Do the shuttle
Service aims to get out-of-town workers to jobs in Port Aransas
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

A Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) shuttle designed to move workers between the ferry landing and their job sites will soon join other transportation in Port Aransas if city council members approve the concept tonight, Thursday, June 21.

The RTA proposed operating the shuttle on a test basis from "as soon as we can get it running" through Labor Day, RTA operations director David Siler told the council earlier this year. The Planning and Zoning Commission had already given the shuttle its blessing.

Siler estimated the shuttle could be on the streets sometime in mid to late July, although some council members expressed skepticism that a bus route could be put together that quickly.

The shuttle would carry workers who ride the ferries as pedestrians from the landing through Port Aransas and out State Hwy. 361, with frequent stops, as the plan was outlined. Exact routes and numbers of stops haven't yet been worked out, Siler said.

Port Aransas would find a driver and pay him, but the RTA would reimburse the city for the driver's salary, under the agreement. That's the same agreement has with the RTA for the trolley that circulates through town and the Flexi-B bus that takes passengers to Corpus Christi on an irregular schedule.

Siler foresaw the trial run of the employer shuttle being free, but he told the planning commission, "I should also mention the dreaded F-word - fares." Siler said the RTA board of directors would probably want to charge a 25-cent fee for it also.

Like the RTA's "bus 65," which runs from Corpus Christi to Port Aransas, the ferry shuttle would be seasonal, aiming at workers who need to come to the job site during the busy summer season.

The Corpus Christi-Port Aransas route begins at the South Side station near Airline Street and South Padre Island Drive, comes out South Padre Island Drive to Padre Island and turns north on State Hwy. 361, ending at 11th Street and Beach Access Road 1A. It makes one run in the morning and one in the afternoon, leaving Corpus Christi at 8 a.m. and at 3:20 p.m. and departing Port Aransas at 9:10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

It makes northbound stops at the Flour Bluff station and at the Holiday Inn and Port Royal on State Hwy. 361. Southbound, the morning route stops only at the Holiday Inn and Flour Bluff; the afternoon bus stops also at Port Royal.