Starting May 1, bus routes across the UF campus and Gainesville will be reduced and changed due to funding and construction.
While all campus bus routes will stop between May 1 and May 8 due to the semester break, 16 routes will not run until the Fall semester begins as a result of reduced Summer funding, Chip Skinner, a spokesperson for Regional Transit System, wrote in an email. The routes affected are Later Gator D and F, routes 19, 27, 28, 29, 36, 37, 39, 40, 62, 76 and routes 77, 118, 121 and 126 on the weekends.
“We always have reduced service during the semester and holiday breaks,” Skinner wrote, citing a drop from 853,473 passenger trips in April 2016 to 445,419 trips in May 2016.
“Historically ridership is low and our funding partners, UF and (Santa Fe College), reduce funding due to decreased ridership numbers,” he said.
No new stops will be added to replace the routes taken away.
All other Later Gator services will stop May 1 and resume June 26 for UF’s Summer B term.
Due to construction on Gale Lemerand Drive and Stadium Road, routes in between the two roads — including buses that stop at the Hub — will be altered for the Summer until construction has finished, Skinner wrote. Routes 9, 34, 38, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126 and 128 will instead service the Reitz Union.
“If the road is closed due to construction, then we cannot serve the area,” Skinner wrote.
Sam Covell, a UF aerospace engineering sophomore, said he will still have the means to get to class, but that the bus reductions are still an annoyance.
“I’ll be forced to either bike to class or buy a campus parking pass, meaning I’ll never show up to class dry over Summer or I’ll have an added expense to an already-dwindling college budget,” the 20-year-old said.
