“All Hands on Deck”: Kitsap Transit’s First Decade

One of Kitsap Transit’s early buses drives past the West Bremerton Transfer Center in the early 1980s.

Most of the engines were dead. The brake systems didn’t work and the rusted coach doors wouldn’t shut properly. The buses were so old that no parts could be found to repair them.

It was September 1983, and a small group of employees for the newly formed Kitsap County Public Transportation Benefit Area Authority had gathered at a run-down bus yard along Charleston Avenue in Bremerton to see what they had to work with.

The fledgling transit agency – rebranded “Kitsap Transit” at its first board meeting – had just taken possession of the private transit company Bremerton-Charleston Transportation’s operations, including the maintenance facility.

“The buses were just junk,” said John Clauson, Kitsap Transit’s Executive Director. Hired as one of the agency’s first bus drivers, Clauson had pivoted to writing schedules for the new service coming to Bremerton. He recalled that many of the coaches didn’t run at all and had to be hauled away by tow trucks. 

Circles painted on the floor of the maintenance facility marked where the buckets were placed when it rained. Karen Ellsworth, Kitsap Transit’s long-time Inventory Control Manager, remembers searching for bus parts using the “pile method.” In one corner of the building, the roof was gone.

“I had a heater under my desk, and I could watch the snow fall through the building,” Ellsworth said.

Over the next 40 years, Charleston Base would become the central hub for Kitsap Transit’s bus operations. But in 1983, it was an example of the challenges the agency faced in those early years – a small team faced with a lack of infrastructure and the logistics of building a transit agency from the ground up.

That first decade was marked by hard work and progress. Everyone did a little bit of everything.

“We all just dug in and cleaned it up and made it habitable,” Clauson said.

A Transit Agency is Born

The history of public transportation in Kitsap County is a rough and tumble one. It predated Kitsap Transit’s existence by 60 years.

Ferries were the king of Puget Sound transportation in the early 20th century. The “Mosquito Fleet” connected many of the budding communities across the region, and Kitsap County was no different. Ferries, not cars or buses, provided the most convenient means of travel between towns surrounded by water.

The early transit operations that took root in Kitsap County centered around the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Starting in 1915, dozens of private companies ran taxicabs, or “jitneys,” that served the ferries and the shipyard. Several individual operations eventually coalesced into one company, Bremerton-Charleston Transportation (BCT), in 1921. By 1940, they were the only game in town.

Bremerton-Charleston Transportation provided bus service in Bremerton before Kitsap Transit was created in 1983.

BCT grew over the next four decades. The company eventually contracted with the City of Bremerton to operate bus service in the city, which was funded by a utility tax. They ran five routes, mostly loops, serving the east and west sides of the city.

The watershed moment for public transit in Kitsap County came in 1982, when voters approved a ballot measure that created a public transportation benefit area authority funded by a three-tenths of a percent sales tax.

As part of the vote, Kitsap Transit was required to purchase and take over operations from BCT and several other private entities: Cascade Trailways, a Greyhound-type service that ran buses from Bainbridge Island to Tacoma, and Bremerton Suburban Transportation, which served the shipyard.

Kitsap Transit also paid for Kitsap Peninsula Housing and Transportation Association – a nonprofit that ran buses for people with mobility impairments and those on Medicaid – to continue operating paratransit services.

To shepherd the new transit agency, the board hired Richard Hayes – who had helped create Pierce Transit – as its first executive director.

“All Hands on Deck” 

The transition from a group of private operators to a publicly funded transit agency wasn’t easy. The small staff had to pivot constantly to solve new problems: creating fare and transfer policies, obtaining and fixing buses, redrawing routes, hiring operators, running payroll, applying for grants, and marketing the new services to the public.

“At that time, everybody was doing 12 different jobs,” Clauson said. “Dick Hayes asked me if I would be willing to come in and sit down and write the schedules.”

After taking over operations, Kitsap Transit redid the Bremerton routes, but due to legal requirements of the ongoing sale, Clauson couldn’t meet with drivers or employees of BCT until the day before the service changed.

“The community was not really excited about the route changes (at first), simply because we had to do it and didn’t have a chance to tell the world,” Clauson said.

That was one of many roadblocks the budding transit agency faced in its first few years. Service started in PortOrchard and Poulsbo in April of 1983 – a total of two or three buses running a few routes. BCT ran Bremerton’s service until KT bought the agency in September 1983.

Kitsap Transit’s operations started in a row of five houses next to Charleston Base in 1983.

To address the agency’s need for buses, Hayes bought used rolling stock from transportation agencies in California. Clauson made numerous trips to California to drive the coaches up to Washington.

“I’d pull into Charleston Base with a bus, go home, empty out my suitcase, throw in some clean clothes, and the next morning I would head to the airport, fly back, get another bus and drive it up,” Clauson said.

Ellen Gustafson, who was initially hired as the Clerk of the Board, showed up to work on her first day to write resolutions for a board meeting – just a few hours before it was scheduled. The new board formed to oversee Kitsap Transit was cautious about route changes and expansions, but broadly supportive of the effort.

“You kind of had to educate them in what transit was all about,” Gustafson said. “There were a lot of questions.”

Ellsworth juggled the organization and streamlining of the agency’s inventory system, but also handed out pamphlets at bus stops to notify passengers of route changes. Gustafson worked in procurement but also wrote some of the agency’s earliest grants. Staff members pitched in to help shovel snow at transit centers.

“Everybody did multiple things,” said Gustafson, who later became Operations Director until she retired in 2021. “It was all hands on deck.”

Annexations and Growth

Kitsap Transit’s north star was Hayes, whose steady guiding hand was evident in the agency’s growth during the second half of the decade.

“The atmosphere that he created – which I’ve tried to maintain – was a bit of that innovative, let’s-try-it kind of spirit,” Clauson said.

Hayes, who retired in 2012, always tried to be ahead of the curve. Even before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, Hayes pushed for Kitsap Transit’s buses to have lifts on them. The contract with KPHTA ensured that residents in Kitsap County already had access to paratransit service.

“He was very forward-thinking with, ‘How will this affect customers?’” Clauson said.

Charleston Base underwent a major renovation at the end of the 1980s.

Kitsap Transit opened its first transfer center on Wheaton Way in 1984. In 1988, residents of Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo voted to annex into the service area. As those annexations brought in more tax revenue, Kitsap Transit expanded service and ridership grew to 1.5 million in 1984 and then to 3.2 million in 1991. 

The turn of the decade also saw the complete renovation of Charleston Base – with new administrative offices, fueling facilities and a distinct lack of holes in the ceilings.

Looking back, Clauson said he has pride in the work they were able to do. 

“Every step that Kitsap Transit has taken over the last 40 years has always considered “What is this going to do to make the service respond better to the community’s needs?’” Clauson said.

“Everything we've done over the last 40 years has always had that as the motivation.”