Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
WAVENEY ANN MOOREParents without cars had an efficient way to get to work, and their children to day care or school, until the money ran out July 31.
ST. PETERSBURG - Felicia Willis and her 4-year-old daughter, Jayla, start their days early.
There's a bus to catch at 7 from Pinellas Park to Central Plaza and another at 8:10 to Jayla's day care at 21st Street S and 16th Avenue.
After dropping off Jayla, Ms. Willis grabs a $6 cab ride and dashes to reach her job as a customer service representative by 9. Every afternoon, she does the double commute in reverse.
It used to be better. Ms. Willis, a 23-year-old single mother who makes too little to own a car, was one of more than two dozen parents who benefited from a shuttle program for their children.
Until July 31, poor parents and children could take a public bus from their homes to the terminal at Central Plaza near 34th Street. The children would then board a shuttle that would take them to school or day care. Parents would take a regular PSTA bus to work.
The Central Avenue Childcare Shuttle began two years ago, said David McDonald, program planner for the Metropolitan Planning Organization. The initial plan had been to establish a child care center at the YMCA, near Central Plaza, but that idea proved too costly, he said. The shuttle, which served about 30 children, turned out to be less expensive.
This summer, money for the shuttle dried up. Brian K. Smith, executive director of the Pinellas County MPO, conveyed the news in a June 29 letter to Starling Enterprises, which had a contract to operate the shuttle.
WorkNet Pinellas, a private-public partnership that provides job placement, training and support services such as subsidized child care and transportation, could no longer pay its half of the $60,000 to run the shuttle, Smith wrote. The Transportation Disadvantaged Program, which provided the other half of the funding, could not assume the entire cost, he said.
WorkNet executive director Ed Peachy said he was unaware that the program had been discontinued. The agency, he said, would try to find out how many of its clients had used the shuttle.
"I think what we are looking at doing here is tying our funds to specific individuals that we are working with, and we may need to look at some alternative ways of providing shuttle service. From my perspective, if we could establish a rate so that when our customers use the shuttle we could pay that rate, we would be fine with that," Peachy said.
McDonald of the MPO, which coordinates the Transportation Disadvantaged Program, said the shuttle could be restarted as soon as supplemental funding is found.
"We are open to partner with WorkNet or Coordinated Childcare or whoever thinks their clients would benefit from it," he said.
"I think it is one of the most innovative programs we have, because it takes care of two needs, transportation and child care. And a single working parent needs those needs taken care of. It might not be WorkNet clients, but it might be potential WorkNet clients who lose their jobs because they can't take care of child care."
Ms. Willis is sorry to see the program end.
"When I first signed up for it, I didn't realize what a tremendous burden it would lift off my shoulders," she said.
"It saved me time. We could sleep in the morning. It saved me money from not having to pay for cabs. It just helped me to feel less stressed out and now that it is over, I feel totally stressed out all over again. I don't have a way to pick up my daughter in the afternoons. In the evening, I just try to find a ride to pick her up."
Andi Bell, who operates a home day care center at 51st Avenue S and Eighth Street, has seen firsthand how the termination of the shuttle has affected parents.
"It's a big inconvenience. It's like you give somebody a taste of something and you take it away," Ms. Bell said, adding that two parents made other arrangements for their children when the program ended.
"They couldn't come to me any other way. One came to me from Haines Road," she said.
"You're talking about getting a bus from the house to come to me and then getting another bus to go to their jobs. If you have to go to work at 8, you're talking about getting the children up from, God knows when, 4 o'clock?"
McDonald, of the MPO, was a fan of the program. "We were going to expand it to the Clearwater area, because it was so successful, but it is put on the back burner for now. I would think this type of program would be beneficial not only in Pinellas County but all over the state."
Delquanda Turner, the shuttle driver, said the end of the program shocked parents.
"I had a parent that just had a newborn and I was supposed to be starting to pick up the newborn and the school-age son," she said.
"It's just a disappointment."