St. Petersburg Transportation Guide: SunRunner, Looper, Parking, Airports and the Skyway

St. Petersburg has four car-free options run or backed by the city and PSTA: PSTA buses, the SunRunner rapid bus to St. Pete Beach, the free Downtown Looper, and Lime bike share with Spin e-scooters downtown.

PSTA operates 41 fixed-route bus routes, and two of them are express routes connecting to downtown Tampa (City of St. Petersburg, Transportation Options). Downtown St. Pete bike share runs through Lime, which rents a Gen4 e-bike through its app, and the city lists Spin as its e-scooter app. The same page groups the CityTrails network of bike lanes, routes and recreational trails, and links a Transportation GIS map that shows speed limits, proposed crosswalk locations and truck routes across St. Petersburg.

Two trolley services complement the buses. The Downtown Looper circles the core, and the Central Avenue Trolley runs along Central Avenue from the Pier parking lots in downtown St. Pete out to Pass-A-Grille on St. Pete Beach (City of St. Petersburg, Parking Information). St. Pete hosts more than 1,000 downtown events a year, and the city says many of them feature free shuttle service on the St. Petersburg Trolley between parking and the event.

The St. Petersburg transportation section has three deeper guides: the St. Petersburg airports guide, the I-275 through St. Petersburg guide and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge guide. This hub covers buses, the Looper, parking and the questions that sit between those three.

The SunRunner is a cashless PSTA rapid bus from downtown St. Pete to South Pasadena and St. Pete Beach, every 15 minutes by day and every 30 in the evening, at $2.25 a ride in the first of two PSTA fare tables.

The city calls the SunRunner Tampa Bay's very first Bus Rapid Transit project; it opened for operation in 2022 with limited stops and semi-exclusive lanes (City of St. Petersburg, SunRunner Project). Its stations sit on both 1st Ave. N. and 1st Ave. S., and the Bus and Turn lane is the left-most lane on the 1st Avenues; the city project page still describes both in construction-era terms, as stations being built and lanes to be added. Building the line moved bike lanes onto Central Ave. between 58th Street and 34th Street, while east of 34th St. they stay on the 1st Avenues.

Cash is not accepted on the SunRunner, though it works on every other PSTA route (PSTA, Fares). Riders use a Flamingo Fares card or app, or tap a tap-enabled credit card, debit card or digital wallet. In the first PSTA table for Flamingo Fares and tap-to-pay, regular fares are capped at $5 a day and $85 a calendar month, and the reduced fare for seniors 65 and over, riders with disabilities and eligible students is $1.10 a ride with a $2.50 daily cap and a $42.50 monthly cap. Children 8 and under ride free, Pinellas County public school students ride free with ID, and USF, SPC and PTC students ride free with a student ID.

One caution on the PSTA fares page: as checked October 18, 2026, it shows two different Flamingo Fares and tap-to-pay tables (PSTA fares page).

The page does not explain the second table, so a St. Petersburg rider who sees a charge above $2.25 should ask a PSTA Customer Service Center, which is also where reduced-fare cards are registered, up to three per customer.

The Downtown Looper runs free around downtown St. Petersburg every 15 to 20 minutes, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday to Friday and from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

PSTA runs the Looper seven days a week and says its route covers the Dali Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, the Mahaffey Theatre and the Saturday Morning Market, the James Museum and the Florida Holocaust Museum, the St. Pete Pier and the History Museum, Sundial and the Central Avenue restaurant blocks (PSTA, Downtown Looper). The clockwise timetable is built around three timed points: 6th Ave S and 6th St S, 1st St S at the stadium, and Bayshore and 2nd Ave N. The first clockwise trip leaves 6th Ave S at 7:00 a.m., reaches 1st St S at 7:12 a.m. and Bayshore at 7:18 a.m., on a timetable PSTA labels Monday to Sunday even though its stated weekend service hours begin at 8:00 a.m.

The city describes the Looper and the Central Avenue Trolley together as a complimentary ride for seeing St. Pete car-free (City of St. Petersburg, Transportation Options). For a visitor who parks once in a downtown garage, the Looper covers the Beach Drive and Pier side of the city, and the Central Avenue Trolley carries on from the Pier parking lots to Pass-A-Grille on St. Pete Beach (City of St. Petersburg, Parking Information).

