COTA Line Review: 42 Sharon Woods

a commuter bus people actually use woah what a concept

what is this

The 42 is a rush-hour route. It serves the purpose of a rush hour route. The main distinction between this rush-hour route and ones I’ve rode in the past? This one actually gets ridership. This could potentially be because it actually serves the community well.

okay, where does it go

a Big Building

The 42 starts at the COTA Transit Terminal downtown. It runs north through downtown along High, passing the Statehouse. We turned east onto Spring (downtown-bound buses run along Long instead of Spring). After this, we turned north onto I-71 and skips over Clintonville and Linden.

a few blurry houses

We got off of I-71 at the Morse Road exit and turned east. We made local stops, with some people getting off throughout this segment. Interchange is available to the 34 and 11. We turned north onto Karl, where we interlined with the 8. This was where we had the majority of people get off. We went across SR-161 and eventually turned west onto Shrock then south onto Sharon Woods. By now, I was the only person on the bus. We continued along Sharon Woods for a few minutes, and we terminated at the intersection of Sharon Woods and Skywae.

terminus of route

so what

This bus serves Northland very well and it shows. The bus was halfway full when it left the COTA terminal downtown, and it got even more full as it went through downtown. It went right along the main arterial roads and then squiggled through some more local roads, serving the busiest sections first.

final rating

I will give the 42 a 6/10. It serves Northland VERY well, but it doesn’t run all too often. It only runs one trip in the morning in the direction of downtown, and it runs another in the evening back out to Northland. If it ran more often, I would have given it a higher score, but it just doesn’t make the cut in that respect.