Visitors to downtown Kent and other areas of Portage County will soon be able to travel around in a more nostalgic way.
The Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority (PARTA) is launching a new trolley service starting Aug. 19, officials announced in a Wednesday news release.
Initially, the trolley buses will transport riders around downtown Kent to popular locations where parking may be tricky, such as restaurants and breweries, PARTA officials said.
PARTA leaders hope the trolleys will encourage people to ride public transit, PARTA general manager Claudia Amrhein said.
“You put regular buses around and nobody notices them, but you put trolleys around and people suddenly want to get on them,” she said. “We’re really hoping to pick up our ridership and exposure.”
The trolleys will be nicknamed “Polly the Trolley,” she said.
PARTA will receive the first trolley within the next week, in time for the Aug. 19 launch, Amrhein said. However, the trolleys will likely not run on a regular basis until September, she said.
“This is kind of cart before the horse, but it’s just to get the event underway and get people seeing them and excited,” Amrhein said. “We’ll make sure all the t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted and they’re what we want.”
Three trolley buses will eventually run on PARTA routes throughout Portage County - particularly on streets that have slower speed limits and more frequent stops.
The initial goal is to get patrons to park their cars at the Kent Central Gateway parking deck in downtown Kent and use the trolley to navigate the area.
“You could park in the Gateway, hop on the trolley, go out and get dinner somewhere along the route, hop back on, get back in your car, go home,” Amrhein said. “That’s the idea – kind of a park-and-ride.”
Eventually, the trolley buses will operate on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings on PARTA’s “Downtowner” route, which is a modification of the existing “Suburban” route, she said.
The trolleys will feature authentic trolley bells, wood paneled walls and ceilings, wooden seats and removable window panels for open air riding, officials said in the release.
To encourage ridership, PARTA is running a special in which each parked car at the central gateway is entitled to one free day pass to ride the trolley, and single-ride and day passes can be purchased at the transit center’s lobby, she said.
Single ride passes cost $1. Day passes are $2.
Acquiring new public transit buses is already a long process, Amrhein added, but the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent supply chain challenges further delayed the project.
The new trolley service has been in the works since 2018, when PARTA became aware of a company that manufactures trolleys that can be operated year-round in cities with colder temperatures, Amrhein said.
This is not the first time the area has had a trolley. A streetcar once connected Kent, Ravenna and Akron in the early 1900s, but the service was retired in 1932, according to Amrhein.
PARTA will host a ribbon cutting ceremony to launch the service Aug. 19 at 5 p.m. on E. Erie St. near Kent Central Gateway. Free trolley rides on the “Downtowner” route will be available after the ceremony, according to the release.
PARTA plans to add four more trolley buses to its fleet in the coming years.
The new service comes as another longtime trolley bus service in Northeast Ohio ended operations earlier this year. Cleveland’s privately owned downtown trolley bus, “Lolly the Trolley,” ceased operations after almost four decades back in May. The trolley service cited the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors for its closure.
