GAINESVILLE, Fla. – University of Florida students on Wednesday protested the university’s budget cuts to Gainesville’s Regional Transit System.
Bus routes across Gainesville have been changed or eliminated after funding cuts. Students complain about being late to classes, riding crowded buses or being passed at their stops due to lack of space.
Over 100 students came to Turlington Hall in protest of spending cuts to the bus system. Some students held signs demanding the routes to be restored. Chants reverberated through the halls and could even be heard in classrooms. One student compared the noise to a high school pep rally.
UF removed about $3 million in subsidies to the bus system’s budget earlier this year, according to Mayor Harvey Ward.
“That has drastically impacted the quality of service,” he said in an interview with WUFT.
“We’re not able to offer as many routes as we did six months ago and that’s a shame,” Ward said. “The system just doesn’t work as well as it used to.”
Student Sen. Lucas Nadeau, a political science senior, said his constituents at the Keys and Springs dorms on campus rely on the bus system to get around. The dorms are about one mile from the Plaza of the Americas at the center of campus, a roughly 20-minute walk.
“It’s too far for them to walk in the summer heat in Florida,” he said. “We don’t have any reliable way to get to class anymore.”
Students who live off-campus face even harder challenges. Some students account for longer wait times and longer walks to bus stops, both of which are made more annoying in the Florida heat.
UF’s funding for transit operations has remained flat while operating costs have continued to rise, the university said in a statement to WUFT. In a review of its transit structure, UF decided to consolidate 17 off-campus routes to 11. These routes were funded by the university.
Campus routes were replaced with UF’s Campus Connector system. The university said expanding these routes proved to be the most efficient use of student funds.
Ana Ferreira, a senior studying sustainability studies and speaker at the protest, said the university was falsely claiming budget shortages.
“We demand the restoration of funding to RTS routes so the city can restore all of their routes,” she said, speaking to the crowd. “And we demand you end this false guise of budget shortages because we see right through you.”
Bryan Garcia Ramos, 21, a senior aerospace engineering major is director of the RTS campaign. He has been fighting over this issue alongside UF’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. A main goal of the protest was to create a public relations problem for the university, he said.
“This is going to be a war of attrition,” said Ramos. “The University of Florida administration is a petulant child that has to be tricked and coerced into doing what is right by its students and by the Gainesville community.”
Some students held signs poking fun at UF’s beleaguered head football coach, Billy Napier, comparing his salary with what the university spends on buses.
“We’re paying our football coach $7.4 million in this contract,” said Nadeau. “We definitely could be using more of that money to pay for vital transportation. We don’t need to be paying them $7.4 million to lose a game to USF.”
UF students ride for free with their student IDs. Ramos says this issue extends far beyond the world of the university. He told the crowd that homeless people, people with disabilities and those without a car rely on buses. Without them, they “can’t participate in society as easily,” he said.
“When you invest in transit, you invest in the Gator community as a whole,” said Ferreira.
The mayor emphasized the funding troubles are not the city’s fault.
“Our staff is in constant communication with UF transportation staff to try and make changes,” he said. “But let’s be clear that at this point it is all about UF writing a check or not writing a check.”
Gainesville city leaders don’t anticipate a financial change in funding for the current fiscal year, according to the mayor.
“We will continue to apply constant pressure and constant negotiation to try and get funding added,” he said.
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This is a breaking news story. Check back in case there are further developments. Contact WUFT News by calling 352-392-6397 or emailing news@wuft.org.