Come October, Gainesville's oldest and youngest residents will have unlimited free rides on city buses.
Starting Oct. 1, people younger than 18 and those 65 and older will no longer be charged to ride Gainesville Regional Transit System.
Monday night, the Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization for the Gainesville urban area voted to adopted the yearlong pilot program, with the city and county each pitching in $115,000.
That is the estimated revenue the bus system will lose by not charging those passengers for rides.
City Commissioner Harvey Ward said he hopes the fare-free rides become permanent after the pilot project.
“It is an investment in our children, a repayment of a lifetime of service for our seniors,” he said earlier this week. “I believe transit has a democratizing influence. Number one, if lots of different people ride the bus, that is a good thing. And the easier we make it to ride the bus — the less friction we put out there between somebody who is thinking about riding the bus and somebody actually getting out there and riding — the better off the whole community is.