The public corporation and the Mishawaka Transfer Center, 1968 to today

1968-PRESENT · THE SOUTH BEND PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CORPORATION

The corporation: In 1968 the two cities set up the South Bend Public Transportation Corporation — Transpo — to take over the bus operation from the privately operated Northern Indiana Transit. The corporation is a two-city body, and Mishawaka's membership in it is the city's transit constitution to this day: Mishawaka riders are served by a corporation their city co-owns. (The formation is dated 1968 on the strength of Transpo's own general manager's account to the South Bend Common Council of 8 August 2016; a compiled telling that gives 1969 stands as a conflict in South Bend's record and is not re-argued here.)

The transfer center: Mishawaka's fixed point in the system is its transfer center. The first stood on the block fronting First Street between Mill and Spring Streets, opened in October 1978, on the cited reporting the Transpo history preserves; in the early 2000s the corporation weighed moving it, with Fourth and Church among the corners considered. Announced schemes aside, the accomplished fact in November 2026 is Transpo's own facility listing: the Mishawaka Transfer Center stands at 320 South Main Street, in the downtown the streetcars served, open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday to 5:44 p.m. Every route in the next entries — the numbered Transpo routes and the Interurban Trolley's Yellow Line alike — is published as serving it, and it is the hinge on which the two systems' Mishawaka service turns.

Sources:

1. South Bend Public Transportation Corporation (Transpo) — facility listing for the Mishawaka Transfer Center, 320 S. Main Street, with its hours, read November 2026; the corporation's 2016 account of its 1968 formation, as carried in South Bend's record.
2. Wikipedia, "Transpo" (South Bend), compiled from the corporation's reporting — formed in 1968 to continue operations from the privately operated Northern Indiana Transit; the October 1978 Mishawaka transfer center on the First Street block; the early-2000s relocation considerations.