Officials from the Village of Wellington and Palm Tran held a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday morning for a new park and ride lot that will officially open Nov.9.

Commuters from the Western Communities will be able to park their cars at the lot and ride a modified, limited-stop express Route 40 bus into downtown West Palm Beach or out to the Lake Communities. The lot is located off of Wellington Green Drive, behind the Estates Shopping Center near the Mall at Wellington Green.

The $400,000 project was funded by the Florida Department of Transportation and the Village donated the land.

"With the help of the county and county facilities and the active work of Wellington...this project will be fully completed under $400,000. That to me is an amazing feat. We were $300,000 under our original budget," said Charles Cohen, executive director of Palm Tran.

The park and ride has a 140 parking spaces and it will eventually include an electronic board announcing the bus schedule. There are also plans for security cameras to be installed.

Even though the idea of the park and ride lot started when gas prices were more than $4 a gallon Cohen believes the residents will make good use of the new lot and downtown connection.

"We truly believe we can compete with the travel times of people in their automobiles
and with the rising price of gas we believe we can get people out of their cars and take the bus," he said. "I share the vision that we're going to have overflows here."