Blue Bus lines

The Blue Bus lines were a group of four affiliated privately owned companies that provided bus transit service in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was unofficial – no company using this or similar name existed in the Portland area – but was in common use in the 1960s, and variations included "Blue Bus lines", "Blue Lines", "blue bus" lines (or companies) and "blue buses". The Blue Bus companies provided service only between Portland and suburbs outside the city, or within such suburbs, as transit service within the city of Portland was the exclusive franchise of the Portland Traction Company or, after 1956, the Rose City Transit Company (RCT). The "blue buses" were prohibited from making stops inside the city except to pick up passengers destined for points outside RCT's service area (or to drop off such passengers when inbound to Portland). The "blue" name was a reference to the paint scheme worn by most buses of the consortium. By contrast, city transit operator Rose City's buses wore a primarily red paint scheme.

All public transit operations of the Blue Bus lines were taken over by Tri-Met, a new regional public transit authority, in 1970, nine months after Tri-Met took over the Rose City Transit Company's service.

Companies

Four companies comprised the Blue Bus consortium of common carriers: Estacada-Molalla Stages, Inc.; Intercity Buses, Inc.; Portland Stages, Inc.; and Tualatin Valley Buses, Inc. The start-up dates for the individual companies ranged from 1938 to 1955. All were owned and operated by George Fourier and his brother-in-law, E. G. Larson.