LAKELAND —  Lakeland residents and visitors will be able to hop a ride on the city's downtown golf carts this weekend without fumbling with their phones. 

Citrus Connection, Polk's public transportation agency, voted Wednesday to make rides on the downtown microtransit system, dubbed The Squeeze, available free of charge starting Friday. The service operates Fridays and Saturdays from 4 to 11 p.m. 

"The Squeeze ridership is extremely high," said Tom Phillips, executive director of Citrus Connection. "It's quickly becoming one of our most popular routes outside of the Gold Line and the medical corridor."

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The downtown circulator featuring eight-passenger golf carts was launched as a one-year pilot program in November. It was aimed at attracting new riders to public transit, by expanding the definition of public transportation beyond large buses crisscrossing the city.

The Squeeze averages about 150 to 250 riders per night, according to Phillips, with many repeat passengers from the Lake Morton neighborhood. This success isn't adding up at the fare box. 

"There is a barrier to access with the fares, and some people are not riding as they are concerned about the fares," Phillips told the board of directors. 

Citrus Connection was asking passengers to pay $2 per unlimited rides per day, or $3 per week to ride The Squeeze. A monthly pass cost $9. 

Despite the low cost of a ticket, the agency was having a difficult time collecting fares. Monthly revenues for the service ranged from $22 in December 2021 to a high of $181 in January. Higher sales of $1,400 in October were bulk purchases of wooden tokens by area hotels to provide guests with a free ride, Phillips said.

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The total fare revenue of less than $3,000 covers only a fraction of the service's estimated $382,000 annual cost for fiscal year 2023.

Phillips said the problem with collecting fares stemmed from community members having trouble downloading the app.

"We want people to ride The Squeeze. It was taking the entire ride to figure out how to download the app," he said. 

The transit agency's board will stop charging a fare for the service. Instead, it will look to make up part of the expenses by selling wrap-around advertising on the golf carts to local businesses. Philips gave "Follow this cart to Harry's" citing Harry's Seafood Bar & Grille as a potential advertiser. 

"The amount of money we can bring in on advertising revenue with a proven model can dwarf the numbers we are seeing in fares," Phillips said. 

Citrus Connection also will beef up The Squeeze's service by partnering with the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority to provide public transit on the nights of downtown's special events. 

This past weekend, The Squeeze ran for additional hours to help visitors get to and from the annual Mayfaire-by-the-Lake arts festival. Phillips said the agency will run the golf carts during the following events: 

"It represents a significant increase from what we are currently doing," Phillips said. 

The LDDA will be going through a list of 34 events it hosts downtown each year and ranking them, based in part on the anticipated attendance, to help determine which 17 days The Squeeze will operate.  

Polk County Commissioner George Lindsey asked whether the golf carts would be used to provide a ride to and from specific parking lots for special events, or general transit. Phillips said The Squeeze would be operated as close to its regular route as possible with minor modification for road closures as necessary. 

"This is public transit, we want to provide public access to an event," he said. "If parking shuttles are needed, it's the responsibility of who is hosting." 

The Squeeze's looped route endpoint is at the RP Funding Center, 701 W. Lime Street. It goes east passing through the downtown area before circling around Lake Mirror. The golf carts then head south along Tennessee Avenue to the southern edge of Lake Morton, where there are stops on Palmetto Street, Ingraham Avenue, Frank Lloyd Wright Way and Success Avenue before returning to the downtown area.

The Squeeze will become the city's first free public transit since the downtown trolley that ran from 1999 to September 2007. Phillips said he doesn't expect the golf carts to become more attractive to the city's homeless population now that it's free to use. 

Longtime Lakeland residents will remember the homeless population became an issue with the trolley, as the fully enclosed and air conditioned space became a shelter on wheels. Philips said the golf carts are not enclosed or protected from the elements, so he doesn't anticipate the same problems. 

Lakeland Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley, who chairs Citrus Connection's board, asked the transit agency's staff to keep an eye out for possible cuing problems now that the service is free. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. 

"I would not want to see a late night brawl over who got to a stop first," McCarley said. 

The City of Winter Haven has started conversations with Citrus Connection about developing a service similar to The Squeeze for its downtown area, Phillips said. The city's interested in providing tourists at Legoland and nearby hotels an easy way to get downtown for food, dining and special events.  

Phillips said his staff is meeting with community stakeholders to assess their needs and put forth a proposal for a Winter Haven microtransit route at the next City Commission meeting on May 23. 

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on Twitter @SaraWalshFl.