GAINESVILLE – The Gainesville City Council unanimously approved plans to begin a micro-transit system that will initially start in the city and then branch out to cover the remainder of Hall County.
Also at Tuesday evening’s voting session city council members approved a special-use request that will bring twenty multi-family apartment units to the intersection of John Morrow Jr. Parkway and Washington Street.
First the micro-transit resolution: Gainesville’s Community Service Center Director Phillippa Lewis Moss asked city council to approve a contract with New York City-based software vendor Via, a contract that will focus on the use of technology to improve public transportation in Gainesville and Hall County.
Moss said the move to micro-transit will not only provide more efficient service for the rider, but costs won’t exceed what is spent presently. “No, it won’t cost us any more than the old way of doing it,” Moss said in response to a question from Councilman George Wangemann. “In fact we’re hoping that we’ll start to realize a savings over the next couple of years.”
Moss highlighted the timeline for the changeover, saying in October three of the six Gainesville Connection routes currently being operated in the city will be discontinued, and in their place seven or more vans will provide ride sharing services at comparable costs to patrons.
Then in December, Moss said, “A lot of people have been talking about how neat it would be if we had a downtown trolley system. I’m pleased to announce that coming this winter we actually will have not one, but two trolleys.”
“We’re hoping to launch it with a very simple lunchtime trolley that will be able to pick people up during the lunch hours and hopefully prevent a ton of cars from having to merge downtown,” Moss explained.
Then in July, 2021, Moss said up to fifteen vans will be added to the micro-transit fleet, providing door-to-door service for the rest of Hall County, officially ending the tenure of Dial-A-Ride.
Also on Tuesday evening council members approved a special use request made by Juan Luna to construct twenty townhome-style apartments within a pair of two-story buildings on 1.66-acres on the southwest side of the intersection of Washington Street and West Avenue, just east of John Morrow Jr. Parkway.
The property consists of seven individual lots that will be combined to create the 1.66-acre site; two of the lots contain older rental homes which will be demolished according to the application.
The apartment units will be approximately 1,137 square feet in size, with two bedrooms and two baths.
Gainesville architect Jack Bailey, designer of the project for Luna, told council members, “We believe this will be a major improvement in the neighborhood…and we believe it will be something that you will be proud of.”
No one spoke in opposition to the special use request during the public hearing on the application and the city council did not oppose it either. The resolution passed unanimously.
