West Palm Beach’s new transit service plans to start operating in early September, marking the beginning of the city’s latest effort to transform how people move around the city.
West Palm Move will begin rolling Tuesday, Sept. 8 as a fixed-route service, with an on-demand service beginning the following week, city administrators said.
The initial fixed route will run mini-buses from the Norton Museum of Art on the city’s south side through downtown to the Northwood Village commercial district on the north end. The locations of stops along the route has not yet been released.
Travelers can use the buses for a $1 fee per trip, paid through a cell phone app. The company operating the service, Via, is required by its contract with the city to keep
wait times below 10 minutes.
West Palm Move’s on-demand service is scheduled to begin Tuesday, Sept. 15, city spokesperson Kathleen Joy said.
The on-demand service is an Uber-style service that uses smaller vehicles to ferry people from their locations to the nearest fixed-route stop.
The on-demand component will serve anyone in the city east of Interstate 95 and will cost $2. Wait times for the service are intended to be no more than 15 minutes.
The September start dates are a “soft launch” for the service, Jessica Keller, the city’s parking and mobility administrator, told city commissioners during an Aug. 24 briefing. The city is planning a more formal launch in November.
When the service kicks off in September, Via plans to have “ambassadors” accompanying drivers on their routes to help people navigate the new system and the phone app.
The service will run seven days a week.
The fixed-route service will operate Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. It will run 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
The on-demand service will run seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The service’s hours of operation are expected to expand to midnight after a year. The city also plans to add an east-west route along Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.
For more information, visit the city's website here.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm Move, the city’s new transit service, now has a start date
