The Greater Richmond Transit Company was created on April 12, 1973, when the City of Richmond purchased the assets of the Virginia Transit Company to establish a publicly owned public transit provider for the Richmond region.
The history of transit in the Richmond region, however, dates as far back as 1860, when the Richmond Railway was originally organized, and includes major historical events, most notably the 1887 granting of a franchise to the Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company to operate the world’s first publicly owned electric streetcar system.
The electric streetcars operated from 1887 until 1949 – when they were replaced first by gas and then in 1953 diesel buses. Air conditioning was introduced in 1957, with the introduction of the “Frosty Fleet.”
GRTC was created to provide regional transit service – in 1975, service began to Henrico County, and in 1989 Chesterfield County completed the purchase of half ownership of GRTC, joining the City of Richmond in a 50/50 ownership split.
In 1995, GRTC adopted a new purple and black color scheme, which would later become purple, green, and white, and in 2000 a new name: “GRTC Transit System.”
In the 2000s, GRTC made some major changes to prepare the region for 21st-century transit service, adding real-time bus tracking, online trip planning, and building a new facility on Belt Blvd, which began full operations in 2010.
In 2012, the system added its first Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicle to the paratransit fleet, followed by the first CNG fixed route bus in 2013.
In 2014, the region completed the Broad Street Rapid Transit Study and received notice of approval for a federal TIGER Grant, providing key funding and plans for what would become the GRTC Pulse Bus Rapid Transit system. Design and construction would last another four years.
In preparation for the opening of the Pulse, GRTC conducted a major overhaul of all service, culminating in the new GRTC bus and Pulse system launching in 2018 to great success: ridership would increase by 17 percent in the first full year of service.
Longtime GRTC co-owners Chesterfield County received their first fixed route bus line with the introduction of the Route 111 (now 3B) along the Richmond Highway in 2020, which was joined by a second major fixed route expansion along the 1A in January of 2024.
In GRTC’s 50th year, the agency introduced several new routes, services, and major infrastructure pieces. This began with the opening of a new temporary off-street Downtown Transfer Station, with real-time information screens, WIFI, charging, and other amenities. The agency then introduced LINK Microtransit, a new zone based on demand transit service that began operating first in Azalea – followed by four more zones in the spring of 2024.