St. Petersburg on-street meters charge $1 to $1.50 an hour, the city SouthCore Garage downtown charges $2 an hour up to $16 a day on its main rate listing, and enforcement hours vary by meter, so the meter itself is the rule to read.

Meters take a credit card or coins, or a ParkMobile session; ParkMobile adds $0.35 per transaction, or a frequent-user plan of $1.75 a month plus $0.25 per transaction, and its toll-free line is 1-877-727-5714 (City of St. Petersburg, Parking Information). Street parking in St. Pete falls into four kinds: metered, time-limited, residential permit only, and free where no sign is posted.

Two details from the city parking page help on a busy St. Pete Saturday. The SouthCore Garage opens floors 3, 4, 7 and 8 to visitors, puts accessible spaces beside the elevators on every level and has electric vehicle charging on level 7. And the $5 Saturday morning entry rate at SouthCore runs only from October to May, so a St. Pete visitor arriving on a summer Saturday pays the hourly rate instead. The same city page also answers an accessible-parking question with a different SouthCore rate, $1.00 per hour with a $9.00 daily maximum and the garage open 24/7, and does not say which figure is current (City of St. Petersburg, Parking Information).

Airline flights for St. Petersburg leave from St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport (PIE), 4 miles north of the city, or from Tampa International Airport, while the city's own Albert Whitted Airport downtown has no airline service.

PIE sits on State Route 686 (Roosevelt Blvd.) at 14700 Terminal Blvd., Clearwater, and answers airport questions at (727) 453-7800; its directions page also notes that the Gateway Expressway toll road is now open (St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport, Directions). PIE airlines fly nonstop to and from over 60 cities, with Allegiant listed among its domestic carriers and charter packages to Gulfport-Biloxi flown by Sun Country (PIE, Airlines).

Albert Whitted Airport, at 107 8th Ave SE on the edge of downtown St. Petersburg (727-893-7654), is a general aviation field with fueling, storage, flight training, charters and sightseeing tours, and it supports Civil Air Patrol and medical transport flights (City of St. Petersburg, Albert Whitted Airport). It has two runways, 7/25 at 3,676 feet and 18/36 at 2,864 feet, and its control tower works 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The city page sends airline travelers to PIE or to Tampa International Airport at (813) 870-8700. The St. Petersburg airports guide covers PIE services, airport parking and Albert Whitted in more detail.

A car crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge on I-275 pays $1.16 with SunPass or $1.62 by Toll-By-Plate, under FDOT toll rates effective April 12, 2026, and a $3.1 million maintenance job is expected to begin in Fall 2026 and be complete in Fall 2027.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which the rate sheet places in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties, has two all-electronic toll plazas, a north plaza and a south plaza, and the same rate applies at each (Florida Turnpike Enterprise, FDOT toll rates).

FDOT District Seven lists project 445829-1-52-01 as routine maintenance on 4.2 miles of the Sunshine Skyway in St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, at a construction cost of $3.1 million, starting Fall 2026 with estimated completion Fall 2027, by M & J Construction Company (FDOT District Seven, Sunshine Skyway maintenance). The scope is new protective coatings on the median and traffic barriers plus new expansion joints along the median slab, which FDOT says will improve durability and extend the life of the structure. As checked October 18, 2026, the FDOT page said there were no closures at that time, so St. Pete drivers should check it again before a planned crossing.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge guide covers the bridge, its tolls, work alerts, the original bridge and the old spans, and the I-275 through St. Petersburg guide covers the interstate north to the Howard Frankland Bridge and the express lanes.

Three St. Petersburg transportation guides go deeper than this hub: the airports guide, the I-275 guide and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge guide.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the City of St. Petersburg transportation, parking and airport pages, the PSTA fares and Looper pages, FDOT District Seven and the St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport website. The PSTA fares page carries two fare tables and the city parking page two SouthCore rates, so those two pages are the ones to recheck before a St. Pete trip (City of St. Petersburg).