Rochester Public Transit

Two nights ago, I dreamt about Rochester and its transit system. In my dream, I was analyzing the problems Rochester Public Transit was having with its new Transit Development Plan. TDPs are documents issued by most smaller transit systems once every five years. (As a Communist, I find the idea of “five-year plans” in American public transit to be hilarious!)

Anyway, in the dream, I found the problem had to do with concentric circles around the city. The bands in which housing, retail, and “battles” were arranged were so different that it was difficult to serve them all with a coherent bus system. (Upon waking, I realized “battles” were closer to historic and recreational sites. As far as I know, no actual battles, either of the Civil War or against indigenous people, ever took place in Rochester.)

There is actual merit in this idea, though of course dreams aren’t usually rational. The biggest problem in Rochester from a transit point of view is the sprawling northwest quadrant. There is no rational route structure that works for that area of single-family homes and retail on both sides of a freeway. RTP has to make do with what it has.

Rochester’s transit system has an interesting history. The city never had streetcars, but there was a bus company called the Rochester Bus Company which existed until the summer of 1966. It went out of business for the same reason many privately-owned bus companies did in that era: it was losing money. On 3 August of that year, another privately-owned bus company, Richfield Bus Company, using the name Rochester City Lines, took up the slack. They managed to stay in business long enough to be the last privately-owned urban transit system in Minnesota and probably in the United States, finally giving up the ghost, so to speak, in the summer of 2015, when the City of Rochester took over ownership of the system and contracted a British company to operate it on their behalf. Even then, Rochester City Lines operated commuter buses from small towns throughout southeastern Minnesota to Rochester, primarily for Mayo Clinic workers, until the COVID-19 pandemic decimated their ridership. Unfortunately, it is likely this commuter service is not returning.

(I may have some details wrong here. I apologize if I stepped on any toes here. It was unintentional.)

From the early 1980s until a few years ago, I was in the self-contradictory position of self-identifying as a Communist while defending the privately-owned bus companies of the past, including Rochester City Lines. Because of this unusual situation, however, I have met the founder of its parent company, Richfield Bus Company, and found him, George Holter, to be a pleasant and well-meaning man with an independent streak that is to be admired, though he’s thoroughly anti-Communist and seems to believe many local government officials are Communists. I’m sure my friends down at the Communist Party USA would probably find this hilarious if they knew, LOL!

Well, anyway, I hope readers find this cursory history lesson edifying.