt may seem expensive but look what it does for the community\u2026\u00a0I think that they can make some other modifications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spectrum News\u00a0reached out to Freebee for comment but did not hear back from the company by our deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Pete Beach will begin looking for more affordable transit vendors next month as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,2173,2175,2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,2180,729,2177,11901,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-233505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-app-traffic-transit","10":"tag-app-traffic-and-transit","11":"tag-josh-rojas","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pinellas-county","14":"tag-st-pete","15":"tag-st-pete-headlines","16":"tag-st-pete-news","17":"tag-st-petersburg","18":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","19":"tag-st-petersburg-news","20":"tag-tampa","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topic-latest-traffic-transit-news","23":"tag-traffic","24":"tag-traffic-and-transit","25":"tag-transit","26":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}