FlexBus continues to stall in Maitland

The on-demand bus system scheduled to streamline how local residents utilize SunRail is stuck in bureaucratic gridlock traffic, with four local cities scrambling to get it moving again.

FlexBus, a planned on-demand point-to-point public transit system, and the four partner cities set to run it – Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood and Maitland – have hit another roadblock after a long string of detours. And this time they’re hitting it head-on with an ultimatum: get the wheels on the bus moving, or we’re done.

“We are informing you that we are at our wits end,” the cities wrote in a joint letter to the Federal Transit Administration penned March 31. “We do not work this way. We cannot work this way.”

FlexBus was originally set to launch in December 2013 to be on the road in time for SunRail to start, serving as flexible option to get commuters to and from rail stations. The system is set up to be operated with no designated routes or schedules, instead being routed in real-time by ridership demands.

Maitland officials have been adamant that the success of SunRail in Maitland hinges on the implementation of FlexBus. Providing an efficient way to get rail riders from the city’s SunRail station to the city’s largest employment hub, Maitland Center, 3 miles away, Maitland City Council members have said, is key to upping the city’s rail ridership from the bottom of the ranks where it’s been since the rail system launched last year.

But in March 2013, LYNX, the planned-upon system operator, dropped out and so did the bottom of the project. The four partner cities floundered until the Federal Transit Administration stepped in and recommended the cities partner with the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida to get the project moving. That was nearly a year ago, according to the letter, and the project is still no closer to reality, despite CUTR having access to the federal grant funds secured to fuel the first year of the system.

“We are simply stunned at the lethargic approach the agencies have taken through the years to get FlexBus moving forward to support SunRail,” read the letter signed by each city’s city manager.

In the letter, addressed to Vincent Valdes, an associate administrator with the FTA, the cities gave the organizations involved a deadline to pull together a signed agreement. That deadline, Maitland City Manager Jim Williams said, was more than a month ago, and the cities have yet to receive a response.

With no answers coming from their written ultimatum, Williams said he and the other city managers are working to arrange a face-to-face meeting with representatives from CUTR and the FTA.

“We’re trying to get a determination one way or another whether we’re going to go through with [FlexBus] or not,” Williams said.

“It is up in the air right now.”