Central Ohio Transit Authority staff walked City Council through the draft five-year plan at the May 11 city council meeting. The headline proposal for Worthington: the express bus that gets commuters from High Street to downtown, Line 102, would go away. It would be folded into the regular High Street bus, Line 2. The remaining Line 2 would then run all day and all night, and on weekends it would come twice as often as it does today.
A new east-west bus would also reach Worthington for the first time in many years. It would cross Wilson Bridge Road and tie Worthington to Easton.
The trade-off is real, and council members pressed COTA on it. Today, the 102 skips stops and gets some commuters downtown faster than the regular Line 2. Under the proposed plan, everyone would be on Line 2. Council member Glen Pratt, who rides the 102 bus from a stop near Southington Avenue to downtown said his trip currently takes 30 to 35 minutes. If the new arrangement doubled that, he said, more frequent buses wouldn't make up for it.
What COTA is proposing for Worthington bus lines
The High Street express (Line 102) would be retired. Today, the 102 runs only certain stops south of Morse Road and all stops north of it. COTA wants to collapse the 102 into the regular Line 2 and use the operating savings to run Line 2 more often on weekends and to keep it running around the clock.
The High Street local bus (Line 2) would get more service. Through Worthington, Line 2 would run every 30 minutes on weekends, double today's hourly weekend service. Weekday service would stay at 30 minutes through Worthington. The Worthington stretch would also be added to COTA's planned 24-hour network, meaning buses would run hourly through the three or four overnight hours that are currently dark. (South of the Graceland area, Line 2 runs every 15 minutes today, which is the figure COTA has been using when describing the line. Through Worthington proper, the proposed frequency is 30.)
A new east-west bus (Line 35) would reach Worthington. Today, Line 35 ends just outside the city at the former Giant Eagle near I-71 and 161. COTA wants to extend it up Bush Boulevard, across Wilson Bridge Road, and over to High Street. Worthington hasn't had an east-west bus in many years. The new routing would connect Worthington to job centers along Sawmill Road and to the Easton Transit Center, and would run every 30 minutes instead of every 60. COTA staff cited Wilson Bridge Road redevelopment and the city's own Northeast Area Plan as reasons for the change.
A rush-hour-only commuter line (Line 74) would be retired. Today, Line 74 makes a single morning trip and a single evening trip. It would be replaced by extending the all-day Line 4 up Bush Boulevard and over to Westerville, with 30-minute service seven days a week.
Council's concerns
Several council members focused on what the loss of the 102 would mean for commuters who use it today to reach Ohio State or downtown.
Council member Maria Ramirez said she ran a transit-app comparison from a stop near Broad Meadows down to the COTA building downtown. On the 102 the trip is 17 stops; on the current Line 2 it's 42. COTA's senior service planner Andrew Neutzling responded that the agency's scheduling team is preparing an hour-by-hour analysis of trip times under the proposed network and will share it next week. He also cautioned that part of the difference at that particular stop is walk time, because Line 2's current northern terminus is south of Broad Meadows.
Neutzling acknowledged that the 102's intended five-minute time savings over the regular Line 2 has not been holding up in practice. The express sometimes gets stuck behind the local bus and has to make the same stops anyway. If Worthington wants faster service on High Street going forward, he said, the answer probably is not a parallel express but separate fixes like a dedicated bus lane, queue jumps at signals, or stop-spacing changes.
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What about COTA Plus?
Council member Joy Dong asked why Worthington isn't getting one of COTA's new on-demand COTA//Plus zones, given that Worthington voters supported the COTA//Plus expansion at the ballot box.
COTA's Devayani Puranik explained that the agency's longer-term plan calls for up to eight new COTA//Plus zones over the coming years. For the next five years, however, COTA's data-driven analysis identified five candidate areas, and Worthington was not among the three expected to launch first. The agency will revisit the list when the plan is updated in two years.
Worthington explored a COTA//Plus expression of interest in October 2025. The standard cost-share for those zones is 90% COTA, 10% city.
What Worthington asked COTA to consider
Council President Rachael Dorothy raised three specific requests at the end of the discussion:
- Route the new east-west Line 35 along Huntley Road instead of Busch Boulevard if the city's rezoning along Huntley brings new housing and employers there.
- Get service close to the Worthington Resource Pantry on Schrock Road.
- Preserve the Wilson Bridge–to–High Street connection as Wilson Bridge Road redevelopment continues.
What this plan is not
The short-range transit plan is about which buses run where. It is separate from COTA's LinkUS program, which funds long-term capital projects including bike, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure in Worthington. The east-west transit feasibility study COTA mentioned at the top of the presentation, examining transit between Dublin and New Albany along the 161 corridor, is also a different effort and runs through July 2027.
What happens next
COTA's board votes on a final plan in July 2026. If approved, implementation begins in 2027 and rolls out across the five-year horizon, with three service-change windows per year and four public meetings before any change takes effect.