Blacksburg Transit
Blacksburg Transit, or simply the BT, is a local government-owned urban-suburban bus line based in Blacksburg. The system originated in 1983 with six buses, but has since expanded its operation to 50 buses and 11 vans in making 3.0 million trips per year.[1] Its ridership is dominated by Virginia Tech students who account for 90 percent of all riders, with the remaining 10 percent being split evenly between Tech faculty and staff, and other Blacksburg citizens.[1] Blacksburg Transit serves the towns of Blacksburg, Christiansburg and limited unincorporated portions of Montgomery County.
Blacksburg Transit offered WiFi Internet service to its riders through a partner in the mid 2000's. The service was offered on select buses until 2009, when the service provider raised their data rates. Consequently BT suspended the WiFi service indefinitely.
Commuter bus service from Blacksburg to Roanoke is operated by Valley Metro as the Smart Way bus.
Employees
The majority of BT's drivers are part-time employees, making BT a popular employer with Virginia Tech students as well as retirees. The majority of the service's full-time staff consists of administrative and supervisory positions.
BT ACCESS
BT ACCESS is Blacksburg Transit's ADA-compliant paratransit service. Riders must first qualify to use this service by filling out an application with the BT ACCESS office. Once approved, riders can schedule one time or recurring trips with door-through-door service to any destination within Blacksburg and areas outside Blacksburg serviced by BT's main-line fixed route bus service. (The Two Town Trolley is considered an Express route, riders wishing to go to Christiansburg can schedule a trip to meet the Blacksburg Two Town Trolley at its Squires Student Center timecheck.
Routes
- Corporate Research Center Shuttle
- Hethwood A
- Hethwood B
- Harding Avenue
- Hokie Express
- Main Street North
- Main Street South
- Patrick Henry Drive
- Toms Creek
- University City Boulevard
- Two Town Trolley
- University Mall Shuttle
Bus fleet
- New Flyer D40LF, D35LF and D30LF
- Flxible Metro (Six 35' and Six 40' buses, retired and sold in stages starting in 2002)
- RTS-TMC (Two 35' and Two 40' buses, retired and sold in 2003)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Blacksburg Transit. "History and Background Information". Retrieved 2007-10-28.
External links
- Blacksburg Transit official website
- BT4U
This article has been modified from an original version written for Wikipedia. The original version was made available under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license.
