I was chatting with some tour bus drivers who think they are helping the Grove by driving through the neighborhoods, stopping at the Cocoplum Circle and then dropping the tourists off at The Fresh Market to buy an apple and a yogurt. Some buses do stop to let out people to use the bathroom at CocoWalk and then they are off in five minutes.
How does this benefit Coconut Grove? All they do is clog the store isles at The Fresh Market and the neighborhood streets. How do we get them to spend time at the shops and restaurants and avoid holding traffic up on back streets where people live?
As I stand out in Center Grove sometimes, I see tour buses whizz by with the tourists hanging out the window, wishing they could stop, they literally sped by the Great Grove Bed Race, the King Mango Strut, the Mad Hatter, Snow Days and every other thing we do here in town and the tourists have their tongues out wishing they could be part of it. Last weekend the tourists should have been let out at the Great Taste of the Grove for an hour or so. That would have been a perfect thing to do.
Why not stop and let the tourists enjoy themselves? I bet they would like that a hell of a lot better than seeing a canal at the bridge at Cocoplum.
I am meeting with one of the tour bus companies this week to try and explain the situation. I'll report my findings and possibly we can come up with a solution.
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