Town Loop
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| Founded | 1972 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 2081 W. Whitehall Road State College, PA 16801 |
| Locale | State College, Pennsylvania |
| Service area |
State College Penn State University |
| Service type | Local transit bus service |
| Routes | 23 Local 4 Fare-Free Within PSU Campus and Downtown State College |
| Fleet | 92 Buses, 12 Paratransit Vehicles, 12 Vans |
| Daily ridership | 7.3 million yearly total |
| Fuel type | CNG |
| Chief executive | Louwana Oliva |
| Website | www.catabus.com |
The Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) is a mass transit agency that provides bus transportation within State College, Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas, as well as Pennsylvania State University.
The company first started as Centre Area Transit (CAT), which was formed to provide a vehicle to subsidize public transit throughout the region. Then on May 17, 1974, the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) was incorporated. By the end of its first year, CATA was officially up and running and its annual ridership was 201,000. By 1979, ridership was continuing to grow year after year prompting CATA to add more bus routes as well as additional buses built by GMC. It was then in 1990 that ridership had officially hit the two million mark. CATA then revised its bus fleet in 1996 by introducing their first fleet of CNG buses built by Orion Bus Industries. The following year, CATA would eventually phase out the remaining GMC diesel-powered buses, in favor for new state-of-the-art New Flyer low-floor CNG buses. Currently all of CATA's fleet buses are CNG-powered and ridership has exceeded seven million passengers, the majority of riders being Penn State students.
In the fall of 1999, CATA and Penn State came up with an agreement in which CATA would take over all bus transportation on campus, which would be fare-free. Four routes were created as part of the agreement: The Blue and White Loop (in conjunction with the school's colors), and the Red and Green Link. All four routes run during the fall and spring semesters, including the summer which operates under a limited service schedule.
CATA's service routes (also known as the "Centre Line") travel around the Penn State campus, downtown State College, and the surrounding areas. All routes run under full service during fall and spring semesters, and reduced service during the summer.
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