📓

Getting Around: Huntington, WV

✔️

Huntington Essentials

Ten hourly bus lines, plus an every-20-minutes “green machine” shuttle that looks like a trolley.
All buses go to the TTA Center

It’s at 13th St. and 4th Ave
It’s also the Greyhound station
It does not show up on Google or Apple Maps!

$1 to ride, or $4 day pass. Pay cash or Token Transit
No live tracking. No directions on map software.

✅

Pros

Clean buses
Friendly drivers
It can get you there
Phone support is helpful

❌

Cons

Poor headways
No live tracking
No routing in Google/Apple/Transit
System maps hard to come by
Missing information on website
Many unmarked bus stops

Traveled March 2026

Gray and orange bird on a pile of dirt with a river in the background.

View of the Ohio river before sunrise from a bridge. Huntington WV on the right side.

Sidewalk scene in downtown Huntington WV

A Challenge

Huntington was no ordinary transit trip for me. It was a bit of a pilgrimage. I wanted to go to Billy Bob’s Wonderland in nearby Barboursville, WV. Barboursville was only about 20 miles from an Amtrak stop in Huntington.

Is this even possible with transit, I wondered.

It was!

But it was about 15 miles out of town. Normally this would be “let’s bite the bullet and take an Uber” trip, but after getting around without a car in about 40 cities, I figured my skill level was up to it.

Animatronic bear on a stage, at Billy Bob’s Wonderland

The one and only Billy Bob!

Hurdle 1: No Tracking or Routing on Apps.

There is no live bus tracking in the Huntington area.

There is no non-live bus tracking.

The buses in the Huntington area have no presence on Google Maps, Apple Maps, or the Transit app.

The buses just run. According to routes and schedules. All by their lonesome. Rawdogged.

Screenshot of error message: “You’re in an unsupported region. Tap for a notification whet it gets added to the app.”

Screenshot of Transit app in Huntington WV with a message: “You’re in an unsupported region.”

No data at all in the Transit app.

Hurdle 2: No Precise Route Maps

Worse, I could not find precise route maps. All the maps on the website were abstract. All the paper maps were abstract. They’d show drawings of generally which streets the buses go along.

The only place I saw an actual map of any routes was at the TTA Center, posted on the wall inside the building. The routes go down a lot of streets you wouldn’t expect if you were only looking at the abstract maps.

Paper route map for TTA bus Route 7 to Barboursville / Altizer. Contains an abstract map showing notable stops along the route.

Only a vague indication of where the bus goes, and no map of the actual stops.

Hurdle 3: Finding the TTA Center

The website makes lots of references to the TTA Center, which is essentially the main bus hub. It shares space with a Greyhound station.

At first, I didn’t notice the page deep on the TTA website that tells you where the TTA Center is.

If you look for the TTA Center on Apple Maps or Google Maps, it doesn’t show up. Worse, Google maps took its best guess and directed me a mile or two in the wrong direction to a bus storage/repair depot.

I eventually figured out where the TTA Center was. When I got there, it was nice enough. Lots of seats inside, restrooms available.

Screenshot of Google maps showing Huntington WV. Text overlay shows that the actual TTA center was rather far from Google’s search result.

Google tried to send me about a mile in the wrong direction to catch the bus.

Screenshot from tta-wv.com (TriState Transit Authority) indicating various general information, including the location of the TTA Center on 4th Avenue and 13th Street.

The TTA website does tell you where the TTA center is. but this information is buried at the bottom of a page.

Hurdle 4: No Stops On Map

There are no maps of the stops the bus makes. Going off the abstract maps, I had guessed each bus was kinda an express situation with a dozen stops or so.

Nope!

They’re regular buses with stops every few blocks.

How would I know this? I guess someone could at least walk down the streets and see the actual bus stops, right?

Bus at an intersection in Barboursville WV

This bus is pulling away from a bus stop. None of those signs says “Bus” on it. You just kinda have to know.

Hurdle 5: Few Bus Stop Signs/Sherters

One could not walk down the street to find bus stops.

Many, most even, of the stops had no benches, no shelters, and sometimes even no signs!

The stops in downtown Huntington often did have signs and benches, but once you got out of town it was a case of “you just kinda know.” Not even a courtesy placard on a light post.

