If you needed a ride from your house to Publix, then to Bartow Regional Medical Center, and you wanted it free, who in Bartow would you call? Since October 5, the answer has been a phone number: 863-663-7432. That's the line for Bartow Mobility on Demand, or MOD. It's a free ride service the Bartow Community Redevelopment Agency launched with Citrus Connection, Polk County's transit agency.
The launch announcement frames MOD around seniors. The stop list and the hours describe something broader: a weekday errand service open to the general public, built around a few miles of central Bartow. The public library and the Civic Center sit outside it.
Who Can Actually Ride
The Bartow CRA's launch announcement calls MOD "a free transportation option designed with seniors and residents with disabilities in mind." Read alone, that phrase could suggest a restricted program.
Citrus Connection's own board materials are more specific. When staff brought the program to the board on March 25, 2026, the summary called it a service:
"available to the general public within the Bartow Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) District zone... designed to serve the general public, with a special focus on residents 65 and older."
That wording comes from the March 2026 Citrus Connection board packet, which also says every vehicle will be ADA-accessible. The focus is on older riders, but the service is open to everyone. A working parent whose car is in the shop, a teenager getting to the Boys and Girls Club, and a retiree heading to a doctor's appointment are all inside the stated audience. If you have a question about your own eligibility or about accessibility, take it to Citrus Connection directly when you book.
A Map Drawn Around Daily Errands
The Bartow MOD map lists its points of interest by name. Group them by what people actually go there for, and a pattern shows up.
Groceries and household shopping
- ALDI
- Publix
- Walmart
- Dollar General
- Dollar Tree
- Family Dollar
Medical and civic business
- Bartow Regional Medical Center
- Polk County Courthouse
Recreation and community centers
- Carver Recreation Center
- Gibbons Street Park Center
- Polk Street Community Center
- Boys and Girls Club of Polk County, Joe L. Saunders Unit
Schools and child care
- Union Academy
- Gause Academy of Leadership
- Unlimited Potential Child Learning Center
Six of the fifteen named stops are places to buy food and household goods. Add the hospital and the courthouse, and more than half the list covers the errands people can't skip. Citrus Connection describes the coverage as the "Bartow core area of 2.5 miles." Inside that area, the March board presentation says riders can go from a non-designated stop to anywhere in the zone. In practice that means your front door, as long as your home is inside the mapped zone.
The Polk Street Community Center is already on the list, and it's also in the middle of a separate CRA project. The Bartow CRA lists an $800,000 improvement there as in progress, covering parking-lot work, landscaping, and expanded accessible play structures with shade. A splash pad is under consideration. So one free ride lands at a site the same agency is reinvesting in.
Go by the Map, Not the CRA Boundary
It would be natural to assume the MOD zone and the CRA district are the same line on a map. They aren't quite. The city's 2026 Finding of Necessity describes the Carver Recreation Center parcel as sitting "just outside the boundaries of the CRA" and proposes adding it to the district. The MOD map lists Carver Recreation Center inside the ride zone anyway. If you want to know whether your pickup address qualifies, use the Citrus Connection service-area map, not a CRA boundary map. The CRA's announcement gives the same instruction: check the service-area map before booking.
The Stops That Come With a Condition
A few public buildings fall outside the zone. The map lists them separately, with one rule attached: "Rides to and from these locations only start or end a trip in the CRA zone."
The downloadable map names three of them:
- Bartow Public Library
- City of Bartow Civic Center
- Bartow Housing Authority
The Bartow MOD web page flags only the library and the Civic Center in its points-of-interest list. The PDF map and the March board presentation both include the Housing Authority. If that stop matters to you, confirm it when you call.
The rule refers to the CRA zone, and as the Carver example shows, the CRA boundary and the MOD map don't line up exactly. Read literally, the rule excludes any trip where neither end is in the zone, such as going straight from the library to the Civic Center. When you book a library or Civic Center trip, confirm with Citrus Connection that your pickup or drop-off address meets the start-or-end condition.
Hours Built Around a Working Day
MOD runs 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. There's no Sunday service. Those hours match the stop list. Grocery runs, doctor visits, courthouse business, and after-school pickups all happen in daylight on weekdays.
The hours also set some limits. A Saturday errand has to be finished by mid-afternoon. A weekday ride home has to be done by 7 p.m. That rules out most evening plans downtown. The Saturday cutoff deserves the most attention, because it's the day people tend to stack their errands.
How many vehicles are running also shapes the experience. Citrus Connection's March presentation estimated a wait of roughly 10 to 20 minutes with one vehicle in service. That's an estimate from before launch, not a guarantee. It still gives a useful baseline for how far ahead to book a trip that has to arrive on time.
Booking Without Surprises
There are three ways to request a ride: call 863-663-7432, use the online booking link on the Bartow MOD page, or download the CC Progress In Motion app from Google Play or the Apple App Store.
The rules that matter most are in the booking details, not the headline. From the Citrus Connection page:
- Phone hours are shorter than ride hours. Operators take reservations from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The website can take requests any time, according to Citrus Connection.
- Pickup times are negotiated. To fit in as many riders as possible, pickup can be set up to one hour before or after the time you ask for.
- Two minutes at the curb. If you aren't at the curb and ready to board within two minutes of the scheduled pickup, the trip counts as a no-show.
- Use "Arrive by" for appointments. The website assumes you want to leave now. To schedule ahead, tap "Now" and choose a future "Depart at" or "Arrive by" time. Citrus Connection recommends "Arrive by" when you have to be somewhere at a set time.
- Have both addresses ready. Phone operators will ask for the street address of the pickup and the drop-off.
One more detail matters for anyone booking for an older parent or a neighbor. Rides are unshared, curb-to-curb trips, and wheelchair transport is available. But Citrus Connection says most drivers are not trained to help riders with disabilities and aren't required to help anyone to or from the door. A rider who needs help getting from the front door to the vehicle will need someone else to handle that step.
What Pays for It, and How Long It Runs
MOD runs under a three-year agreement between the Bartow CRA and the Lakeland Area Mass Transit District, which operates Citrus Connection. The term runs from April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2029. The March proposal set it up as 50/50 cost sharing, with a total project cost of $499,600.75. The agreement sets the CRA's share at $72,087.33 for year one, $70,432.12 for year two, and $72,543.93 for year three. It adds $13,895.20 toward an ADA-accessible vehicle.
With a fixed term, the service has a known horizon through spring 2029. That's long enough to build a weekly routine around.
How It Fits With the Buses Already Running
MOD adds to Bartow's existing bus service rather than replacing any of it. Citrus Connection's current route listings still show the Lakeland/Bartow connections: the Route 21X West Express and the Silver Line. On the east side, Route 22XW runs Winter Haven/Bartow and Route 25 runs Bartow/Fort Meade. The fixed routes connect Bartow to neighboring cities. MOD covers the short trips inside the core area.
The closest comparison elsewhere in Polk is the Squeeze, Citrus Connection's free microtransit. Its current microtransit page lists service in downtown Lakeland and Lake Wales. The Squeeze is built around downtown districts and their lunch and weekend crowds. Bartow's version follows a different map, one drawn around grocery stores, a hospital, a courthouse, and the community centers where neighborhood programs meet.
Knowing how a town gets around, down to which stops fall inside a free ride zone, is part of the local detail we track every day at Premier Realty Network. If you're thinking about how close a Bartow address sits to the errands that make up your week, schedule a complimentary home consultation with our Lakeland experts, and we'll go through the map with you.
