The C-TRAN Facebook page receives all sorts of inquiries from riders, ranging from general questions to service updates. Recently, we received this message:
“I just want to ask if the Elmira-Corning bus is making runs.”
Elmira, N.Y., is about 2,300 miles from Vancouver, which is just a bit outside of our service area. C-TRAN doesn’t have a route there. But C TRAN (no hyphen) does. That would be the public transit system serving Chemung County in southern New York state.
It’s not the first time we’ve been confused with another transit agency of the same name. Turns out, there have been at least three other C-TRAN doppelgangers operating elsewhere in the U.S. in recent years. The C-Tran serving Clayton County, Georgia, sadly shut down in 2012. Another C-Tran in Cary, North Carolina, rebranded as GoCary in 2016. That leaves just C-TRAN (Washington) and C TRAN (New York) still carrying the banner.
C-TRAN, of course, isn’t our full name. We’re the Clark County Public Transportation Benefit Area Authority more formally. The C-TRAN name was selected shortly before we officially started rolling in 1981. And our original logo was designed by two Washington State University students later that year through a contest.
C TRAN (the other one) operates nine local bus routes that serve Elmira and other towns in Chemung County. It also provides commuter routes to Ithaca, Corning and other destinations in the region.
Route 20 is C TRAN’s Elmira-Corning bus. If anyone else asks, it is running.