{"id":109191,"date":"2026-01-07T16:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109191\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:10:23","slug":"tampa-will-no-longer-have-a-free-bus-route-what-comes-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/109191\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa will no longer have a free bus route. What comes next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hillsborough County\u2019s Route 1 bus line reached the highest ridership in Tampa Bay after it became free in 2025.<\/p>\n

But starting Monday, riders must return to paying a $2 one-way fare.<\/p>\n

The city of Tampa funded one year of free fares<\/a> and increased weekday frequency last year, to the tune of $1.6 million. Route 1, a key bus line along Florida Avenue from downtown Tampa to the University of South Florida, gained about 2,000 daily riders as a result. The route\u2019s current average of more than 5,000 riders per weekday makes it the most popular bus line in Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

Tampa is still subsidizing the route this year. But instead of funding free fares, the city is making sure buses reliably stop every 15 or 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

City Council allocated $1.3 million toward maintaining 15-minute frequency on weekdays and increasing the service\u2019s frequency on weekends and evenings.<\/p>\n

Buses are now scheduled to come by every 20 minutes from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. They previously came by every half hour during that time frame.<\/p>\n

Buses are also slated to come every 20 minutes on weekday evenings from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., improving upon the previous 30-minute frequency.<\/p>\n

Fare-free routes are a common strategy in Tampa Bay to entice otherwise reluctant riders to try out the bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people that would consider using transit feel awkward\u201d learning to pay fares as they board, said Christine Acosta, a board member for Walk Bike Tampa.<\/p>\n

Manatee County eliminated fares altogether in 2023, boosting ridership from 1.25 million to 2 million, said the county\u2019s transit division manager Kevin Hoyt. The TECO Line Streetcar has been free to ride since 2018.<\/p>\n

But reimplementing fares has sunk ridership on other routes. The SunRunner, Pinellas County\u2019s first rapid bus service, saw its ridership plunge 40% after a fare-free pilot was cut short in 2023 due to resident complaints about homeless people riding the bus.<\/p>\n

Ridership never fully recovered after fares were reintroduced on the SunRunner. About 2,400 per day rode the route during the first half of November \u2014 a far cry from the route\u2019s peak<\/a> of roughly 3,700 daily riders in March 2023.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

About 80% of riders plan to continue using the route even after fares resume, according to a survey of more than 350 Route 1 riders conducted by the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority. Around a quarter responding were new riders.<\/p>\n

Some respondents also noted overcrowding and issues with cleanliness on Route 1 buses. Reimplementing fares should help with those issues, said Heather Sobush, director of planning and scheduling at the Hillsborough transit authority.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tampa City Council member and former transit authority board chair Luis Viera praised Lynn Hurtak, a fellow council member who pushed the city to fund Hillsborough\u2019s most popular route for the last two years.<\/p>\n

The first round of funding passed by a slim 4-3 margin. But this time council voted unanimously to pump more funds into Route 1, Viera said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a route that benefits, obviously, a lot of working people in this area, a lot of students, a lot of veterans looking to get treatment at the VA (hospital),\u201d he said. \u201cThis was a really, really big thing because, I\u2019ll just be honest guys, we haven\u2019t had a lot of wins in mass transit here in Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa that have been sticking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hillsborough County\u2019s Route 1 bus line reached the highest ridership in Tampa Bay after it became free in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[55880,55879,11284,6184,46800,276,135,1526,137,136,3650],"class_list":["post-109191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-bus-line","tag-bus-service","tag-city-of-tampa","tag-downtown-tampa","tag-hillsborough-area-regional-transit-authority","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-university-of-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}