Transit Windsor provides public transportation in the city of
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
, Ontario, Canada as well as
LaSalle,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
,
Kingsville,
Amherstburg
Amherstburg is a town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In 1796, Fort Malden was established here, stimulating growth in the settlement. The fort has been designated as a National Historic Site.
The town is ...
and
Leamington and serves more than 6 million passengers each year (6.72 million in 2017),
covering an area of and a population of 218,000. They operate a cross border service between the downtown areas of Windsor and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
via the Tunnel Bus, and service to events at Detroit's
Comerica Park
Comerica Park is a baseball stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It has been the home of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers since 2000, when the team left Tiger Stadium.
History Construction
Founded in 1894, the Tigers had played at the ...
,
Little Caesars Arena
Little Caesars Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Midtown Detroit. Opened on September 5, 2017, the arena, which cost $862.9 million to construct, replaced Joe Louis Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of th ...
,
TCF Center
Huntington Place (formerly known as Cobo Hall, Cobo Center, and briefly as TCF Center) is a convention center in Downtown Detroit, owned by the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA) and operated by ASM Global. Located at 1 Washi ...
, and
Ford Field
Ford Field is a domed American football stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It primarily serves as the home of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), as well as the annual Quick Lane Bowl college football bowl game, state champ ...
. The
Windsor International Transit Terminal neighbours with the Windsor International Aquatic and Training Centre.
History
Transit Windsor was started on November 1, 1977 with 90 transit buses, one double-decker bus from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, three highway coaches, and two suburban buses. Before 1977, the company was called the ''Sandwich, Windsor & Amherstburg Railway Company'' or the "SW&A".
1872 to 1939
The earliest ancestor of the SW&A (and thus, Transit Windsor) is the Sandwich and Windsor Passenger Railway Company, which was officially incorporated on March 2, 1872 and operated from July 20, 1874 onwards. On March 3, 1880, it was operated under foreclosure by Mr. A. J. Kennedy, who re-incorporated it as the SW&A on June 25, 1887. During this period, the SW&A was using horse-drawn streetcars. In Autumn of 1877 to May 1878, the SW&A experimented with using
steam dummy
A steam dummy or dummy engine, in the United States and Canada, was a steam locomotive enclosed in a wooden box structure made to resemble a railroad passenger coach. Steam dummies had some popularity in the first decades of railroading in the U ...
railway propulsion for its
streetcar
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
and
interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...
services, before switching to electric power on a full-time basis, from August 15, 1891, until May 6, 1939.
![Detroit united railway map-1904](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Detroit_united_railway_map-1904.PNG)
From August 31, 1901 to March 31, 1920, the SW&A was under ownership of the
Detroit United Railway
The Detroit United Railway was a transport company which operated numerous streetcar and interurban lines in southeast Michigan. Although many of the lines were originally built by different companies, they were consolidated under the control of ...
, when the local municipalities (the cities of Windsor and
East Windsor, the towns of La Salle,
Riverside
Riverside may refer to:
Places Australia
* Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania
Canada
* Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon
* Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta
* Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural m ...
,
Tecumseh
Tecumseh ( ; October 5, 1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and ...
, Amherstburg,
Ojibway
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
,
Sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
, and
Walkerville, and the townships Sandwich East and Sandwich West) purchased it back from them to retain it as a municipal operation.
[ A result of this sale was the SW&A switching to electric streetcars, though the company began phasing out streetcars (electric and steam) during the 1930s and began using motorbuses. While under municipal ownership, it was operated by the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario from April 1, 1920 until September 22, 1934 under their "Hydro Electric Railways: Essex District" division.
Electric ]trolleybus
A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...
es were introduced on May 4, 1922, but were withdrawn on January 10, 1926, with the arrival of their replacements, the motorbus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
es. During the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, the SW&A withdrew its buses from regular service to save on operations costs, becoming purely trolley and interurban in service from 1931 until March 21, 1938, when buses returned and the interurban and trolley lines started being decommissioned.
