Rollsigns from Zanesville & Cambridge, OH
South East Area Transit - Including Muskingum and Guernsey County areas.
There is a long history of mass transportation in Zanesville. This history began in the latter part of the 1800's, when streetcars and
trolleys traveled the famous Y-Bridge as the city served as Ohio’s state capital. Privately owned mass transportation survived in
Zanesville until the early 1960's. In 1961 the Zanesville Mass Transit Company gave notice that they would cease operations when
the franchise expired in 1962. Operating costs were exceeding the fare box revenues. Local residents rallied by selling stock at
$10.00 per share. In only three months, over $34,000 was raised to save the city’s transit service. Through these efforts, Y-City
Transit was born. The system operated eight routes with thirty minute headways.  Federal funding, pursuant to the Urban Mass
Transportation Assistance Act of 1964 helped recapitalize the system. Still, continuing operation deficits led to the failure of
Y-City Transit in May of 1977. The Muskingum Authority of Public Transit (MAPT), which was created on September 24, 1979 by the
City of Zanesville and the village of South Zanesville, is a public body created by Chapter 306, sections 30-71 of the Ohio Revised
Code and is owned by the taxpayers of Muskingum County. It is financed by Federal, State of Ohio, and local funding. It is the
intention to provide residents a continued, uninterrupted public transit service. Operations began in 1980. In January 2000, MAPT
legally changed its name to South East Area Transit (SEAT).Today, SEAT offers five fixed route services in Zanesville and two fixed
route services in Guernsey County, ADA curb-to-curb Para transit service, and county wide demand response service.
This mylar front rollsign was retrieved from 1981 built TMC CityCruiser
#811. Its print date is February 13, 1981. The sign has 27 exposures, the
last four added at a later date. Its sign tag is shown below.

What was interesting about this bus is that the mylar side rollsign that
came off this same bus is from "The Bus Company" of Hamilton, Ohio,
the city's now defunct privately run transit system, not from Zanesville.
Retired Zanesville Z-Bus February 1981 built TMC CityCruiser #811,
the bus this rollsign came from, is shown as it was discovered in a
scrap yard in eastern Ohio on October 28, 2019. If you look closely,
you'll see the rollsign is visible sticking out of the windshield area.
TMC-MUSKINGUM
P.O.M-63977
N-SCF-T0013
2/13/81 TRANSIGN
(Above) Various Columbus, Newark & Zanesville Street Railway cars
operating through downtown Zanesville, Ohio. - (Below) Streetcar track
that still exists (October 28, 2019) in south Zanesville on Washington St.
There's also visible track on Jefferson St. and its likely still buried under
the asphalt on Woodlawn Ave. between these two streets.
(Above photo courtesy of the SEAT website prior to April 2019, from
an internet archive search. Below photo by Joseph Chemerys.)