Charlottesville Area Transit has operated one route with a bus made out to look like an old-style trolley, a route that was farefree before the entire system stopped taking payment in the early days of the pandemic.
Today CAT announced that the trolley will take a detour until further notice.
“South 1st at Midway Manor is currently closed,” reads an email sent out at 11:49 a,m. “The Trolley is detoured via McIntire to Market Street until further notice.”
There’s no explanation in the announcement for why the road is closed.
Last year, CAT announced a public dashboard to help track the agency’s operations. According to the “performance trend” view, ridership on the free trolley reached an average of 771 weekly boardings in April, up from 525 over the same month in 2024.
The busiest route is the 7 that travels from U.S. 29 in Albemarle County to downtown via the Downtown Transit Station. This route had average daily boardings of 1,339 in April 2025, up from 1,171 in April 2024.
The least used route is the 1 that traveled between Piedmont Virginia Community College and downtown Charlottesville. This had an average daily boarding of 97 in April 2024 compared to 130 a year later.
There is no service on Sunday and there has been no recent update to Council on when that might occur.
Before you go: This article first went out in the July 3, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then posted here a day later. This is a work of Town Crier Productions, an information company of one that seeks to inform the community. Learn more about how you can support the work.
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