JACKSONVILLE, Fla — For Murray Hill residents relying on public transportation, it has not been a smooth ride to get where they need to go.
They've continued to reach out to First Coast News with their problems. Passengers say it all comes down to one bus route: Jacksonville Transportation Authority's route 15 that was discontinued in September.
At 6:00 p.m. Thursday at Edgewood Avenue Christian Church, a meeting will take place for passengers to speak with JTA officials.
"I spent hundreds of dollars on Ubers and Lyfts just to get to work to teach," said passenger Stephanie Moir. "It's affecting my household financially and how I make decisions and food choices. I live in a food desert. I'm more than a mile from a supermarket with low income, low access."
Moir is one of a group of passengers that met with First Coast News to discuss their problems with route 15. They plan to present a petition at the Thursday meeting to get the route back.
"Seven hundred signatures," said Earl Testy, former president of the residents council at Florida Christian Apartments.
Passengers say getting where they need to go is no longer easy and that they now have to make multiple bus transfers to get to the bus they need and walk farther to reach a bus stop.
"One transfer from the terminal, that's fine," said Rondy Perry, a passenger who uses a wheelchair. "But making two or three changes before you get to the terminal, that's a major inconvenience."
"I had to walk 1.23 miles from Post and Edgewood," said passenger Ann Shaffer.
"You got to walk in a road or in the grass," added passenger Rufus Parks.
JTA officials say there have been 24 logged concerns about route 15 over the last eight months. Chief Operating Officer Charles Frazier says JTA is short about 100 positions, mostly bus operators.
"If route 15 were to come back, it would either take more bus drivers," First Coast News said to Frazier. "Would it take anything you would hear tomorrow night?"
"It's not going to take anything that we hear tomorrow night," Frazier said. "We don't have the bus operators to put them back on the road tomorrow. We would have already done that. What's really important, I think, to understand, though, is we've had very, very good communication over the past several months."
Frazier will be at the meeting Thursday and plans to discuss the expansion of the Woodstock ReadiRide zone, which is north of Murray Hill, and provides on-call transportation.
"We have a lot more flexibility," Frazier said. "So maybe there's an opportunity to add some additional points of interest that are outside of the zone. I've spoken to a couple of riders, they shared their stories. That influences the type of solutions that we put out into the community."
Getting back route 15 is the only answer the group of passengers wants.
"The town hall meeting, I want them to say, 'Okay, we're reinstating bus route 15,'" said Moir. "That's the only answer I want to hear."
Learn more about the Thursday meeting here. A member of the Murray Hill Preservation Association encourages people to come at 5:30 p.m. to sign up to speak.
