Streets for People / City’s Expands “Work Force Express” Bus Route and Potentially Ruins It In the Process

On July 1 the City’s Key West Transit “Work Force Express” expanded the coverage of its Stock Island to Bahama Village fixed route service with new stops at the Lower Keys Medical Center (the hospital), the communities of Ocean Walk, Las Salinas and Seaside at 3900 South Roosevelt, the Senior Center on Kennedy Drive and the Overseas Market. A flyer announcing the new stops said that recent surveys and feedback precipitated the changes.

While the new destinations will include more workers’ neighborhoods and destinations, people traveling from Stock Island to the heart of downtown will have a ride that is twice as long, going from 20 to 41 minutes. And instead of four trips in each direction each morning and afternoon, there will now only be three trips – an hour and 45-minutes apart. While we applaud the effort to serve more workers and work places, and know their intentions are well meaning, we can’t help but think that the longer more meandering route and less frequent trips are a step backwards. Let’s take a closer look…

Work Force Express an Acknowledgment There ARE Ridership Patterns

In November of 2022 Key West Transit switched from fixed-route service on the islands of Key West and Stock Island to an Uber-like on-demand service called Key West Rides. People use an app to call a bus to the nearest stop which then takes them to a destination bus stop. The data collected during the first five months of operating this new service showed a lot of people making trips requests from Stock Island and the multi-family housing complexes on Duck Avenue to downtown for work. At the time the 240-unit Wreckers Cay workforce housing development had recently begun occupancy.

It was such a regular pattern that officials decided to institute a new fixed route service to better serve those customers and relieve pressure on the on-demand service. The one-year-old Work Force Express debuted on June 5, 2023. The new route started at Wreckers Cay on Stock Island and then took Duck Avenue where it passed by the Poinciana Plaza and Arrive apartments on the one side and Key West Estates (Smurf Village) on the other and then headed over to N. Roosevelt and Truman where it ended downtown. A lot of Key West workers live in these places, so the route was aptly named. We’ve written in years past about the need for better transit service from Stock Island to downtown here, here and here and so liked the new fixed route as a good start.

The Old Route Was Direct and Quick, the New Route, Not So Much

The recently replaced route was direct and quick – one of the hallmarks of good service that attracts riders. With the other hallmark being frequency but we’ll get to that in a minute. A worker catching a bus at Wreckers Cay at 2nd Street and Maloney Avenue on Stock Island would get all the way downtown at Petronia and Whitehead in 20 minutes. Google maps says the same trip by car is 17 minutes so you can’t get much faster and direct than that. Similarly, someone living on Duck Avenue near 17th Street would get to the same destination downtown via the bus in 13 minutes. Google maps says a car trip will take. You guessed it. Thirteen minutes. Pretty good.

So how long do the same trips on the new and improved Work Force Express Take? The trip from Wrecker Cay is now 41 minutes. Twice as long as before. And that 13 minute trip from Duck Avenue now takes 26 minutes by bus. Double the amount of time. That’s not good.

New Route Is a Meandering Mess

The new Work Force Express route is a meandering mess reminiscent of the old Red, Orange, Blue and Green routes that were abandoned in May of 2020 and replaced with two simpler, more direct North and South routes. The two simpler routes were later replaced in the name of efficiency by the Key West Rides: On-Demand service in late 2022.

Look at the map graphic provided for the new route we found on Facebook. Note all the additional milage the bus traverses is depicted in red, which is the new part of the route. One could get dizzy with all of the backtracking. And why in the word, does the agency now feel the need to go into the Overseas Market parking lot instead of as previously just letting people get off and on the bus on N. Roosevelt? This is a step backwards.

Frequency and Span of Service Goes From Bad to Worse

While the old route was direct and quick, it lacked frequency and a needed span of service that considered non-traditional work hours – which account for so many of our jobs here on the island, especially in touristy downtown. With just four trips in and out of downtown spaced about one-hour apart in the morning and another four trips out and in during the late afternoon/early evening, riding the Work Force Express seems aimed only at more traditional jobs. Anyone needing to be somewhere mid-day or in the evenings was out of luck. The logical next step would have been to add hourly service mid-day and evenings and eventually on the half hour.

Instead, the new service only makes things worse. There are only three trips in and out of downtown in the morning and then again in the afternoon. And they are now one-hour and 45-minutes in frequency apart. Yes, one-hour and 45-minutes in between trips. And while the agency’s marketing touts that the new service now “operates continuously from 6:45 am to 6:50 pm” they seem to have jettisoned the first early morning trip and last evening trip of the day, further constricting the span of service. Two steps backwards.

Good Transit Is Simple, Direct, Fast and Frequent

Simple, direct, fast and frequent. That’s the recipe for good transit that people want to ride.

Simple means just that. Riding the bus should be easy to understand. The timetable should either have a simple cadence like 5 minutes past the half hour or should be so frequent so as to not need a timetable. The fare system should be easy. The website and apps should be easy. Keep it simple.

Direct means from here to there in the simplest way possible. Which is also the fastest way. THAT was the old route. Not the meandering mess that is the new route.

And frequent. If the bus doesn’t come along frequently then people don’t trust it. Or want to wait for it. It is deemed just too difficult or unreliable. Coupled with frequency is span of service. If I take the bus one way but it doesn’t come back at night, then what’s the point?

What They Should Have Done

The old Work Force Express was at least simple, direct and fast. All they needed to do was add more frequency and span of service. Three out of four wasn’t so bad. And if officials see a need to serve the communities of Ocean Walk, Las Salinas and Seaside at 3900 South Roosevelt, which is a good idea, perhaps they should have started a separate Work Force Express bus. If it took the same Duck Avenue route to downtown, then the communities of Poinciana Plaza and Arrive apartments and Smurf Village would have twice the service they have now.

We know our friends at Key West Transit are trying to do good. But by trying to do too much or be all things to all people on one route, the new and improved service is no longer simple, direct and fast and is even less frequent than it was before. This was a missed opportunity.

We reached out to Key West Transit officials over a week ago for a response to our inquiries about the additional time the route takes and the changes to the number of trips. At press time we received an updated map of the service but didn’t get a response to the questions.

Transit Could Help Key West Prosper 

Transit and helping everyone move about is a foundational function of municipalities. Especially as not everyone can afford a car to get about and also because our downtown was laid out before cars were invented and we just don’t have the room for everyone to drive everywhere. So, the City, by making it easy to get around by walking, biking AND transit helps its residents and businesses prosper.

For our island’s sake, we need for the City to go back to the drawing board and get this route right.

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For more information on all of Key West Transit’s bus service visit our Getting Around Key West by Bus page. We also have a bike, walk and parking page too.

Chris Hamilton is founder of the local advocacy group Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown. Subscribe to the blog. Follow on Facebook and Twitter. A native of the District of Columbia, where for a couple decades+ he led nationally renowned efforts promoting transit, bike, walk and smart growth for Arlington County, VA’s DOT. Chris has lived in Key West since 2015. He lives car-free downtown and works and volunteers for a few non-profits. You can find all of KONK Life Streets for People column articles here and here.

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