{"id":40065,"date":"2023-12-14T14:22:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T19:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40065"},"modified":"2023-12-14T14:22:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T19:22:43","slug":"the-squeeze-helps-shuttle-people-into-downtown-lakeland-at-lunchtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/14\/the-squeeze-helps-shuttle-people-into-downtown-lakeland-at-lunchtime\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Squeeze’ helps shuttle people into downtown Lakeland at lunchtime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With stops scattered along a strategic route, ‘The Squeeze’ is free to ride and with pickups every six to eight minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 There\u2019s a new transportation option that is helping people squeeze the most out of their lunch break. It\u2019s called “The Squeeze,” <\/a>and it\u2019s designed to give people an easy and free ride downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a top speed of 19.5 mph, “The Squeeze” is an eight-seat golf cart now looping around Lakeland’s downtown area between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The idea? Draw more people into Lakeland\u2019s downtown during the lunch hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that would help a lot on the parking and that. Help the people,\u201d said workers like Jill Leigh, who believes it\u2019s a great idea. Usually, Leigh and lots of others end up paying for parking. That is if they can find a space, which can be tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes you can’t even park there and then you have to find a parking spot. And then if you don’t park in the right spot, then you get a ticket,\u201d Leigh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Squeeze,” with stops scattered along a strategic route, is free to ride and with pickups every six to eight minutes, there\u2019s little if any waiting either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI always have a hard time finding parking. You have to pay for it. If you have that, now, I can just come and have lunch and I don’t have to worry about my car getting a ticket and all that,\u201d said Jennifer Kouromihelakis, another local worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city of Lakeland tried this same idea about a year ago, but it didn\u2019t catch on. This time, the route is more streamlined and closer to parking lots to draw people in from a little farther out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The route also extends to spots like The Joinery, a popular food hall along Lake Mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have seen a significant increase in the amount of on and off traffic from it,\u201d said Jonathan Bucklew, who owns The Joinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bucklew says he and other local business owners are big proponents of the idea and are glad “The Squeeze” is back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is great for Lakeland’s growth in general,\u201d Bucklew said. \u201cI think we need more density downtown. And I think that’s the direction a lot of this is moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While “The Squeeze” is free to ride, it\u2019s not free to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city is paying Citrus Connection about $60,000 a year to run the Monday through Friday lunchtime service. After a few months, they will reevaluate, but it\u2019s an investment the city hopes will bring more business downtown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With stops scattered along a strategic route, ‘The Squeeze’ is free to ride and with pickups every six to eight minutes.  There\u2019s a new transportation option that is helping people… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7024],"class_list":["post-40065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-the-squeeze-helps-shuttle-people-into-downtown-lakeland-at-lunchtime"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}