Citrus Connection

Today was one of those days that you wish you could restart. The day it self wasn’t bad, I just couldn’t get out of the house with the usual paraphernalia, and I had to ask my lovely wife to drop me off. Keys? Nope! Phone? Ha!

So I work diligently through morning meetings and tours of Blue Sky West. Then I finally get to the part of the day where I am checking email and preparing for my afternoon meetings and I realize that everyone in the office was gone and I still had to make my way from Downtown Lakeland to the USF Poly campus. Remember that my wife had to drop me off?

I call her (1:43)to see if she could just drop everything she was doing to come and shuttle me over to campus, and those crazy kids were asleep. I didn’t’ see another option at this point, so looked up bus routes for the Citrus Connection. I thought to myself, “This is a long shot”. I didn’t think i could get to campus on time with just 40 minutes(1:50) left until my meeting.

I was surprised to find out that i sat nearly equidistant to 2 stops for the Lakeland to Bartow Express. I looked for the later stop time to ensure I could walk there fast enough. I knew this could be close because my scheduled arrival time was 9 minutes (2:21) before my meeting, which would be fine if everything worked. I didn’t think luck would be on my side today. So I left the locked up office (and no keys) with a hope and a prayer. I arrived at the stop 5 minutes (2:00) before the scheduled arrival of 2:05. I whistle and sing to pass the time, as my concern grew as the 5 minutes became 3 and 1 minute; the bus was nowhere in sight. The clock ticked 2:05 and I looked up and saw the bus round the corner. I thought, “ Wow, this is to good to be true.â€�

So I boarded the bus set to ride to campus, with my backpack and thermal mug. The cost was a mere$1.25, but its an automated payment machine, with no change available. So my ride cost me $2, since all I had was a couple $1 bills.

As I sat down I noticed that there was sign claiming free wifi available.  Sweet. I popped open the laptop and was surfing in just a few moments. I am aware of the dangers of open access networks so I didn’t do anything secure, but I did check a couple of emails on the way to campus. It was a Great use of my Time. There was just 1 stop between the downtown Park and stop and the USF/PCC campus, at Grove Park Shopping Center; but nobody responded when the bus driver announced the stop and we kept chugging down Bartow Hwy.

We arrived on campus, just steps away from the LTB early at 2:19, so I had plenty of time to walk to the 2nd story and stop by our the office of our Blue Sky on-campus team members.

Over all my bus ride went extremely well. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised and honestly I am planning to use it again as I have on campus meetings. But I don’t know about the system as a whole, and will be exploring its use as interest and need arises.

This will likely be the first in series of posts about local mass transit needs, challenges and potential improvements. So stay tuned!

Author: Aaron J Bates

Tags: Bus, Citrus Connection, Mass Transit