The four people who will turn on this year’s Nights of Lights run a brewery on West King Street, a restaurant on San Marco Avenue, two Anastasia Boulevard rooms that share a name, and a bar on Aviles Street, and the mayor who picked them says the geography is the point. Steve Mendoza of Bog Brewing Company, Misty Lake of Sunday, Erica Thompson of Osprey Tacos and Osprey Tapas, and Philip Castillo of The Bart on Aviles will share the single ceremonial switch in the Plaza de la Constitucion at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21.

Naming the honorees belongs to the mayor, a privilege the office has carried since the tradition began in 2003, when one switch first lit the holiday tree and the canopy of live oaks around the plaza together. Nancy Sikes-Kline, making what the city’s release calls one of her final official acts in the job, chose to spend hers on what she calls the city’s “emerging business districts.”

“Our business districts have really been flourishing in the past few years, each with their own unique identities that host activities highlighting the character of the district,” she said in the release. “These districts are critical to the year-round vibrancy of the city, and Light-Up! Night is a perfect opportunity to recognize them.”

Read as a map, the four picks trace the commercial streets that ring the tourist core rather than sit inside it: West King west of the rail spur, San Marco north of the fort, Anastasia Boulevard across the Bridge of Lions, and Aviles, the oldest street of the four and the only one inside the historic district proper. The release describes the four as “leaders among their peers, respected by fellow business owners in and outside their district,” which is the mayor’s language and worth preserving, because it names the thing being honored as the street rather than the storefront.

The second announcement arrived the same day, in a separate release, and it is the one to build an evening around. The STAR Circulator, the free city shuttle whose published hours ordinarily run to 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, will end its downtown runs at 3 p.m. every day of the season, from Saturday, Nov. 21 through Monday, Jan. 18. The city attributes the change to increased traffic and congestion during the holidays.

What survives after dark is the island. Beginning Sunday, Nov. 22 and running through Jan. 18, the STAR keeps its nighttime route on Anastasia Island, Sunday through Thursday until 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m., with one exception the release spells out: Stop 17, at Blackfly Restaurant, is off the night map. Island riders are delivered to the east side of the Bridge of Lions, at 107 Anastasia Blvd., and the release recommends the arrangement as a walk-and-ride for island and beach residents, for visitors staying at hotels on St. Augustine Beach, and for anyone within walking distance of a stop.

So the season’s transportation sorts itself by geography, and both halves of it are free. If you are coming from the island, the STAR runs at night and drops you at the bridge, and the walk from 107 Anastasia Blvd. to the plaza crosses the Bridge of Lions and arrives in the middle of the lights. If you are coming from anywhere else, the city’s published answer is the free Park and Ride shuttle, which runs 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. from three perimeter lots to the Visitor Information Center on its 23 listed service dates, a list this paper printed on Oct. 28 along with the one date missing from it.

The shape of the evening itself has been public since Oct. 30: Showtime USA at 4 p.m. in the Parque de Menendez at City Hall, the All Star Orchestra at 5:30 at the gazebo, and the lighting, promptly, at 6:30. Cathedral Place loses its parking all day and closes to vehicles from 5 to 8 p.m., which is the hour everyone will be walking anyway.

Regular STAR hours resume Tuesday, Jan. 19, the day after the lights come down.

The switch itself is thrown at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 21, in the plaza, by a brewer, two restaurateurs and a barman. The season it opens runs through Monday, Jan. 18, which is the day before the buses go back to normal.