Beginning July 1, any SF staff or faculty member can ride any RTS bus for free, simply by showing your ID to the driver. The college is paying a fee to RTS for each employee to ride; this is not connected with the recent transportation fee legislation.
Our students will have unlimited access to RTS buses at the start of fall semester. That is also when RTS will add new bus routes and more buses on existing routes to campus.
As for the route changes, here’s an excerpt from a May 26 Gainesville Sun article by Jackie Alexander:
“RTS spokesman Chip Skinner said it will provide an additional 20,000 hours of service to Santa Fe. New routes could include Route 39 from Santa Fe to the airport, Route 62 from The Oaks Mall to Lexington Crossing apartments, Route 76 from Tower 24 to The Oaks Mall and Route 27 to the downtown Santa Fe campus.
” ‘We got the locations of where the students lived, and a lot of them lived in the Lexington Crossing area,’ Skinner said.
” Two of the existing routes will add an additional bus, and each route will run until 11 p.m. for students in evening classes, Skinner said. The college and RTS will meet periodically to determine any changes precipitated by ridership. ‘We’ll be treating them just like we do the UF students currently,’ he said.”
Skinner said yesterday via phone that RTS should announce the final routes, and start sending us publicity materials, on July 11.
SF Staff must have the current SF ID card to take advantage of the new free RTS ridership that begins July 1. That means their ID should look like the card in the photo here.
Faculty and staff with old IDs should bring their old SF ID card to the Center for Student Leadership & Activities (first Floor, S Building) to get a new SF ID card made. Hours are Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. and Fridayy, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. There is no cost to the employee for this card.
RTS website