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| Bus to the Beach at IOP stop |
Official Map & Schedule
Load the transit app on your phone so you can track the bus.
You can reach the Beach Reach Shuttle and Isle of Palms from other places on the CARTA system using regular CARTA bus lines. Trips are faster with fewer and shorter layovers at connections on Saturday, but the shuttle itself is scheduled for an immediate connection with the Mt. Pleasant #40 and Hungryneck N. 17 #42 at the mainland stop of Market Center Drive, on the round-a-bout between Lowes and Mt. Pleasant Town Center. Here is the trip from downtown Charleston, Mary Street Transit Center on the 40 for Saturday Morning and from CARTA Superstop in N. Charleston. Make sure to collect your transfer.
Beach Reach Shuttle Service will start on Memorial weekend. Best Friends celebrated on a rather rainy beach when Pirate Queen Ruby opened the ocean by throwing the Key to the Sea into the Waves. She also inducted "Queen Cookie" as an honorary Lady in Raiding right on the damp, grey beach. Pirates can beach in the rain. Our summer long participator pirate drama is woven into the effort to increase ridership on the Bus to the Beach, but headed to other, fantastic places as well. Read the story. Choose a side. Play your pirate part and enjoy the beach in a new way where you obsess our Pirating instead of Parking.
Veterans from across the Lowcountry will begin the Independence Day Holiday period by helping each other and the community reach the beach at the Isle of Palms See the Eventbrite ticket sign up for guided rides originating near where you live. We’ll have experienced transit riders working as guides from veterans facilities in inland areas. On the Isle of Palms, veterans will be welcomed at the VFW Post 3137, the Post on the Coast, with it’s wonderful oceanfront deck and view. To Reach the VFW Post see vfwpost3137.org
Read the legend of Queen Ruby of the Pirates, her Ladies in Raiding and the voyage of the Jeweled Princess. The drama of their struggle to remain free and powerful as they contend with the King's guard and the vicious gang of Pirate Anderson will unfold across the Lowcountry this summer, challenging the disappointing narrative of current events with a story of beautiful pirates coming to the aid of the oppressed, battles upon land and sea and romance as the members of the King's guard, so far from his majesty and so close to the beautiful Pirate ladies, try to remember whose side they are supposed to be on. How have these women escaped their time four hundred years ago to cruise the waters of Carolina. Why are they here. What will become of them?
Queen Ruby and her ladies in Raiding were wives, mothers and daughters laboring away in the run down port town of St. Phillip when they were taken prinsoner by Pirates to be sold as human booty. Learn how they turned the tables on their captors, found the magical power of the key to the sea and became legends of the sea in the legend of Queen Ruby or the Pirates and her ladies in raiding.
If you are a business who would like to participate in redeeming that pirate coin and winning new customers by offering discounts, drawings or contests, please contact William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com to get a visit from one of the Ladies in Raiding to set you up.
Guided Group Trips- After the first weekend, we'll be leading group rides from locations around the area to the beach. The Waylin Heart Team from North Charleston has already begun planning a neighborhood trip, a three bus hop from their neighborhood between Dorchester Road and Rivers Ave. in North Charleston, near Burns Elementary School.
We appreciate the CARTA board's commitment to making this service work. We also thank the City of Isle of Palms and Town of Mt. Pleasant for paying the cost of this transit service. We're happy to commit to fully supporting the effort. We're not sending them a plaque, however. We're sending Pirates.
Thar be Bus Pirates ere
June 17- IOP = Isle of Pirates- Muster of the Ladies in Raiding-
Queen Ruby has called a muster of all her ladies in Raiding for Saturday, June 17th. on the Isle of Palms. Our pirate camp will be located on the beach in front of the VFW and Windjammer. The pirates plan to load up the 11:15 run of the bus to the beach. New recruits are welcome. See the Facebook Event listing.
June- Pirate Pop Ups.
Look for our Lady Pirates and their foes to appear around the Lowcountry in June.
Sat. July 1- T-Day Veterans take the Beach and the Bus
June to August- Flee the Sea Daytrips
While we love to go to the beach on the weekends, the people who live out there find themselves tied up in congestion. They beach during the week. We're planning some flee the Sea daytrips for them. The first is tentatively set for June 18 with a guided trip to Mt. Pleasant Town Center and assistance planning trips beyond that point on the CARTA system. Sign up for the June 18 Trip on Eventbright. Participants will have the opportunity to do lunch at Town Center with restaurants prepared to assist them in decompressing. They can take in a move, hit the Barnes and Noble book store or take in a moved at the Palmetto Grande. Later in the Summer we might push inland for a quiet Sunday downtown or if you really need to escape Tourism, North Charleston.
