The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) announced today the expansion of their late night “#21 Night Owl” weekend service to begin including Thursday service starting tomorrow, August 22nd. The #21 will run the same route on Thursdays between Clintonville and German Village, serving residents, visitors and students from 7pm to 3am.
“The popularity of the Night Owl on weekends along with requests from Ohio State students indicated that now was the time to add Thursday service,” said COTA President and CEO Curtis Stitt. “We’re pleased to expand late night service in COTA’s busiest corridor to a third evening.”
To celebrate the launch of Thursday Night Owl service, COTA is hosting a Crawl of Columbus event to encourage ridership along the route.
“We want to open up service to as many people as possible, so that they have access to cultural activities along the corridor without having to think about the oft-mentioned parking problem,” said Marty Stutz, VP of Communications at COTA.
Daily ridership reports of the #21 Night Owl have ranged from 313 riders on a slower Friday this summer to 617 on the Friday of an OSU football weekend last fall. So far, Stutz considers the route a success, but says that COTA is hesitant to explore additional late night routes until they measure what is being implemented tomorrow.
“We’re going to see how Thursday does, and as our resources and planning moves ahead, we’ll see what the response is,” he added.
More information can be found at www.cota.com.
Map via COTA. Photo by Walker Evans.