COTA consolidates public transit on Dec. 31, 1973

The end of the trolley car era in Columbus officially came to end in 1973.

The Central Ohio Transit Authority, created two years earlier, bought the Columbus Transit Co. for just under $4.8 million.

The CTC, though, had last run an electric street car in Columbus in 1948. The company was a subsidiary of the Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Co., which eventually would grow into Columbus-based American Electric Power.

This year, COTA’S $194.7 million budget for 2022 is 3% higher than the 2021 revised budget.

COTA officials will have to find new funding sources to serve Greater Columbus, which continues to grow as COTA plans to create bus rapid-transit lines in Franklin County through the Linkus initiative, starting with a northwest route that includes Olentangy River Road and an east-west route along West Broad Street and East Main Street.

COTA officials expect to boost fixed-route service next year as new drivers are hired. The agency’s goal is to hire 70 drivers by the end of this year and 100 by the middle of 2022. COTA has had problems holding onto drivers during the pandemic.

While the Bus-it-to-the-buckeyes football game day service will return in 2022, along with summer Columbus Zoo and special Red, White & Boom service, COTA has no plans to resume the free Cbus Downtown circulator service, the late-night Nightowl route or Airconnect between Downtown and John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

And former Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s push for a revival of street cars never made it off the drawing board.