Citrus Connection to launch downtown golf cart service in Lake Wales

Lake Wales residents need not know a 3-wood from a putter to hitch a ride on a newly arriving golf cart.

Citrus Connection is launching a lunchtime service on the low-speed vehicles that will circulate among downtown restaurants and shops.

The Squeeze, which begins Monday, replicates a specialized service the mass-transit agency introduced in Lakeland three years ago. The “microtransit” offering will run between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on a 12-minute loop, according to Citrus Connection, Polk County’s public transportation operator.

The eight-passenger cart will pick up and release passengers at seven locations.

The Lake Wales Community Redevelopment Agency has agreed to spend about $112,000 for the first year of service, which includes the purchase of two golf carts and the cost of operator training. The cost will drop to approximately $75,000 is subsequent years, said Eric Marshall, a spokesman for the city.

The Squeeze is the only public transit golf cart system in the country, said Tom Phillips, executive director of Citrus Connection. The agency started the lunchtime service in Lakeland in 2021, and the initial launch did not do particularly well, Phillips acknowledged.

After some adjustments, the Squeeze caught on with workers and others in downtown Lakeland, and the service is now averaging 400 to 500 riders a week, Phillips said. The Lakeland Downtown Development Authority covers the cost.

The introduction in Lake Wales marks the second launch of a transportation service in less than a year. In October, Citrus Connection started running a “circulator” bus six days a week, collecting riders in the Northwest neighborhood and making stops at shopping centers and a health department office.

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That service emerged from a finding that Northwest residents had high rates of food insecurity and health inequity, partly because of limited transportation. Ridership on the circulator bus has far exceeded expectations, Phillips said.

“And then, all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Well, we want the Squeeze, too,’” Phillips said. “And then six weeks later, we're in front of the CRA, and they're funding the Squeeze. So it's really cool that, of all the communities in Polk County, they're managing growth the best through transit, for sure.”

Lake Wales will own the two golf carts, which are gas-powered, though Citrus Connection is exploring electric options, Phillips said. The vehicles are legal to travel on any Florida road with a speed limit of 35 mph or less.

Citrus Connection encourages those at the wheel of the golf carts to do more than simply drive, assuming the roles of tour guides, Phillips said. Drivers in Lakeland have become deeply familiar with restaurants and shops near the downtown route, allowing them to answer questions or dispense information to riders about menus and business details, along with doses of local history.

“In a way, they'll kind of be like a mini Chamber of Commerce on wheels,” Phillips said. “Because that's one of the things that we learned from the lunch Squeeze and the dinner Squeeze and the special events Squeeze in Lakeland is, you have to be like a carnival barker and solicit rides.”

All drivers undergo background checks and drug screenings, Phillips said.

“The majority of the people that ride the lunch Squeeze in Lakeland could walk,” he said. “They're choosing to ride the Squeeze because it's fun and they like the drivers.”

The golf carts are not accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Phillips said, but Citrus Connection will have a van with a wheelchair lift ready in Lake Wales for anyone unable to use the Squeeze service.

The golf carts will not run during rain or other inclement weather.

During a presentation last week at a Lake Wales City Commission workshop, Erin Killebrew-Kinlaw of Citrus Connection said the city’s ridership numbers are encouraging. From November 2022 through March 2024, the agency counted nearly 34,000 boardings from bus stops in Lake Wales.

Citrus Connection operates four routes in the city, after discontinuing another that traveled to the Polk County Jail in Frostproof, said Killebrew-Kinlaw, the agency’s director of external affairs.

In addition, the circulator has averaged about 700 riders in its first six months.

The cost to Lake Wales for Citrus Connection service rose from about $143,000 a year to about $173,000 with the addition of the circulator bus.

Meanwhile, Phillips said that he anticipates further expansion of the Squeeze service. Officials in Winter Haven and Bartow have expressed interest in adopting golf cart routes, likely to be paid for through CRA funds, he said.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Citrus Connection launches downtown golf cart route in Lake Wales