On that date (March 21, 1938), the trolley lines to Amherstburg were the first to be replaced with buses, with the "Windsor-Walkerville" along Wyandotte Street and "Erie Streetcar" along Ottawa Street being the last to convert to buses, on May 6, 1939. The Windsor-Tecumseh Interurban would be the last rail service of any type, being replaced with buses on May 15, 1938.[
Remains of the streetcar network can be found at the intersection of Sandwich and Mill streets, where the crosswalks of Sandwich Street still retain their original streetcar rails from 1939. Keen-eyed motorists and pedestrians can still see the paved-over rails along Elm Avenue between Riverside Drive and University Avenue as two long, exceptionally straight grooves or cracks in the pavement. A business on University Avenue (formerly London Street) called "the Junction" is one of the original streetcar barns that was used by SW&A before it ended use of the streetcars.
]
Windsor Electric Street Railway Company
The Windsor Electric Street Railway was the first public electric street railway in Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, having begun service on June 6, 1886 with official opening ceremonies on June 9. Electricity was replaced with steam dummy operations in April 1888 until the fall of that year, when it was replaced with horse-drawn carriages afterwards. It was reorganized on April 18, 1893 as the City Railway Company of Windsor, and was leased to the SW&A on March 21, 1894. The SW&A would completely absorb it on June 4, 1904 turning the Windsor-Essex Street Railway into its trolley line to Walkerville, Ontario
Walkerville, Ontario, is a former town in Canada, that is today a heritage precinct of Windsor, Ontario. The town was founded by Hiram Walker in 1890, owner and producer of Canadian Club Whisky. Walker planned it as a 'model town’, (originally ...
.
Sandwich, Windsor and Amherstburg Interurban
March 31, 1902 saw the purchase of the South Essex Electric Railway (incorporated on April 7, 1896) by the SW&A, which held a charter to construct an interurban line to Amherstburg. This purchase would allow the SW&A to construct the yet-unbuilt line to Amherstburg from Windsor. The line was completed by the SW&A on July 4, 1903 and operated until May 15, 1938, when it was the first of the lines to be replaced with buses. Bus service to Amherstburg was sold to an independent operator, Sun Parlour Coach Lines in 1958, and would be absorbed into Charterways in 1960.
Windsor and Tecumseh Electric Railway Company
The Windsor and Tecumseh Electric Railway Company was incorporated in 1904 and acquired the charter and assets of the Ontario Traction Company, Limited's yet-unbuilt interurban line to Tecumseh from Windsor, on May 25, 1905. The line began interurban trolley service from May 1, 1907, and was purchased by the SW&A on March 31, 1920. It, and the "Erie Streetcar" along Ottawa Street in Windsor, were the two last trolleys/interurbans to be discontinued, surviving until May 15, 1938. Bus service would continue to Tecumseh until 1956.
The original interurban trolley line ran along Wyandotte Street, then Clairmont Street (later Clairview Street, today's Clairview Trail) and Ganatchio Trail
The Ganatchio Trail is the second bike trail built in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Construction on the trail started upon the closure of Clairview Avenue. The trail extends over 5.3 km, and passes through several neighbourhoods, including Riv ...
before turning south along the west side of Lesperance Road in Tecumseh, terminating at a loop next to the CN Rail
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...
/VIA Rail
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...
tracks.[
]
Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Interurban
The Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Rapid Railway Company was incorporated in 1901 and was controlled by the Dominion Traction and Lighting Company. This Interurban line became active on September 19, 1907 and introduced a regional bus service by 1925 as "Highway Motor Coach Line". It would be acquired by local municipalities (City of Windsor, towns of Kingsville, Leamington and Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
and the townships of Sandwich West, Sandwich East, Sandwich South, Gosfield North and Gosfield South) as the Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Electric Railway Association on September 8, 1929, coming under common ownership with the SW&A and its interurban lines. Under its new ownership, the line received substantial upgrades to its rails, as well as brand-new rolling stock
The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...
. Its interurban cars and buses were branded as "''The Sunshine County Route''". Due to a severe drop in riders, service was suspended in 1932. Attempts to sell the line to a steam railroad was unsuccessful and all infrastructure was dismantled and sold in 1935 Interurban service was along city streets in Leamington and Windsor, and either on its own right of way
Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another.
A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...
or parallel to the public highway
A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...
in the county.
