After nearly seven years of taxpayer-subsidized golf cart rides around town, St. Pete Beach officials have quietly pulled the plug on the Freebee on-demand shuttle service — no formal vote, no public fanfare, just an acknowledgment that the money isn’t there anymore.

City commissioners said at last week’s meeting that St. Pete Beach is still digging out financially from the 2024 hurricanes, and the free shuttle service was an obvious place to start trimming the budget. The service has run since 2019, when it replaced Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority buses and trolleys that once carried riders into Pass-a-Grille.

Notably, the decision to end the service wasn’t put to a formal vote, raising questions about how much public input factored into cutting a program residents and tourists had relied on for nearly seven years.

The shuttle isn’t the only free ride in jeopardy. PSTA is weighing whether to cut Route 90, the bus line connecting the beach to the mainland. For now, PSTA says that route will survive through the end of the year while staff reviews ridership numbers and cost per rider—the kind of scrutiny critics say should have applied to Freebee long before taxpayers footed the bill for seven years running.

With storm recovery costs still weighing on the city’s books, officials appear to be facing a reality that’s played out in municipal budgets across Florida since 2024: subsidized convenience services are often the first casualties when the bills come due, and the question now is whether other feel-good spending items will get the same overdue scrutiny.

Follow the St. Pete-Clearwater Sun on Facebook, Google, & X

St. Pete-Clearwater Sun: local St. Pete-Clearwater & Tampa Bay, FL news at PIE-Sun.com