The city of Gainesville celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the Regional Transit System (RTS) on Friday evening, growing from a private company with nine buses to a city fleet of 102 buses.  

Elected officials and citizens joined for the celebration at RTS Headquarters. A graph showed the rise of RTS ridership to a peak in 2011—with 10.8 million rides—to a fall during the COVID-19 pandemic and then growing numbers since.  

Another timeline chronicled the history of the bus fleet, including milestones like the city taking over RTS from Alachua County in 1981, fares increasing to 50 cents in 1983 and UF joining the system in 1998. Attendees also answered a survey about their use of RTS and possible future routes. 

The RTS anniversary caps a week of back and forth between UF and Gainesville officials concerning the future of the system. The city held a news conference on Tuesday followed by a special meeting on Thursday to rebuff a proposed UF payment change. UF sent a letter on Thursday asking for data as it seeks to best use student funds.  

At Friday’s celebration, Mayor Harvey Ward said he was confident about where the system would go. He said the current system is one of the best examples of a town-and-gown partnership in the nation.  

Jesus Gomez, the city’s transit director, said the system has changed a lot since he started at RTS 26 years ago. He said he met with UF students during his first week and received a barrage of only negative feedback. Gomez contrasted that with Thursday’s special meeting when students packed City Hall in support of the current RTS system.  

He said the turning around the perception of RTS has made staying in the work worthwhile, and Gomez said RTS continues to head in the right direction.  

“It’s a big accomplishment, and we’ve come a long way from when we first started, even 25 years ago,” Gomez said in an interview. 

He said the city has worked to maintain its fleet and eliminate past jests about getting wetter inside buses than outside during rainy weather.  

Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut said when the UF partnership was first proposed in the late 1990s, she couldn’t envision how it would function. Now, she said she can’t imagine RTS without the partnership.  

The funding from student fees has enhanced the system for both the city residents and UF students and employees, she said.  

“Now they speak with great pride about it—just as our neighbors around town speak with great pride about it. I had no idea it was going to be this successful,” Chestnut said. 

In the past 25 years, RTS has   

• Transported 202.4 million passengers.  
• Operated for 6.5 million hours of service.  
• Driven 77.9 million miles.  
• Carried 31.2 passengers per hour.  
• Raised $75.2 million from competitive grants.  

Chestnut also pointed to the East Side Transfer Station as the next evolution in the system. The station will open later this year at the Eastside Health and Economic Development Initiative site off Hawthorne Road.  

The location will also have a UF Health Urgent Care Facility with plans for a small grocery store and a potential financial institution. The Gainesville Technology Entrepreneurship Center is also at the location.  

“I’m particularly excited about the East Side Station because that is going to also help spur economic development. People will be able to see that,” Chestnut said. 

Gomez said the city is searching for a suitable site for a northwest Gainesville transfer station. He said a current transit study is looking at a wholesale restructuring of city routes, and one goal is for rapid services between the different transfer stations—the soon-to-open East Side Transfer Station, the downtown Rosa Parks station, the Butler Plaza station and the potential future northwest station. 

The transit study should finish around September, and Gomez said the city looks to update the system every five years to ensure routes are going where people live in order to serve the community.