ConChaCo! Together We Go Forward!

1 day to #ConChaCo

#20 Bus Northbound at Market St. & Meeting

Note- This is the fifth of five public statements to be issued by Best Friends of Public Transit, Inc. (501c3) to prepare the community for Saturday’s ConChaCo event, a Charleston City Wide Transit Focused Festival along the #20 Upper King / Meeting Bus line linking the Farmer’s Market, Awakening Motion, The Greek Festival, the ConChaCo Pub Crawl & Restaurant Hop and the Night Market. Full information can be found in this previous media release. The Statements will be titled by our organization’s Motto: Together We Go Forward & ConChaCo and will announce a 6 pm event each day to help create better transit in the Lowcountry. Friday’s word is “#ConChaCo!”

Media should monitor the hashtag #ConChaCo for further updates on the event. We’ll also be updating our Facebook page at www.BFLTransit.com online.  Load The Transit App on your smartphone now and get control of your transit experience.

Friday Reminder- ConChaCo press Conference with the Executive Director of Americans for Transit at 10 am at Charleston’s Main Library on Friday morning.  ConChaCo kickoff party at the Greek Festival starting at 6:30 pm

Together, We Go Forward. CARTA has promised to send as many buses as we can fill Saturday. We’re going to try to fill all the buses they can send until the #20 grows from a sleepy neighborhood bus route to a mighty urban backbone of public mobilty that links the Holy City North and South. The critical time is in the morning when we need to fill buses to standing room only status to get CARTA to send more. Let’s grow until we can really go with fast, frequent service. You’ll find brand new benches at many of the bus stops on the line thanks to the new Charleston City Transportation director Keith Benjamin.

ConChaCo is a cooperative effort of people, organizations and businesses along the three mile #20 bus route, running from Joseph Floyd Manor on Mt. Pleasant Street to Broad Street in our tourism district along King & Meeting Streets. Over 30 different organizations and businesses are involved.  Today they’re at all sorts of different levels of understanding in our confused and busy community but they’ll come together Saturday when the #20 starts running, just like Transit helps our community come together every day. Use the Transit app to track the bus. The additional pusher buses CARTA may add to the route won’t be on the printed schedule, but they’ll be displayed in real time on the app.

Here are some pointers to make your #ConChaCo move you forward.

Emblem design by RustinJones

Park all day in the new HOP lot for five dollars and take the free HOP bus to ConChaCo.  Park on Morrison Drive and the HOP bus will take you directly to the Charleston Visitor’s Center where you can visit the Free Best Friend Museum and get on the 20 to reach all the ConChaCo activities. https://www.ridecarta.com/route/7-hop-shuttle/  You can find and monitor ETAs for the HOP on the Transit app

Watch #ConChaCo on Twitter. Paper can’t keep up with everything that is happening. People were joining the ConChaCo effort yesterday and that’s going to continue through to Saturday night. Look for special offers and events up and down the bus line.  We’ll update everyone about what’s happening using the hashtag. Update us and everyone else when you make a ConChaCo distovery.

Go Greek for free. We’ll have free specially marked admission tickets to the Greek Festival at our Information tent in the Food Lion Parking lot at the Corner of Grove Street and King (Next to Scott’s BBQ), Every 48^th person entering the festival with one of these tickets wins a free Greek Dinner made by the ladies of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. #20 Stop is Congress Street, just follow the sound of the music on block South and West.

Gift Baskets at the Night Market- Some people going to the Night Market will receive special gift baskets from the vendors there. #20 stop Market Steet.

CARTA Kino at the Recovery Room- Get tickets and bet on when the next CARTA bus will pass Charleston’s Iconic Local Dive bar which sells more PBR than any other bar in the Western Hemisphere. Ring your red cow bell when you see the bus coming. We did one round last night and a lucky patron won a plate of chicken wings and bragging rights. The Bus passed about 2 minutes after it’s scheduled stop, but on Saturday additional, unscheduled “pusher buses” many be running. #20 stop is Line St. Learn how to play CARTA Kino.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xxo--lzlg5XwdRygCfuEk4v1nYVnPoWV/view?usp=sharing

Keep your powder dry. Charelston’s oldest public building, the Powder Magazine, will upgrade your regular Saturday paid admission to a year long membership if you mention ConChaCo on Saturday. One lucky visitor will win a drawing for a school group guided tour of the museum. #20 stop in Chalmer’s St.

Bike for a year for $5.  Holy Spokes will be selling year long bike share system limited memberships to income qualified people for five dollars Saturday and regular memberships as well. They’re going to be set up right next to our information center at King and Grove Street. #20 Bus Stop, Grove.

Charleston Electric Streetcar Token, ca 1911

Support our F&B Workers by filling out a F&B support card. You’ll find red “Fair Boxes” along the bus route. Fill out one of our support CARDS asking for better parking and transit for F&B Workers and we’ll take them to the Mayor and CARTA Board. All the pubs and restaurants on the Pub Crawl and our information center will have cards and fair boxes. (they’re actually sort of pink, but that’s what you get when you buy stuff on Amazon.

Get a Best Friend of Charleston ConChaCotail at South Seas Oasis during the pub crawl. It’s supposed to be based on our famous railroad locomotive and like the locomotive it has a lot of fire in it’s boiler mixed with a little water. Be careful, too many Best Friends and you might blow up like the historic engine did. It’s a powerful drink.

ConChaCo Buttons Each on is Different

Make a ConChaCo button at our information center. Color your own unique ConChaCo button and we'll use our button press to turn it into a memento of the first ConChaCo festival. We'll have the button blanks and materials you need at our information center at Grove and King Streets from nine to five pm.  We'll also have Bus to Beach button blanks and many other options.

Ride the Bus- Everything depends on having a huge amount of people ride the #20 bus. The more people we get on board, the more buses CARTA will send and more often the buses will come. Once that happenes, more people that will be able to ride and CARTA will send more buses. Let’s show each other how we can build up transit from a sad necessity to a powerful force that can liberate Charleston from traffic congestion and open the way to construction of the Bus Rapid Transit line to the Tech Neck, N. Charleston, Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville. The bus is up to us and it works faster and better when Charleston uses it.

Remember to ConChaCo when you see friends at the stops or on the bus. It’s a fist bump and a hearty ConChaCo!. It’s the official greeting or our Transit focused festival.

For more information contact Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or call (843) 870-5299. Leaving comments on obscure corners of Facebook won't get it done. We don't believe in texting either.