FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – People in Florence will soon have another, safer option when waiting for ride to work or school.
“We were happy to move here,” explained PDRTA Executive Director Chuck MacNeil. “It’s much safer for the customers using the buses.”
MacNeil said a new Florence Transit Center coming to the corner of North Irby and West Darlington Streets is an exciting response to an exciting time for the city.
“Downtown Florence has been going through an exciting renaissance in recent years with a lot of infrastructure and improvement in the commercial downtown area,” said MacNeil, who presented the plan for the transit center to the PDRTA board Thursday night.
“Part of that involved us relocating our bus transfer center for all the buses that converge here in downtown Florence,” he explained.
The building, which used to be a car wash and gas station, has already been gutted and will soon be renovated to offer a safer, cleaner place for customers to wait for a bus.
“We’ll put in benches, ceiling fans, flat screen TV’s so customers can get information,” MacNeil detailed. He said before this plan, it wasn’t always easy to catch a ride on a PDRTA bus downtown.
“For many years it had been just on a sidewalk curb area,” said MacNeil. “With customers on the buses in many cases having to cross the street to transfer from one bus to another.”
The new transit center isn’t the only new offering from PDRTA.
“We just started a brand new free downtown shuttle that for four hours everyday is every 15 minutes going around downtown,” said MacNeil. “It connects all the dots.” He said as Florence grows, so does the number of people who use the transit service.
“We have several professionals, college professors, medical professionals that are starting to avail themselves of this service,” he said. Making sure riders keep coming back is top priority.
“Providing upgrades to make it far more comfortable and convenient is certainly a plus for everyone,” said MacNeil.
PDRTA expects the new transit center to open this spring.