This is where I picked up the bus for my return trip. No sign anywhere. You just have to know this is where the bus goes.

Hurdle 6: No Sidewalks

It looked like I could take a bus to the Huntington Mall, which was on the other side of a highway from Billy Bob’s Wonderland. Surely I could walk from the mall to Billy Bob’s, right?

WRONG AGAIN!

There were no sidewalks from one side of the highway to the other. I checked Google Maps for walking directions, and ever the optimist, it recommended I meander right through various intersections. Not even the side of the road, just mosey into the left turn lane.

21-minute walking route in Google maps, directing the user to walk right through the middle of an intersection.

Google Maps recommended some extreme foolishness in their walking directions.

Apple Maps, you’ll do better, right? Nope! It also sent me right through intersections, just different intersections.

Screenshot of Apple Maps walking directions, directing the user to walk in the middle of the road, then take left and briefly walk the wrong way down a left turn lane.

Apple Maps recommended foolishness as well. Less foolish than Google Maps, but only slightly.

It looked like I might need to take a Lyft for less than a mile from the mall, which would cost a minimum of $13.92 to go less than a mile. Oof.

Screenshot of Lyft app, indicating a minimum cost of $13.92 for a short journey.

A Lyft would cost $14 for just a few minutes.

Nevertheless I Persisted

I still got there without a car. Here’s how:

I called the TTA hotline phone number. The representative was very helpful, and gave me recommendations on which bus to take and where to pick it up. He even offered to give me exact directions to catch the nearest bus if I called again when I was ready to leave.
I finally found the TTA Center. On the wall was a map that showed the exact bus routes! I had just missed a bus, so I waited about an hour for the next one, which left on schedule.
I got on the bus and asked the bus driver if I could get off near Billy Bob’s instead of at the mall. “Of course!” he said. “There’s a stop by the Taco Bell.” (There was no indication anywhere of a stop by the taco bell. Not on the website, the map, or at the actual stop.)
The bus driver was super cool and showed me where I could catch the bus for my return trip. When I was ready to return, I waited in that spot (in front of a gas station), and in about 45 minutes (oof) the bus stopped right there to take me back.

It was a long trip. But I got there. $4 for a day pass, paid on the Token Transit app, which I’ve used in other cities so there was no setup.

Would I recommend it? Not unless you have all day. Which I did. And I saw some cool parts of town on the way.

Billy Bob’s Wonderland

Why did I want to go to Billy Bob’s anyway?

When I was a kid in the early 80s, there was a chain of pizza arcades known as Showbiz Pizza. It was my favorite place in the entire world. They had an animatronic band anchored by an extremely cool gorilla named Fatz. His band, the Rock-Afire Explosion, played covers of classic rock bands like The Doors and The Beach Boys, and I think maybe some originals. Billy Bob the bear was the spokesman for the establishment, and played a folksy square guitar in striped overalls.

Animatronic Billy Bob the bear playing a square guitar.

It’s Billy Bob!!!

Animatronic gorilla Fatz Geronimo playing an organ with other band members and an ornate set in the background.

Fatz, the anchor of the Rock-Afire Explosion band.

I even had their audio cassette and would listen to it before bed. To this day I prefer their cover of The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”

One day, Showbiz merged with Chuck E Cheese, and they quickly reskinned all the animatronics to be Chuck, Munch, and all of that band. Same restaurant, same guts, but they were all Chuck E’s band playing Chuck E’s songs.

I showed up one day, and all my favorite characters had been replaced. I was wrecked. I bawled for days.

Years ago, someone in West Virginia bought out a set of the original Showbiz animatronics, and opened Billy Bob’s Wonderland. They’ve restored and maintained them beautifully for years. I think they may be the only remaining set in existence.

Small pepperoni pizza and iced tea on a table, with animatronic stages in the background.

Even the pizza recipe felt like it was straight out of the 80s. Nostalgia 10/10.

Front view of the animatronic band, The Rock-Afire Explosion

The greatest animatronic band in history, The Rock-Afire Explosion!

I paid them a visit, and for added challenge I did it without a car. I took a train, walked a bunch, took a bus, then walked some more, through lawns, a car dealership, and a massive parking lot to get there.

And it was just magical. Like 40 years had never passed.

Thanks, Billy Bob!

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