A few days ago, I posted a link to an article about MATA’s proposed plan to cut trolley hours. The cut that seemed like it would hurt Downtown the most was a cut to the Main Street Trolley’s morning hours. They plan to change the trolley’s start time from 6:25 AM to 9:00 AM. That seemed like a horrible thing because one of the selling points of Downtown is “move down here and ride the trolley to work.” You can’t do that when the trolley starts running a half hour or more after you have to be at the office.
Since I made that post, I have received several pieces of feedback in email and on Facebook. Most of the feedback came from South Mainers, and they all said pretty much the same thing: The trolley is completely unreliable as a means for commuting to work. People said they could walk to work faster than they could wait on a trolley to show up. It seems to operate on no schedule whatsoever, they said, and one person commented that the northbound trolley is particularly unreliable in the mornings. Most of them said that the trolley is only useful as a tourist attraction and nothing more.
Surprised to hear it but maybe I shouldn’t be. Is there any other city in the U.S. the size of Memphis with a public transportation system as bad as MATA?