Changes to city and campus bus routes are coming this fall, and they could include route extensions and shorter bus hours.
The Gainesville Regional Transit System held an informational meeting Thursday night at City Hall proposing changes to bus routes running through the city, UF and Santa Fe College.
Douglas Robinson, chief transit planner for RTS, said the changes are the result of funding, route performance, citizen input and student enrollment evaluations.
The approved changes will go into effect on Aug. 19 and will run until Dec. 30.
The changes under consideration include adding a Saturday service for Route 25, which runs from the UF Commuter Lot to Gainesville Regional Airport, and extending all Sunday routes to 6 p.m. The latest Sunday hours this summer end at about 5 p.m., according to information from the RTS website.
Other changes include extending Route 121, which currently runs from the Hub to the Commuter Lot at UF, east on Second Avenue to 12th Street where buses can pick up students near Norman Hall, Sorority Row and along Museum Road.
The route would also have three buses running.
Route 27 would have a Sunday-only service to the airport.
Several routes under the considered changes, however, would no longer be running.
Robinson said the 400 bus service, which includes Routes 401, 402, 403, 406 and 407, would no longer run on weekends. Instead, weekday routes – Routes 1, 6, 9, 10, 25 and 35 – would run on Saturday with Routes 15 and 20 added on Sundays.
Route 303, also known as Later Gator D, which runs from downtown Gainesville to FloridaWorks at Southwest 13th Street, would stop running on Thursday and Friday nights because of low usage, Robinson said. The route would still be available on Saturday nights.
“The decision to remove weekday service on this route had a lot to do with this route overlapping Route 13, which runs late on weekdays,” Robinson said in an email. “Route 13 has had higher ridership than [Route] 303.”
Bus routes going through Santa Fe College also face hour and frequency reductions due to funding cuts by the college.
RTS is accepting questions and comments about the changes until June 12. Residents can submit their concerns at http://go-rts.com/.
