Tag: Memphis Area Transit Authority

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Bus to the Future: Changes Lie Ahead for MATA

If you catch the 19 Vollintine at Breedlove on a weekday morning, you might run into Cynthia Bailey. She’ll be waiting at the stop about 15 minutes before the bus comes with her backpack — full of what she calls her tools to educate citizens — over her shoulder.

As she rides the 19 to the Hudson Transit Center downtown, she starts conversations with fellow passengers and passes out the flyers. After staying at the bus station for about an hour, Bailey then packs up her materials, boards the 50 Poplar, and heads to her next destination: Cleveland and Poplar, where she sets up shop again.

Bailey, the co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders Union (MBRU), says this is her routine most days. She spends her time educating other bus riders and non-bus riders on all things Memphis-transit-related. She considers herself an expert on riding public transit in Memphis because, as she says, she’s been using the buses here for 26 years.

Back in the ’90s, she rode a Memphis city bus to Raleigh-Egypt High School. Bailey has continued to use Memphis public transit ever since — even during periods when she owned a car. She called herself a “choice-rider” then.

Bailey now spends her time riding the bus around town and advocating for a better public transit system in Memphis — “like it used to be,” she says.

Bailey says she remembers the buses being more timely and more frequent, and they operated for longer hours. This, as well as better timing with route connections, is something she and other MBRU members have set as goals for the current system.

Still, Bailey says her “biggest issue” with the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) is its lack of penetration into some residential areas. One of those is North Memphis, which for some time has had no bus service on streets such as Breedlove, Decatur, Manassas, and Firestone.

But, in June, the MATA board voted for a new route to bring service to those areas and others that were once served by the 31 Crosstown — a route that was eliminated in 2013 due to funding issues and that has been described as a “lifeline” by many in the community.

MATA will introduce 31 Firestone, along with three other new routes, for a trial period beginning this Sunday.

Bailey says she is pleased with the way MATA responded to the union and community’s pleas for a restored service to North Memphis.

MATA officials say that in order for the 31 Firestone route to continue after December, it needs to maintain at least five boards per hour throughout the course of the trial.

Chief communications officer for MATA, Nicole Lacey, says the Firestone 31 route comes as a result of the community’s feedback and expressed needs.

With limited funding, the route will only operate 10 hours a day, though, running for four hours in the morning, breaking in the middle of the day, and resuming for six hours in the afternoon through the evening.

Bailey says the MBRU, along with other organizations across the city, put in a lot of hard work to bring awareness to the missing service in areas like New Chicago in North Memphis, by holding town hall meetings, creating petitions, going door to door to pass out flyers, and educating members of the community. A key piece of the education was informing citizens on the reasons MATA elected to discontinue the 31 Crosstown route. She says the union understands it was because of funding issues, rather than a matter of discrimination, and it was important for the community to know that in order to properly petition for the service’s return.

Many of the residents in the New Chicago neighborhood are seniors who have been living in the community since the 1950s and ’60s, Bailey says. “They need a way to get to doctor’s appointments and everywhere else without having to pay for a ride or bother a family member,” she says. “It’s a victory for everyone.”

The new route, 31 Firestone, set to launch Sunday, August 6th, will run every 60 minutes, with stops including Manassas High School, Crosstown Concourse, North Public Library, and Christ Community Health Services.

Members of the MBRU believe it will provide those living in North Memphis communities better connections to groceries, jobs, and health care.

MBRU secretary Justin Davis says there is still a large population of people in South Memphis — once served by 31 Crosstown— who currently are not “necessarily well-served” by MATA.

Some of those residents include individuals living in the Riverside community who, Davis says, have expressed their need for a route that will connect them to major corridors, economic centers, and other essential spots in North Memphis. The next step for the union, he says, is to campaign for a fully funded route that directly connects South and North Memphis.

“Our goal is really to make sure MATA does not have groups that are significantly underserved,” Davis says.

For now, though, Davis says the union is pausing to celebrate the service coming to the New Chicago area by throwing a block party at the New Chicago CDC Saturday beginning at noon.

The party is meant to “raise the energy” around the new service, as well as provide an opportunity to make sure the members of the community know about the new route.

Interim CEO of MATA Gary Rosenfeld

New Routes and Route Changes

The Firestone 31 route is a demonstration route, which will run on a trial basis until December. Interim CEO of MATA Gary Rosenfeld says MATA ordinarily introduces new routes and makes changes to its routes and schedules in December and April. He adds, that after extra funding was made available for three new routes, the August 6th changes will be an exception.

The extra funding comes through the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program, which pays for air-improving transportation projects in areas that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined have poor air quality.

The grants will fund the three routes for three years, but Rosenfeld says the hope is that in the future these routes will be able to support themselves.

Two of three routes will be express routes, including one meant to “beef up service” near the Airways Transit Center, creating more efficient transfers, according to MATA’s director of planning and scheduling, John Lancaster.

The other express route — 340 Walnut Grove — will go from the Agricenter International to the Hudson Transit Center downtown and will offer a “park and ride” option, in which riders can park their cars at the Agricenter free of charge, catch the bus downtown, and return to their car at the end of the day.

