MOUNT DORA, Fla. – As Mount Dora continues to grow and welcome more visitors, city leaders are looking into a shuttle service to help alleviate parking headaches in the historic downtown area.
Mayor Crissy Stile said discussions about a possible shuttle service began a few months ago.
“Between the amount of people that live here, and love coming downtown, and the amount of people that come here from other parts of Florida and really the world, this is just going to make it so much easier,” Stile said.
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Henry Ollendick owns Papilio in Downtown Mount Dora. He said he is favor of the idea because the lack of parking can make it challenging for people who need to quickly run in to their favorite shops.
“I think it’s much needed,” Ollendick said. “I think it’s a great idea. For years we have been talking about parking solutions in Downtown Mount Dora. So I think this is definitely a step forward to solve start solving that issue.”
Mayor Crissy Stile said the shuttle service would run on an 8 to 10 minute loop picking people up from parking lots near Downtown Mount Dora.
Visitors like Linda Harill from South Carolina said she and her friends had a hard time parking on Friday and would definitely use the shuttle service.
“There was so much traffic it’s hard to do parallel parking because you have to pull out to back in and there’s all kinds of cars and you’re stopping traffic so it’s a little awkward,” Harill said.
The city has tried a shuttle service in the past, but the mayor said it didn’t quite check all the city’s boxes.
“It lasted a few months and decided it just wasn’t working for what we had, what we planned, what we really need in the city,” Stile said.
Should the city find a shuttle service that checks all the boxes, they anticipate it could be up and running by this fall.
The City Council will discuss the details of the request for proposal at its next meeting.
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