Can you be disappointed with poor service when you expect to pay nothing for that service?
On Monday, July 10, I took my Corolla to Sheehy Toyota for 30,000-mile maintenance and a state inspection. BTW, Sheehy provides excellent service. Because the work would take over 2 hours, I decided to run the five miles home and figure out how to return later in the day.
In April 2023, Fred Transit rebranded to FXBGO. I decided to see if I could use public transportation to save a few bucks over Uber or a taxi. With temps in the 80s, running back in the middle of the day was not one of my options.
I googled FXBGO, which did not search autofill. The resulting page did list the Fred Transit page. The Fred Transit webpage is hosted on the City of Fredericksburg domain with a link to FXBGO! Website, which is also a page on the City of Fredericksburg domain.
There were no service warnings on the site other than “no buses on Labor Day.”
The route map was not large enough online. So, I downloaded the .pdf map with color-coded routes that were hard to follow. So, I started picking routes from the possibilities.
I found the route in southern Stafford that stops within 200 feet of my house. It made a large loop around the south part of the county and eventually made it to the train station. Not an option.
I found the route (F2) from Fred Central (or is that FXBGO Central?) south on Emancipation Highway. It ran hourly, leaving on the half hour. Now I had to find out how to get to Fred Central.
Route F4 runs hourly, leaving the train station at 8 minutes after the hour. It gets to Fred Central in time to make the connection to F2. All I needed to do was walk downtown and be on the corner of William and Caroline by 4 minutes after an hour.
Now for the best part, it is free to ride FXBGO.
I received a call from Sheehy around noon that my car was ready, and I headed out at 12:45 across the Chatham Bridge. I arrived at the bus stop by 1:04 pm.
At least there was a tree with shade at the bus stop. By 1:25, a bus had not arrived. I walked around the corner to William Street and booked an Uber.
The Uber arrived around 1:40, and the bus still had not arrived. $13 got me to Sheehy by 1:55. $0 would have given me a better tan.
When I got home, I went on the FXBGO website, still without any service issue warnings. I wondered if I missed something like the bus ran every 2 hours.
There was an option to subscribe to a tracking service for $35 per year and a free alternative to get Fredericksburg alerts. I subscribed to the latter. I have yet to receive any alerts.
On Tuesday, I called the customer service number. I talked to a person within 15 seconds. I asked, “What happened with the F4 bus yesterday?”
The nice lady told me, “The bus was running 30 minutes late because of road construction. And they are running late again today.” (Or were they 30 minutes early?)
I may try again. I won’t depend on FXBGO when I’m in a time crunch.