Getting Around: Charlottesville, VA

There is no separate website for CAT (Charlottesville Area Transit), just some subpages on their city website. It takes you to a page with a whole bunch of links to routes and schedules, and feels very dated.

It is not a visitor-friendly site, and discouraged me from riding. You have to really dig to figure out how to ride and, especially, how to pay.

This was strange, because this was an easy system to ride. Really easy.

All the buses are free.

You’d think they’d tell you that first thing on their website, but apparently not. I was frantically checking the website until I finally found that piece of information, quite buried.

Even on the Transit app, only the Trolley is labeled “free” but apparently that applies to the numbered bus lines as well.

I walked out of my hotel wondering where to go for dinner. I saw a pedestrianized downtown a mile or two away on the map.

It was already past 8pm. Should I try to get there?

I punched it into the Transit app. It said “leave now” to catch the Trolley.

The route was based on a scheduled time. I later realized that the agency’s ETA Spot app has live tracking.

But I was using the Transit app. Luckily, the trolley actually did show up right on time! I got on, said hello to the friendly driver.

On the outside it looked like a cute old-timey trolley.

On the inside it looked like any other city bus.

Whatever. It got me there, quick clean and safe.

I took the trolley back to my hotel. Again, right on schedule. Again I said hello to the friendly driver. It was the same friendly driver.

The frequency left a lot to be desired, and the buses stopped running at 10pm. For a college town, things get pretty quiet pretty early.