12
JAN/FEB 2015
Painting
the Town Blue
A Short History of Public
Transportation in Lexington
LexTran Covers Lexington and offers
other services as well
by Martha Evans
Sparks, Staff Writer
Lextran, Lexington’s public
transportation bus
system, has come a long way since
the horse-drawn stagecoaches of
its ancestor, the Lexington Railway System, first hit the streets
in 1874. Five name changes and
140 years later, Lextran not only
serves Lexington with scheduled
bus routes, it offers carpooling and
vanpooling ride-matching services
and rides for the disabled.
Jill Barnett, Lextran’s director of
community affairs, said Lextran
“offers pretty good coverage of the
city” – north, south, east, and west
from Hamburg to the airport –
from 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. The
system operates 365 days a year,
even on Thanksgiving, Christmas
and New Year’s Day. The Transit
Center and customer service center are located on East Vine Street
in downtown Lexington.
Lextran has a fleet of 72 buses
that vary in size. All are equipped
with wheelchair ramps. Each bus
can accommodate two wheelchairs.
“We have a growing number of
seniors who take the regular Lextran bus to the senior center. It’s
inexpensive,” Barnett said. When
these seniors take the bus, they
don’t have to cope with traffic.
There are other services available
to them as well.
Wheels is Lextran’s door-todoor paratransit service for