A new Bonita Beach trolley service will begin Thursday, Nov. 19 and run through Aug. 18 of next year.
The trolley will operate on a 10-stop route along Bonita Beach’s 10 access points, going from Bonita Beach Park to Little Hickory Beach. The adult fare is $1.50 per ride and free for children under 6 years old.
One trolley will run the route that originates from the Publix at The Center of Bonita Springs shopping plaza and makes stops at a frequency of 50 minutes.
“The service would connect the coastal beach area with the center of Bonita Springs,” Lee County Transit Director Dominic Gemelli said.
Route 75, as LeeTran is calling it, will run daily and weekends from 10 a.m. until 8:22 p.m., with the exception of certain holidays which LeeTran does not service overall.
Lee County’s Tourist Development Council unanimously approved a one-time funding request for the trolley during a meeting Thursday. The cost to operate the route in the nine-month timeframe is $381,586.
The new Bonita Beach trolley will operate on identical dates as the Fort Myers Beach tram service.
“The idea is we already do this on Fort Myers Beach in several ways. We do it with a trolley that services the entire beach, so we’re trying to get something similar to what we do on Fort Myers Beach onto Bonita Beach,” Gemelli said.
The decision to have the Bonita Beach trolley run through August, was to allow decisionmakers to gauge the trolley’s performance during the seasonal and non-seasonal months.
That way, LeeTran can decide if it’s worth continuing the service in the future.
“We always wanted to put a service down there, it was just never the right time,” former LeeTran Transit Director Robert Codie said. “Now we have an opportunity with some of the things that are going on in that area to provide our tourism with a boost in that area.”
Passengers will be able to track the trolley’s arrival times and live location through the county’s LeeFare app.
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