Transit Windsor

Transit Windsor provides public transportation in the city of Windsor, Ontario, Canada as well as LaSalle, Essex, Kingsville, Amherstburg and Leamington and serves more than 6 million passengers each year (6.72 million in 2017), covering an area of and a population of 235,000. They operate a cross border service between the downtown areas of Windsor and Detroit, Michigan via the Tunnel Bus, and service to events at Detroit's Comerica Park, Little Caesars Arena, Huntington Place, and Ford Field. The Windsor International Transit Terminal neighbours with the Windsor International Aquatic and Training Centre. History Transit Windsor was started on November 1, 1977 with 90 transit buses, one double-decker bus from England, three highway coaches, and two suburban buses. Before 1977, the company was called the Sandwich, Windsor & Amherstburg Railway Company or the "SW&A". 1872 to 1939 The earliest ancestor of the SW&A (and thus, Transit Windsor) is the Sandwich and Windsor Passenger Railway Company, which was officially incorporated on March 2, 1872 and operated from July 20, 1874 onwards. On March 3, 1880, it was operated under foreclosure by Mr. A. J. Kennedy, who re-incorporated it as the SW&A on June 25, 1887. During this period, the SW&A was using horse-drawn streetcars. In Autumn of 1877 to May 1878, the SW&A experimented with using steam dummy railway propulsion for its streetcar and interurban services, before switching to electric power on a full-time basis, from August 15, 1891, until May 6, 1939. From August 31, 1901 to March 31, 1920, the SW&A was under ownership of the Detroit United Railway, when the local municipalities (the cities of Windsor and East Windsor, the towns of La Salle, Riverside, Tecumseh, Amherstburg, Ojibway, Sandwich, and Walkerville, and the townships Sandwich East and Sandwich West) purchased it back from them to retain it as a municipal operation. A result of this sale was the SW&A switching to electric streetcars, though the company began phasing out streetcars (electric and steam) during the 1930s and began using motorbuses. While under municipal ownership, it was operated by the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario from April 1, 1920 until September 22, 1934 under their "Hydro Electric Railways: Essex District" division.