City bus service starts with scramble

One day in early August 1965, shortly after my return from a meeting on the West Coast, City Manager Don Allard called me into his office.

“Guess what?” he said.

“What?” I answered, awaiting the news.

“The city council took the city bus ordinance off the table and approved it, and guess whose department it’s in?” Allard chuckled, and I groaned. He told me that the council had created a new transportation division in the Public Works Department at its Aug. 8, 1965, meeting.

Suddenly I was in charge of a city bus system that didn’t exist, and our staff was limited. We had no buses, no drivers, no routes and no equipment. We had about a month to put it all together for a grand opening on Sept. 15.

“Don’t worry,” Allard said. “You’ll find a way to get it done.” And we did.

Before that year, Glen Watson had operated bus services in Columbia and Jefferson City with regular routes, some charters and football game-day specials.

But in spring 1965, he decided, with little warning, to discontinue his service because, no doubt, it was losing money. The city council began a big discussion about its options. Did the city need bus service? If so, should the city subsidize Watson’s service or begin its own? How much would it cost, and would it become too much of a drain on the city budget?

After much county input and debate on a proposed ordinance to start a municipal bus operation, the matter had been tabled until the start of school loomed. Just like that, the council took the ordinance off the table, passed it and assigned it to the Public Works Department.

I began by calling for advice from Bi-State Development Agency, now known as Metro, the organization that runs St. Louis’s buses. I talked to the CEO, a Col. Smizer, who was a former Army officer. We needed to borrow some buses, and we needed somebody who could train the drivers and lay out routes. Smizer lent us two people to provide training. A Bi-State supervisor and I worked on the weekends, planning routes and schedules to serve the areas most in need and to meet work schedules for major employers, such as the area hospitals.

I appointed Roy Johnson to be acting superintendent, and he later became the first official superintendent. An engineering aide for the city, Roy had run a transit system in Florida. We began by hiring two of Watson’s former drivers, Verdell Lewis and Joseph Heather. Soon we had also hired Theodore Buford, Jay Baldwin, Loyd Wyatt, Larry Whitesides, Herb Crum, Richard Murphy, Stephen Hause and Benjamin Kernan. Their pay was about $315 a month. Our first annual budget estimated operating costs of $120,000, with income estimated at $50,000, therefore requiring a subsidy of about $70,000.

After Johnson, six others served as transportation supervisor. Bob Cundiff holds the position today. Crum later served as dispatcher and operational supervisor, and he continues to work on a part-time basis.

We began by leasing one bus, a 40-foot 1941-42 vehicle, for training and then added additional buses from Bi-State, painting them blue and white because they needed paint and blue was my favorite color. In mid-1965, we purchased 10 new 40-passenger GMC buses with air conditioning. We also bought two used school buses to shuttle people from the Hearnes Center parking lot to University Hospital and to handle north-south commuters, and later we purchased a used van to shuttle drivers between the Wabash and Grissum buildings and to carry transfer passengers. Today the city continues to provide service on a contractual basis with the university. In addition, owners of apartment complexes finally agreed to support the city system rather than run their own buses.

The city council passed an ordinance that said only the city could operate buses in Columbia. This ordinance became important when Watson announced that he intended to run his normal bus schedule for football games even though we had already advertised our city plan. It turned out that Watson did not run his buses after all. A newer federal regulation in place now does not allow the city to compete for charter service if it is available.

At 3:30 p.m. on the Friday before the first football game, Allard and City Counselor George Nickolaus told me that Col. Smizer had called to say he wasn’t going to release the leased Bi-State buses to us on Saturday morning because he had been warned about a possible lawsuit. We called Smizer back at 4 p.m., which was 5 p.m. in St. Louis because they were on Daylight Savings Time. His secretary pulled him off the elevator; he had almost left for the weekend. Once we had agreed to pay all potential legal costs, he released the buses to us, and our drivers brought the buses to Columbia Saturday morning in time for our 11 a.m. “football specials.”