Veterans Voyages to the Sea, Summerville to the Sea and Rivers to the Ocean North Charleston
We're working with community groups of all kinds to get new people on transit, starting with the Beach Reach Shuttle. We're meeting people across the Lowcountry who haven't been to the beach in years. Many also no longer go downtown. Queen Ruby and her Pirates plan to lead them out of the doldrums of Autocentric Alienation Ashore Syndrome back to the sunny sand and the transit accessible city with too many cars in historic Charleston. When they ask you where you parked, tell them "North Charleston."The Legend of Queen Ruby and her Ladies in Raiding
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| Pirates in the Pride Parade |
If you encounter the Queen Ruby or her ladies in raiding, they'll be handing out pirate booty. These coins may earn you discounts at local businesses, purchase entry into contests or allow you to enjoy special entertainments. Return here for a list of participating businesses. Be sure to keep your pirate coins secret from the King's soldiers who may attempt to confiscate them or have you slapped into irons for dealing with pirates. However you need not fear the redcoats, they're proving fairly ineffective at stopping the lady pirates who continue to compromise the lonely soldiers so far from home's sense of royal duty.
If you are a business who would like to participate in redeeming that pirate coin and winning new customers by offering discounts, drawings or contests, please contact William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com to get a visit from one of the Ladies in Raiding to set you up.
Expect royal tavern parleys for the Pirate's surrender, romance, drama of all kinds and a streetscape somewhere between the Pirates of Penzance, Jack Sparrow and Peter Pan with the occasional appearance of mermaids and mermen as well. It's going to be a memorable summer on the bus and at the Isle of Palms.
We're working a special weekend of events to help the disabled reach and enjoy the beach. We need lots of strong partners for that effort.
If you feel the desire to join Queen Ruby's ladies in Raiding or the loyal redcoats dispatched by his Majesty King George to suppress their piratical depredations please contact us at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or (843) 870-5299.
The CARTA board voted unanimously to run the IOP / Mt. Pleasant Beach Shuttle bus again for Summer, 2023 at its February meeting. A major effort to increase ridership is planned.
You can return to this page for updates and more information.
Park Pleasantly, Play Downtown, Summer 2023
If you're planning to bus to the beach and want good bus connections to downtown Charleston and the free DASH bus system serving the Tourist District, as well as the Brewery Trolly and the free #20 Upper King bus. The hotels around Mt. Pleasant Town Centre are your best bet. You can also find good Transit connections with more frequent service to the city in the Hotels in the Ravenel gateway District, near the East end of the Ravenel Cooper River Bridges, where both the #40 and #41 run to Charleston offering a bus into and out of the city approximately every 45 minutes on average. Every 30 minutes some hours. See our Park Pleasantly, Play Downtown page for details on saving money and enhancing your Charleston vacation by staying in Mt. Pleasant.
Transit to the Atlantic - A six year effort
Best friends of Lowcountry Transit began advocating for returning bus service to the beaches in Charleston in 2014. The six your effort included the July 2015 March to the Sea and the 2018 Folly Freedom Campaign.
Bus service returned to the beach with a brief trial program in August of 2020 with full summer weekend service starting Memorial Weekend, 2021. The service was reapproved for a second full year and deployed with an improved route in 2022. The CARTA board unanimously voted to run the service again in 2023 and board members indicated a strong interest in increasing ridership and further improvements to service including a possible connection to Sullivan's Island and parts of Ben Sawyer Blvd, connecting with the #41 route.
It is important to note, however, that extensions of the route depend on the impact of Car induced traffic congestion on roads near the beach which can be severe since so many people prefet frustrating car trips to the beach to search for limited parking over the convenience of transit. For the route to function, it must be able to reliably keep a schedule so it can connect to the #40 bus route to and from Charleston and the rest of the CARTA system.
It is important to note, however, that extensions of the route depend on the impact of Car induced traffic congestion on roads near the beach which can be severe since so many people prefet frustrating car trips to the beach to search for limited parking over the convenience of transit. For the route to function, it must be able to reliably keep a schedule so it can connect to the #40 bus route to and from Charleston and the rest of the CARTA system.
More Information- If you need to reach the organizers, contact William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
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