Marion Transit Center — Local services in Tampa

Whew where to begin. I have read many of the reviews and I would like to say that its very disappointing reading what appears to be the same issues from 6 years ago. What's more angering is that almost each of the issues that were being faced then has been experienced by myself or my wife. I can write all the angering moments that we have faced in the last 2 months to just last week as I have made many calls, spoken to the many operators, supervisors, promised emails (I no longer hold my breath), speaking to field supervisors out along the many routes. I can be a very negative and rude person among throughout this post, but I chose to just say that the issues lie among everyone in charge. Not the Hartline officials, but the officials that have never driven a bus throughout Tampa Bay witnessing the children going to school early in the morning, the young man that is headed out to the construction site to work, as well as the young lady that is heading into the office for her day as a medical assistant. I believe the vary political officials that we vote for have forgotten who they serve. We are in troubling times and the one thing we don't need is for the trouble to continue. We don't need to continue to ride disgusting buses daily. We don't need to feel unsafe at the the transit centers. We don't need to have drivers on their jobs consistently arriving late as we may have to depend on them to get to our jobs. We don't need the outdated software which is being used to service its customers. We don't need limited routes and times for public service. As you see the list goes on and on. I will close by saying we (my wife and I)lost our primary mode of transportation and since then we have had to resort to public transit as our primary mode of getting to our jobs. Please make me aware of the times and dates of future meetings so I may attend and make my...

The transit station looks beat up and people smoke here. I didn't know smoking at bus stations was allowed in FL. There is no bathrooms to use so just hope for the best.

Let's talk about the Flamingo card so you know what to do when you're getting one for the first time, unlike me since I'm visiting. (this is from my experience in July 2025). The guy in the station service window didn't explain it to me very well or mentioned that it was going to fare cap at $4 each day. If he asked me how long I was staying for then we could have calculated this better and such. Ugh

The card itself is $3 and then you'll have to add money onto it to make it work. Like buying a car without the gas then buy gas to make the car drive. The HART busses in Tampa cost $2 to ride and then it fare caps at $4 into a day pass so you won't pay more than $4 in a day on any bus route. If I am explaining this correctly.

If you're staying for 5 days then just buy the pass for $3 and then add $20 onto it then you should be good for the remainder of your time in those 5 days ($23 all spent). Now I have $19 on this card and I am back in my home state not able to use this again until next year.

Why can't all U.S. Public transit systems use the same smart card system? Like how we can use AMEX, Mastercard, and Visa at most stores? But those cards don't fare cap and you're paying $2 each time you're on a...

THE WORST BUS STATION EVER! I felt very unsafe because there were a lot of homeless people and drug addicts. People were selling very strange things there with their suitcases, it seemed like drugs idk, small potions of liquids. The whole bus station was very dirty and nowhere were there any exact instructions where a certain bus should go, not even on the bus ticket. Didn't see any security guards or employees there either. I didn't even go to the toilet, because if it was already dirty outside, I don't want to know what it was like on the inside. The only good thing was that our bus arrived on time, but of course it was blocked by some drunken people shouting.

It is very sad to see that people have to live there like this, but would it be possible for the bus station to still remain a...