The football buses were our biggest source of revenue for the bus system and provided community support. A ride from the Business Loop cost $1 each way; from downtown it was 50 cents. We moved a great number of Columbia and visiting football fans during the Dan Devine and Al Onofrio years, and the football specials continue today.

We hauled over 1 million riders a year on our buses. The initial fare was 15 cents per ride, and transfers were five cents. Student passes were $1 a week and carried a great number of junior high school riders. The fare stayed the same until 1994, when it increased to 50 cents for the general public and 25 cents for student, disabled and elderly riders.

The goal was always to get as many people on the bus as possible, which was why I tend to oppose raising bus fares. As long as we have the capacity, we might as well get as many on each bus as possible. The fact is that more than 70 percent of the cost sits in the driver’s seat of the bus. Yes, sometimes the buses appear empty at certain times of the day, but the extra capacity is often important for certain routes, some of which can require extra buses and drivers.

The original 30-minute routes were laid out on a grid and remained the same until 1985, when a budget crunch caused us to cut back. The plan allowed for 15-minute routes by adding a bus during rush hour or reducing it to one-hour service by dropping a bus during mid-day. To save money and add ridership, we tried a new rerouting plan prepared by consultants, and it was a disaster. Ridership nosedived from 1 million on the old routes to 300,000 on the new ones. After we returned to the old-time basic routes, ridership gradually increased to more than 865,000 today, including campus ridership. Over the years, some council members have suggested dropping the service, but buses were, and remain, important for our city.

Problems usually start when riders can see their destinations but the routes don’t allow them to get there quickly. Above all, if the system is to succeed, city buses must be reliable, clean, timely and convenient. Routes and schedules need to remain as stable as possible in order for homeowners, apartment dwellers and businesses to count on buses for transportation.

We quickly expanded our service in response to public demand. In October 1965, the city began offering charter service at the cost of $4.50 an hour with a $5 minimum. In November 1965, the city began a special morning and evening bus route mainly for people at the University of Missouri and Stephens College who needed to arrive at work at 5:30 a.m. and to leave at 7 p.m. We also added buses with handicapped lifts as well as “kneeling buses.” Today we provide paratransit service.

The Columbia Bus System offices were located across from City Hall in a former tire store on the northwest corner of Broadway and 6th Street where McNally’s Pub and Wise Guys Pizza are located today. The initial transfer point for the buses was the corner of 9th and Broadway; it later moved to the corner of 8th and Walnut streets. In 1982, when the Wabash railroad went out of business, the city bought the old station at 10th and Walnut to use as a transportation center and the new transfer point. With the refurbishing and expansion of the station now under way, cross-country buses may even decide to use it more often, which was the original plan.

In 1985, the service name changed to the Columbia Area Transit System, and in 1995 it changed to its current name, Columbia Transit.

Because buses are a vital part of our community’s total transportation effort, we have received federal funds for such items as the first 10 new air-conditioned buses, a new garage facility and a new operational center. Columbia became the first city in the United States to have a bus operational center that was on the same tract of ground as another city maintenance facility, the Grissum Building. We had to have an exemption from the U.S. Department of Transportation to do so. Since that time, the city has continued to receive federal money for both capital equipment and operations, which we very much appreciate. Additional buses will be delivered this year, and rehabilitation and expansion of the Wabash Depot is under way.

When Marquette National insured our bus operation, the company refused to insure drivers younger than 24 years old. But they approved our 23-year-old dispatcher, Stephen Herman, who was only a backup driver, on a contingency basis. Wouldn’t you know it? Herman was responsible for our first accident, when he scraped the side of a bus. He received some good-natured ribbing for that.

Today, Columbia continues to regularly update its “Total Transportation” plan, which includes bus service as an alternative for those in need. Most financial support for the service comes from the transportation sales tax and from federal funds. The bus operation has grown, with more service throughout the city. The current budget shows revenues of $4.6 million and expenditures of $6.3 million.

Although the mandate came quickly and we had to sprint to meet it, the council’s 1965 decision to start our bus service provided a real benefit to our growing, full-service city that continues today.