Dustin Lemke, a Hillsborough Community College Communications Professor and experienced world traveler, uses public transportation everywhere he visits around the globe.
Back in 2010 he started wondering if he could successfully get around the Tampa Bay area, including commute to work from his Tampa Heights home. He traded in his car keys for a bus pass and challenged himself to rely on
HART (Hillsborough Area Regional Transit) to get him to
HCC and around Hillsborough County for one year.
The experience went so well that after the first year was up, Lemke decided he really didn't want a new car, he wanted to keep riding. That was 2011 and now he is a connoisseur of public transportation, navigating the Tampa Bay region with help from
HART's OneBusAway app and Google maps.
Take a ride with Dustin in the above
83 Degrees Media video story to learn why he prefers traversing Tampa via regional transit.
Do you choose to go carless in Tampa? Let us tell your story. Send us an email and we’ll consider featuring your experiences next.
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Julie Branaman is a Sustainable Environment Video Creator, Editor, and Multimedia Photojournalist pursuing new visual experiences around the nation. Now based in Los Angeles, she and her husband James founded
The Branamans Video Production. Julie is the former Managing Photographer at
83 Degrees and once worked as a photographer at The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com, and News Channel 8. Prior to arriving in the Tampa Bay Area, she freelanced in the Seattle area, working on national and international stories. She's a graduate of Western Kentucky University. When not making images, she and James are likely to be found hiking, kayaking, or snorkeling their way around California, Florida, Maine, the National Park System, and America's unique landscapes in between.