Fairmont Marion County Transit Authority

On December 31, 1971, the City Lines buses ended service in Marion County and Fairmont, West Virginia. This left the citizens of the area without any type of mass transit. The inauguration of a new system lasted over a year and a half.

In January 1973, the governing bodies of Marion County and Fairmont formed the Fairmont Marion County Transit Authority (FMCTA) as a separate government entity, funded equally at $60,000 by each of the bodies. The planning, purchasing, scheduling and recruitment process lasted five months. On June 7, 1973, the seventeen-month period of no transit ended with the operation of FMCTA's first bus.

May 23, 1973 Michael Pasquale was named Manager / Dispatcher and since that time Woody Conrad served 11 years, H. B. Herb Pudder served 5 years, Joe Rager 12 years and George Levitsky(2nd Certified Community Transit Manager in WV, was Community Transit Association of America's Manager of the Year in 2009) served 21 years, as Managers of the Transit Authority. In January 2024 Jeff Mullenax was named General Manager by the Authority's board of directors. The Transit Authority celebrated serving Marion County with public transportation for 50 years in 2023. In 2014 US Senator Joe Manchin, Delegates Mike Caputo, Tim Manchin and Linda Longstreth, and Governor Tomblin offered congratulatory letters and a citation from the House of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature.

Originally service operated on seven routes in and around Fairmont plue five additional routes serving rural communities. The original routes were West End, East Side, Rivesville, Barrackville (with select trips to Chesapeake), Watson/Mall, Monongah (with select trips to Worthington) and Jackson Addition. Weekly routes were Kingmont and Manningotn on Tuesdays, Carolina, Fairview and later Colfax on Wednesdays).

Soon after, FMCTA began to expand the service area. The original fleet of buses consisted of Mercedes-Benz buses and later in the 1980s of Flexettes which were light duty buses built by Flexible. Grumman-Olsens (which look like bread trucks) were added for rural route service. Large Bluebirds which resembled school buses were bought to use on charters and interstate trips until insurance became cost prohibitive. They were by far the largest buses operated by FMCTA with 41 seats. The fleet for many years consisted of Goshen Coach buses, Ford mid-sized buses, vans and a trolley. The fleet now stands around 30 vehicles that have various seating capacities ranging from four to thirty two seats and are fully equipped to meet the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) specifications and 4 non ADA service vehicles.

Facility

When the FMCTA began service in 1973, service was provided out of a bus garage on Maryland Avenue in Fairmont. In 1980, the Authority was given a federal grant to build a new facility which included a garage, maintenance and office space as well as bus parking and fueling stations. In 1996, additional equipment parking was added in the lot adjacent to the new facility on Quincy Street. Another floor was added to garage in 2007 as well as additional parking. In May 2015 the transfer station was moved from on the street by the courthouse to a renovated 4 story stucco building located @ 401 Monroe Street with a cover area for waiting and Monday through Friday an indoor waiting area for our passengers.

Destination signs

The first Mercedes buses lacked destination signs to tell the passengers where the bus was going. Makeshift signs were made on pieces of cardboard scrawled on by a black marker. This issue was solved as more buses were purchased. The first bunch of Goshens purchased only had the overhead scroll sign and lacked a sign on the side of the buses. The next batch of buses purchased in the 1990s solved this issue, however it was tough convincing the bus drivers to use the side destination sign and it often remained on white blank or it was removed completely. New scrolls were purchased for the older buses and came equipped in the newer buses with exposures reading Out of Service and Garage. These were added to end confusion of passengers when buses return to the Courthouse at the end of a trip to discharge passengers only. Waiting passengers have no way of knowing the bus is only dropping off passengers and they often approach the bus only to be told the driver is going to the garage. Unfortunately, these helpful exposures are never displayed. The first bus with an electronic destination sign was a Champion brand bus added in 2006 which will hopefully put an end to the white blank days which at times appeared on the front of buses as well when there was not real signage available. This was the case for new or experimental routes such as those to Clarksburg Malls, Montana and Bunner's Ridge.