Council approved a plan to raise the rates by a quarter in an 11-5 vote Tuesday

It's going to cost more to ride the bus in Halifax Regional Municipality.

Council approved a plan to raise the rates by a quarter in an 11-5 vote Tuesday.

That means adults will soon pay $2.75 and seniors will pay $2.

Councillor Sam Austin says it's important to maintain continuity with discussions they had during the budget process when setting the tax rate.

"We had quite a knock out discussion about how high the tax rate was going to be. Was it going to be 2.9 per cent, was it going to be 1.9, was it 2.4, 2.5? And part of the budget that we baked in was a fare increase on transit that was worth about .3 per cent," he said. "We can't just skip ahead a few months and pretend that discussion didn't happen."

Councillor Richard Zurawski voted against the fare hike.

"We consider 25 cents to be a small, almost insignificant amount, something we throw away, but not so for people who are living on C.P.P. and O.A.S. That's all they've got," he said. "Those are the people we want on our transit.

The new fare structure goes into effect on Sept. 30, the same day a six month pilot project launches, which will allow kids 12 and under to ride transit buses and ferries for free.