 New Castle Area Transit Authority |
WE’RE GOING YOUR WAY
Public transportation began
in New Castle in the mid 1800’s when the “Electric Streetcar Company”
initiated service in the city and surrounding areas (Pittsburgh, Butler,
Youngstown, etc.). Cost for a
trolley car ride in New Castle was five cents.
In the 1930’s the first bus was introduced to New Castle and by 1941,
trolley cars had disappeared and the tracks and overhead wires were taken out.
At
that time the franchise was taken over by the “Shenango Valley Transportation
Company”. Buses operated in New Castle under the SVT until 1958 when a
labor dispute halted operations. Buses
did not run in New Castle for one year. That
is when the “New Castle Area Transit Authority" was formed with buses
beginning operations in 1959.
The
NCATA was incorporated on September 1, 1965 as a mass transportation project
financed by the Federal Housing and
Home Finance Agency, the City of New Castle, Shenango Township, Union Township,
Neshannock Township and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The project was
completed in 1968.
Trolley
cars operated from a location called the “car barn” on Beaver Street.
Buses are operated out of a location on Taylor Street, which is the
former DeCarbo Trucking Warehouse. The
NCATA started construction on a new Transportation Center in the fall of 2000
and should be completed in the fall of 2001.
This new facility is located at 310 Mahoning Avenue.
It is a state-of-the-art maintenance and administrative facility where
all the vehicles will be maintained, administrative functions carried on and
monthly public meetings held.
At the turn of this century, the NCATA had a fleet of 12 buses operating over 8 fixed routes throughout the city. These routes operated over 1500 miles per day and required 30 employees to maintain the service. 800,000 passengers were served annually. Today, the NCATA has a fleet of 29 buses operating on 25 fixed routes serving people in New Castle and throughout Lawrence County, transporting them to destinations as far away as Pittsburgh. The NCATA is now serving over 1,000,000 passengers annually and has 51 employees.