History
The need for creating RVTD arose when its predecessor, a private company named Mount Ashland Stage Lines, went bankrupt and ceased operating in 1974 after having served the Rogue Valley since 1965. Area voters approved the creation of a new public transit district in 1975, but funding for operations was not included, and subsequent requests for authorization of a property-tax increase to fund the service were rejected at the ballot box. The district's board scaled back the original plans by about 35 percent before finally gaining voter approval of operations funding. The service that was inaugurated in July 1977, initially operating under the name, Rogue Rapids Transit, comprised just three buses serving six routes. Initial ridership on the fledging system was better than expected, prompting the city of Medford to agree to purchase three vans for RVTD's use, which were used for a new shuttle service in the downtown area starting in November 1977. The district's bus fleet has since grown to 20 vehicles.
Read more about this topic: Rogue Valley Transportation District
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)