If you click on "User CP" up top you can edit your details including make of bus and where you are in the country (sometimes that info is needed to answer questions).
Most buses seem to use 16ga for the original floor, but they also never have an unsupported span wider than about 8-10" thanks to the hat-channel stiffeners that are attached to the underside in between the sort-of i-beams that are formed from the bent edges of the floor panels (see this helpful video for how International bus floors are built:
- the floor starts at 3:05).
So you might find a 16ga patch that is 1'x1' to be slightly "soft" compared to the rest of the floor, although if you're putting an insulated subfloor including 3/4" (ish) plywood over the metal floor you wouldn't feel this (and it's why really anything will work).
I'm also rebuilding the entire floor section around my wheel wells and I'm using 14ga, but that's only because the alleged welder I originally hired to do the job bought a bunch of 14ga instead of the 16ga I wanted him to use. I can still cut it with my $30 Harbor Freight shears so it's no problem.
Use whatever you can get cheap and can weld easily (14ga is also a bit easier to weld than 16ga or 22ga).
Edit: it occurs to me that by "foot sized hole" you might mean the size of your own foot rather than 1'x1'.
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