A new employee went into the office of Curtis Stitt a few years ago and proudly showed him a document from 1974, COTA's first year as a public-transit system.

Stitt, president and CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority, looked at the bus route map from the 1974 document and saw it was very similar to routes four decades later.

"The question it begged is, 'Is this service the best service we can provide today?'" Stitt said.

That question put into motion a three-year, $9.4 million plan that goes into effect May 1 with a total redesign of bus routes — and a new philosophy of how COTA views its riders and service.

Its goal is to get more riders to destinations faster and more directly.

The focus no longer will be to make most buses stop Downtown to drop off riders or pick them up to take them elsewhere. That's because Columbus and its suburbs have grown since 1974, creating large numbers of jobs outside the city's center. People need to get to those jobs, often on weekends.

"It will link more people to more places and more jobs," said Josh Sikich, director of COTA's Transit System Redesign. "More people are working different shifts."

While Downtown remains a jobs center, areas such as Polaris, Easton and Rickenbacker International Airport have many jobs that aren't Monday through Friday, Sikich said.

"We're trying to provide services where they need it, when they need it," Stitt said.

Fewer buses will use High Street, spreading the Downtown bus traffic to Third, Fourth and Front streets to provide a more even Downtown distribution.

Under the new plan, routes have been simplified. Some will be eliminated, others renumbered. The current 68 routes become 40 after May 1. Routes will be changed to pick up fewer riders on residential streets, forcing more to walk to major streets to catch a bus. That's a problem for some.

"This takes the convenience of ridership away from the riders and back to" COTA, Carl Howard said.

Howard, 53, of the Near East Side, is unemployed and hasn't been able to drive since 2009 because of poor vision. Howard also has asthma and diabetes, causing him to visit doctors often. He says the route changes will make trips to the doctor more difficult.

Under the existing system, depending on which of five available routes Howard takes, the 1.1-mile doctor trip ranges from 21 to 39 minutes and he walks from just over one-tenth of a mile to nine-tenths of a mile. He also has to transfer on four of the five options.

Under the new system, his trip ranges from 21 to 43 minutes, requires him to walk from four-tenths of a mile to nine-tenths, and three of the four options require a transfer.

"That's madness," Howard said. "This is imposing a one-size-fits-all, which is absolutely inorganic. Stop this."

COTA provided another example, not related to Howard's trip, that shows advantages of the new system.

It shows a 5-mile trip from Gahanna's Mill Street to Mount Carmel East Hospital in the 6000 block of E. Broad St. Under the current system, the trip requires a mile walk, a transfer and 57 minutes. Under the new system, it will be a two-tenths of a mile walk and no transfer, taking a total of 24 minutes — 33 minutes faster.

Stitt understands there will be some resistance to the change but notes COTA has worked on the plan since 2013.

More walking by some, Stitt said, "will benefit the entire system."

More riders will be near routes that run more often, Sikich said. Now, 116,000 riders are within a quarter-mile of a bus route that runs every 15 minutes. After May 1, that number will rise to 219,000 riders, an 89 percent increase.

In the first year, experts tell COTA the change will decrease ridership, but a 10 percent increase is projected by 2020 because of the redesign. Ultimately, COTA seeks to increase its trips to 25 million by 2025.

To do that, COTA, which gets $125 million of its $147 million annual budget from two sales taxes, will have to reverse the current trend.

The number of trips COTA provides has dropped 500,000 in three years — from 19.3 million in 2014 to 18.8 million in 2016.

To ease the transition to the new system, COTA rides will be free the first week of the new system beginning May 1.

COTA has an interactive feature on its website where riders can compare existing and planned routes.