Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority

Predecessors

Bus service in Ann Arbor began in 1925, when streetcars of the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Street Railway were replaced by buses. Multiple privately owned bus companies in Ann Arbor faced financial difficulties beginning in the late 1940s. Great Lakes Greyhound ended its Ann Arbor services in 1957, and its successors faced financial ruin. St. John Transportation Company of Dayton, Ohio began service in 1968, with a guaranteed subsidy from the city. Even with its subsidy, St. John's costs proved higher than expected, and it ceased operations in January 1969.

In 1969, the city of Ann Arbor directed the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority to purchase and run its own buses. This included $200,000 for their first fiscal year.

First AATA-run buses

The city-wide buses began operation on 1 April 1969. In January 1970, the AATA was granted a $429,275 federal grant for the purchase of buses. By July, the system was predicted to carry 600,000 passengers in the next year, which chairperson George Bacalis called "exceptional." By October, the AATA was requesting to provide input on all work on major roads in the city due to the impact road works had on bus service.

Expansion

In late 1973, Washtenaw Community College provided funds to run a bus service from Arborland Center to their campus in Ann Arbor Charter Township. The township government refused to provide its own funds towards the bus service. That same year, the AATA offered their first paratransit line with a wheelchair-accessible van service within city limits.

On 18 February 1974, the first AATA bus between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti ran, going from downtown Ann Arbor along Washtenaw Avenue to downtown Ypsilanti and into Ypsilanti Charter Township. On-demand bus service branded as Teltran started later that year within the city limits of Ann Arbor. By mid 1974, the AATA's bus system had over a million annual riders.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the AATA under director Michael Bolton worked with the city and the University of Michigan to create a 20-year transportation plan. The American Public Transit Association gave the AATA its annual bus safety award in June 1991. Bolton left the AATA for Capital Metro in 1994.

The AATA was the first transit authority in the United States to operate low-floor buses when, in early 1993, they took delivery of ten New Flyer D40LF buses. In terms of operation, only two Canadian authorities and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operated such buses prior to the AATA.

In November 2012, the AATA broke ground on the new Blake Transit Center, at a cost of $8.1 million. The new 2-story, 12,019-square-foot downtown transit hub replaced a one-story structure built at the site at 328 South Fifth Avenue in the 1980s. The new Blake Transit Center was officially opened for use on July 7, 2014. The D2A2 bus provides service from the Blake Transit Center to downtown Detroit.

Services

Fixed routes

Routes that travel east–west between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are numbered in the single digits. Routes that begin at the Blake Transit Center and serve Ann Arbor neighborhoods are numbered 22–34. Local services in Ypsilanti, originating from the Ypsilanti Transit Center, are numbered 42–47, and crosstown routes that do not serve either transit center are numbered 62–68.

Current routes

Effective August 25, 2024.

Major transfer stops

The main hubs of the AAATA system are the Blake Transit Center in downtown Ann Arbor and the Ypsilanti Transit Center in downtown Ypsilanti. Both transit centers have an indoor waiting room with a staffed ticket window.

AAATA buses serve multiple locations on the campus of the University of Michigan. On the university's Central Campus, the main transfer point is the Central Campus Transit Center on Geddes Avenue. All services to the university's North Campus stop at Pierpont Commons, and all services to the University of Michigan Health campus stop on Observatory Street. Connecting service is available to University of Michigan Transit services at these locations, and other locations across the University of Michigan campus.