Tampa's most popular bus route is free to ride in 2025.
Hillsborough Area Regional Transit got funding from the city to make the route free throughout this year, and – maybe not surprisingly – a lot more people are using it.
Route 1 goes from the downtown Marion Transit Center north on Florida Avenue, then east on Fletcher Avenue to the University Area Transit Center, 13110 N. 27th St., near the University of South Florida. Then, it loops back to downtown.
Alfred Eady has been driving HART buses for 17 years. He says when Route 1 became free, the ridership increase was immediate.
"When the word circulates – 'free' – everybody’s going to find out,” Eady said. “You don't have to advertise that because it’s going to be [spread through] word of mouth."
He says he's noticed the timeliness of the buses has improved, too.
"You don't have to worry about somebody going in their bag and trying to get the money and stuff,” Eady said. “It's a smooth process."
"Once again, the keyword is 'free.' "
Justin Willits, HART's former director of planning and scheduling, said that in December, before the route became free, ridership was around 3,300 per weekday.
In January, that jumped to over 4,000. And in February, ridership jumped to about 5,000 – numbers Willits didn't expect until the end of this year.
"It really shows a real appetite for transit in this community, in this corridor, and what's possible when you invest in really great frequent service," said Willits, who left HART on March 14 for an out-of-state position.
In December, Tampa City Council approved $1.6 million in funding to cover the route's cost for 2025.
And Eady’s mention of a “smoother ride” is a good observation, according to Willits. With no payment system needed, 40 to 50 people can board in the same time as 20 to 25 paying passengers. Because of that, on-time performance has increased by 8% to 10%.
"As a transit rider, nothing can be as frustrating as seeing somebody get on and kind of fumble through their ticketing process or their cash, and then you miss the green light, and then you're stuck, and it adds real time,” Willits said.
Willits says the ridership boost results in less congestion on busy roads like Hillsborough Avenue, because people leave their cars home in favor of the bus.
“It's right around 10% of the trips passing through the Hillsborough Avenue intersection being made on transit ... because of this pilot [program],” Willits said. “That's the kind of data that really shows the value of something like this, because some of those folks left their cars at home that day. And it’s providing congestion relief at that intersection.”
He said those are the data points to show the Florida Department of Transportation when trying to get larger-scale public transportation projects funded.
And he says ridership for Route 1 has already surpassed ridership for the TECO Streetcar Line, a 2.7-mile rail service connecting the Channel District and Ybor City.
“We want to avoid the worst traffic in 10 years, right?” Willits said. “We're not going to necessarily take a ton of cars off the road today, but we can hopefully prevent the worst congestion from happening. That's going to require this type of investment on other corridors as well.”
Willits said HART picked Route 1 because it hits two of Hillsborough County’s biggest job markets – downtown and USF.
“It hits several affordable housing locations along the corridor and a mix of demographics,” Willits said. “The travel time is the real key to downtown. It's very competitive with the automobile along Florida Avenue because we have limited stops, and it's just a very clean, efficient service.”
Willits said there hasn’t been a hefty amount of marketing for providing Route 1 at no cast because the agency doesn’t want to overload the bus system.
Route 1 will be free until Jan. 4.
