The city of Gainesville unanimously passed a motion to support planned service changes to the Regional Transit System at the start of the spring semester of 2025 as the city and the University of Florida continue their contract negotiations.
According to a UF public release on Friday, four RTS route modifications will take effect Jan. 3, 2025, if agreed upon by the city and UF.
Route 25, from the UF Commuter Lot to the Gainesville Regional Airport, will be discontinued on Jan. 3 at the start of spring service.
“Given this route’s low UF ridership, and to be good stewards of the student funds that finance this route, the University of Florida will reallocate those assets to other student transportation solutions,” UF’s release read.
Route 25 had a total ridership of 62,671 passengers from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024. The route has a lower ridership than other city routes. For example, Route 12, which runs from the Reitz Union to Butler Plaza, had a total of 377,913 passengers, and Route 43, which runs from UF Shands to Santa Fe College, had 102,800 total passengers during the period, according to RTS’ Fiscal Year '24 Ridership by Route.
The RTS service changes aim to search for new revenue sources and reduce costs following reductions in federal, state and local funding and “abnormally high increases” in operating costs over the past three years, according to UF’s press release.
Passenger counts continue to move toward pre-pandemic levels, but they are not enough to cover the rising costs of transportation, according to the release.
The updates on proposed service changes also include a tentative increase in how much UF pays RTS to operate the buses and routes that support UF’s campus, students, faculty and staff. The proposed increase is $88.72 an hour from UF’s current rate of $84 an hour.
UF’s current rate is a negotiated rate that offsets some of the total cost for RTS to provide transportation services, said Rossana Passaniti, Gainesville’s public information officer.
“UF’s current negotiated rate is approximately 40% below the current full cost of transit service,” she said.
The full cost of providing transit service is currently $138.62 an hour, as of Fiscal Year 2024, and includes capital expenses like renting or leasing buses. UF does not contribute to the capital expenses, which are covered by the city of Gainesville with help from state and federal grants, Passaniti said.
According to the updated proposal, the full rate would be $142.01 an hour.
Negotiations regarding UF’s rate are ongoing, said Jesus Gomez, Gainesville’s director of transportation who spoke at the city commission’s general policy meeting Thursday. He said he hopes to have a draft agreement for approval in December.
According to the route modifications pending agreement, UF would assume the operation of Route 150, which goes from the UF Reitz Union to Haile Plantation. By assuming operations, UF will replace RTS’s 12-passenger buses with 15-passenger vans, said Steve Orlando, UF’s associate vice president of communications.
Route 125, which goes from the Hub on UF campus to Lakeside Residential Complex, will be operated by 30-passenger buses, Orlando said. Route 125 has the second-highest total ridership of the six campus routes RTS offers, with 108,152 riders from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024.
Route 122 would also return to its original north-south orientation, and Route 1, which goes from the Rosa Parks Transfer Station to Butler Plaza, will enter and exit campus on Museum Road, stopping at the Reitz Union before returning to its regular route.
Gomez said all other RTS routes will remain the same.
Public hearings on the changes will be held before bringing the agreed updates to the city commission for approval on Dec. 5, Orlando said.
Orlando said he could not speculate on how students or residents will respond to the changes.
Other changes announced by RTS became effective Oct. 1, including discontinued holiday bus service on Veterans Day, Black Friday and Christmas Eve.
RTS also provides paratransit services, a shared ride door-to-door service for riders who have a disability that makes it challenging to “make some or all of their trips on fixed-route buses.” The service has been scaled back within three-quarters of a mile from a fixed route, according to the city’s release.
Effective Jan. 1, 2025, riders who are 18 and younger or 65 and older will also require a pass for Fare Free boarding. RTS will add an online application for riders to register for the passes at the end of the year, according to the release.
UF’s release said the RTS service changes will assure UF students that their transportation fees are spent wisely and efficiently.
“We value our partners in the city of Gainesville and look forward to continuing to work with them on this vital issue,” said Brandi Renton, UF’s interim vice president for business affairs.
Casey Willits, the Gainesville City Commissioner for District 3, said he was disheartened to see Route 25 end.
“That hurts me a little bit,” Willits said during the meeting. “If UF wants that back and can figure out how to invest more in the operations, I would love that route to come back, but that’s probably dependent on UF.”
Despite the termination of Route 25, bus routes to the Gainesville Regional Airport are still available. Route 1 can take UF students from the Reitz Union, pending modification agreements, or from Butler Plaza to the Rosa Parks downtown station. Riders can then take Route 26 from Rosa Parks Transfer Station to the airport.
“Students who just need to fly and just have one bag, they’ll make it work,” Willits said.
Kali Blount, a Gainesville resident who rides the bus often, expressed his disappointment with RTS’ customer service commitment during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“I wish I would see some of y’all [city commissioners] on the bus,” he said during the meeting.
Blount said the city and RTS have not learned how to use transfer stations, a location where riders can transfer from one bus to another. He wondered if UF is paying enough for service and whether there may be mass resignations by RTS drivers.
“Without a strong customer service commitment, improvements don’t stick,” he said.
Ed Book, a city commissioner for District 2, said he believes more changes may be made in the future.
“I think this is probably from a forward-thinking perspective for UF, we're going to see more of this over the next several years as they determine how they can provide transportation plans in-house that may impact our capabilities for providing services communitywide,” Book said.