Sun Tran
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| Founded | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 3920 N. Sun Tran Blvd |
| Locale | Tucson, AZ |
| Service type | bus service, paratransit |
| Routes | 42 (29 regular & 13 express) |
| Hubs | 3 |
| Fleet | 246 buses |
| Annual ridership | 20,352,101 (FY 2013) |
| Fuel type | Biodiesel, Biodiesel-Urea, CNG |
| Operator | Transdev |
| Website | suntran.com |
Sun Tran is the public transit system serving the city of Tucson, Arizona. Sun Tran services about 20 million passenger trips annually to destinations in and around Tucson. A 100 percent of the fleet utilizes clean-burning fuels, such as compressed natural gas (CNG), biodiesel, and hybrid technologies.
According to David Leighton, historian for the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, Sun Tran's history began in 1897 with the organization of the Tucson Street Railway, which by the following year was providing Tucsonans with regular mule-powered streetcar service. Streetcar tracks existed in parts of present-day downtown and to the University of Arizona. Within a few years, lack of profit caused the company to be sold and it was reorganized as Tucson Rapid Transit Co. (TRT).
By 1906, mules were replaced by electricity as the driving force behind the streetcars in Tucson. Four years later, TRT published its intent to increase the amount of track for its electric cars but insufficient money prevented this from occurring.
In October 1925, Tucson Rapid Transit Co., having realized that buses were more flexible and economical to run than streetcars and were the future of public transportation in the Old Pueblo, bought the White Star Bus Line. This small bus company would become the basis for TRT's bus service in town. Also around the same time, Roy Laos Sr., noting the lack of transit service to the south and west sides of town founded the Occidental Bus Line to serve these areas. Laos' bus service would later be called Old Pueblo Transit.
On January 1, 1931, Tucson Rapid Transit formally ended all electric streetcar service in town. From this day forward it became strictly a bus company. Five years later, Jacob M. Bingham established the Mountain View Bus Line with one bus. His goal was to provide service to outlying areas that TRT didn't serve but turning a profit or even just paying his bills was difficult and soon enough TRT bought his small enterprise.
During World War II, ridership increased to a large degree, in part due to tire and fuel rationing that was carried out to support the war effort. The secondary reason for the surge was the need for public transportation for workers in the growing defense industry.
In late 1951, the Hughes Missile Plant (now called Raytheon Missile Systems) was finished and was operating with a small number of employees. Competition for ridership to the new factory between Old Pueblo Transit and Tucson Rapid Transit became heated and OPT filed an injunction in court to prevent TRT from providing service for employees. Early the following year, the Arizona Corporation Commission decided against OPT and allowed TRT to also provide bus service to the plant.
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Wikipedia