1940s to 1960s
In the 1940s, SW&A was running Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
and Twin Coach
Twin Coach was an American vehicle manufacturing company from 1927 to 1955, located in Kent, Ohio, and a maker of marine engines and airplane parts until the 1960s. It was formed by brothers Frank and William Fageol when they left the Fageol Mo ...
branded buses. During the 1950s, it stopped the River Canard line (1951), the 6 mile Tecumseh route (1956), and the Amherstburg line (1958).
In the 1960s it ran 14 routes:
*1. Crosstown
*2. Dougall Avenue
*3. Erie Street
*4. Highway No.2
*5. Lauzon Road
*6. Malden Road
*7. Howard Avenue
*8. Ottawa
*9. Pillette
*10. St. Mary's Academy
*11. Sanatorium
*12. Sandwich East
*13. Tecumseh-Drouillard
*14. Wellington-Campbell
By 1973, these would be renumbered to the following:
*1 Ouellette
*2 Bruce
*3 Riverdale
*4 Campbell
*5 Ottawa
*6 Dominion
*7 Crosstown
*8 Dougall
*9 Erie
*10 Highway #2
*11 Forest Glade
*12 Howard
*12A Devonshire (Came later than 1973)
*13 Lincoln
*14 Lauzon
*15 Malden
*16 Wellington
Lincoln-Trent Management Limited operated system for the City of Windsor from July 15, 1970 to November 1973.
1977 to present
After changing its name to "Transit Windsor" in 1977, the company began operating GMC New Look buses and GM highway coaches.
In the 1980s, Transit Windsor bought and Orion 01.501 and 01.508 buses and GM New Looks. The company also purchased GM Classics, MCI Classics, and an Orion 05.501 demo.
In 1997 it purchased its first low-floor buses, the Nova Bus LFS. No new high-floor buses have been purchased since.
On Sunday, June 24, 2007, Transit Windsor and Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
began using the newly constructed Windsor International Transit Terminal (WITT).[ The new facility was built to replace the former bus station which was in disrepair. The routes that run through WITT include the Transway 1A, Transway 1C, Central 3 West, Ottawa 4, Dominion 5, Dougall 6, Walkerville 8, Parent 14 and the Tunnel Bus. The terminal is located at 300 Chatham Street West behind the Windsor International Aquatics and Training Centre.
In 2014, Transit Windsor placed 16 used vehicles into service that were second-hand units from ]London Transit
The London Transit Commission (LTC) is responsible for the operation of the public transit system on behalf of the City of London, Ontario, Canada. It operates transit bus service and para-transit service. In 2014, annual ridership totaled 24.1 ...
. Those units were numbered 670-685 and were New Flyer
New Flyer is a Canadian multinational Bus manufacturing, bus manufacturer, specializing in the production of transit buses. New Flyer is owned by the NFI Group, a holding company for several bus manufacturers. New Flyer has several manufacturing ...
D40i Invero model buses.
Routes
Former routes
*Ouellette 1
*Transway 1B
*Transway 1C Express
*Crosstown 2 Express
*Central 3 West
*Dominion 5A
*Dominion 5B/C
*Dougall 6 Express
*Dougall 6A
*Dougall 6B
*Dougall 6A/B
*South Windsor 7A
*South Windsor 7B
*South Windsor 7C
*South Windsor 7D
*Walkerville 8A
*Walkerville 8B
*Drouillard 9
*Eastown 11
*Roseland 12
*Ojibway 13
Notes
: represents all trips on designated route are fully accessible. (all routes have some accessible trips) Based on Fall 2014-Fall 2015 schedule. As of 2020 all buses are fully accessible.
:Note 1. Service on the South Windsor 7 and Parent 14 ends at 7 PM
:Note 2. The Tunnel Bus runs from Windsor International Transit Terminal to the Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, Michigan via the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. More information can be found o
Transit Windsor's website
Ridership
Between 2007 and 2017, ridership steadily grew while Transit Windsor's service area stayed stagnant at around 210,000 to 220,000 people.
References
External links
*
Transit Windsor homepage
Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Rapid Railway , Rock on Trains
- maps and photos of the Sandwich, Windsor and Amherstburg Interurban Railway; the Windsor and Tecumseh Electric Railway Company; and the Windsor, Essex and Lake Shore Rapid Railway
{{Authority control
Transport in Windsor, Ontario
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
Bus transport in Ontario