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WeGo’s downtown terminal named after first female bus driver, who always went ‘full throttle’

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Transit Authority
Elizabeth Duff was hired as the first woman, and first Black woman, bus driver by Nashville in 1974.
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WeGo’s main bus terminal downtown has a new name — the Elizabeth Duff Transit Center. It’s named after the first African American female bus driver in Nashville.

Elizabeth Duff was hired as a city bus driver in 1974. The job was an obvious choice for her. She loved to drive, and meet new people.

And the fact that the city had never had a woman in the driver’s seat?

Well, her daughter Virpi Carter says that was no match for her mom’s determination.

“She would always tell us, ‘Don’t let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do. You gon’ do it, you do it right. You do it right the first time. Just go full throttle with it.'”

She says her mom was always humble about her place in history, even up to her death last year. But, her friends and family were proud. Carter’s kids even wanted to write a paper on their grandma for school.

Carter hopes her mom’s name on the transit center will inspire others to not let barriers get in the way.

Paige Pfleger, Criminal Justice Reporter

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and her investigation into domestic violence and firearms dispossession won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Livingston Award. She previously covered criminal justice and addiction in Ohio and was named the state's reporter of the year by the Associated Press. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace, and PRI's The World, and she has worked in the newsrooms of The Tennessean, Michigan Radio, WHYY, Vox and NPR headquarters in DC.

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