In June, the MATA board also approved changes to 24 existing routes and their schedules. Routes that will be modified include 44 Goodlett IKEA Way, as well as two of MATA’s most used routes, 42 Crosstown and 50 Poplar.

All of the changes are designed to improve MATA’s on-time performance (OTP), which was at 76 percent as of June. Rosenfeld says he expects the latest route changes to raise OTP by at least another 5 percent.

Lancaster says there is a “whole process” that goes into determining where new routes should be placed and how often the buses on that route should run.

He says the authority uses a strategic planning document called the Short Range Transit Plan, which helps staff consider a particular area’s demographic makeup and land use, as well as the amount of jobs and residences in the area.

Because of a funding shortage, MATA must make revenue neutral service improvements. These are, as the name suggests, improvements that do not affect MATAs bottom line. With the exception of the 31 Firestone route, all of the new routes and improvements to the current routes are revenue neutral.

South Main trolleys under repair

The Trolleys’ Return

After a three-year absence, Rosenfeld says he’s hopeful the steel-wheel trolleys will be resurrected by year’s end, returning first to Main Street.

Before the trolleys were discontinued in 2014, after fires and other safety and inspection issues, MATA officials say about 1.5 million passengers used them annually. Half of the passengers were tourists.

It was important to bring back the trolleys, says Rosenfeld, not only because of their positive impact on downtown’s economy, but also because of their “rich history in the city. … It’s something the community wanted.”

Rosenfeld says restoring the trolleys has been an “extensive ongoing process that never ends.” One of the biggest challenges in restoring the trolleys, he says, was figuring out how to apply modern technology to 100-year-old trolley cars. Rosenfeld says the trolleys were modernized by re-engineering everything inside of them.

Before the trolleys are ready for passengers — after multiple levels of testing by engineers and safety committees and a review by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Authority — the trolleys must operate on a test basis for about four to six weeks without passengers. If all goes as planned and the vehicles are deemed safe, steel-wheel trolleys will begin carrying passengers on Main Street late this year, followed by trolleys on Riverside and Madison sometime in 2018.

Trolley tracks on South Main on the mall

Funding Obstacles

One obstacle that keeps MATA from being the transit system that Memphis deserves, says Rosenfeld, is a lack of funding.

Currently, MATA’s operating budget is about $62 million per year, but Rosenfeld says in order to provide a good, quality service to the community, MATA needs an additional $30 million a year.

“Quality of service suffers when you’re operating on a shoestring budget,” Rosenfeld says. Because of low funding, he acknowledges that buses don’t run frequently enough for many passengers to rely on public transit to get them to school, work, the doctor’s office, etc. “If you look at our peer cities, like Nashville or Charlotte, either they have better funding or a denser population,” he says. “But they provide transit that allows people to really be mobile.”

About 35 percent of the MATA operating budget is allocated to wages. Without much discretionary funding, Rosenfeld says MATA is unable to make certain improvements and investments, including renovations to its 4,500 bus stops, newer buses, and equipment that would make it easier for the public to use the transit system, such as a MATA app for smartphones.

Rosenfeld says with more funding, the authority could also invest in better training for bus operators, which would improve the overall efficiency of the system. More secure funding, he says, would allow MATA to improve the “quality and the quantity of service in the city.”

There is some good news on that front. On July 1st, when the IMPROVE Act took effect in Tennessee, avenues opened for MATA to secure additional funding. The legislation gives the city council the opportunity to authorize a public vote on extra funding initiatives, such as a sales tax surcharge, vehicle registration fees, or occupancy taxes in hotels.

Rosenfeld says in the fall, MATA will begin putting together a proposal package to present to the city council early next year. Under the stipulations of IMPROVE, the presentation must include a stakeholder-sourced document detailing the community’s vision and goals for the future of MATA. Rosenfeld says there will be a lot of “information sharing” among organizations like Innovate Memphis to create this document, beginning in the fall.

As MATA begins to gather community feedback from stakeholders, Davis of the MBRU says he hopes this will be something that will include his union members. “We have always held that bus riders have the real expertise when it comes to transit systems and how they work,” Davis says. “They are the people riding the buses every day.”

Bus to the Future

Rosenfeld says he believes electric buses are the future of public transportation in the nation and, he hopes, for MATA as well. At the end of June, MATA applied to the Federal Transit Administration to receive 16 electric buses. Rosenfeld expects to hear back by the end of the year, anticipating that MATA will receive at least four of the buses, allowing for an entirely electric vehicle route to be created.

MATA is testing out one new electric bus that it has already received.

As for MATA ridership, Rosenfeld says it has been decreasing over recent years, following the national trend which, depending on the region of the country, has dropped 5 to 10 percent in the last two years. Most attribute the national decline to the recent uptick in ride-sharing app users, such as Uber and Lyft. MATA officials say more than 22,000 riders are using its near 50 routes each weekday.

Moving forward, Rosenfeld hopes to make MATA’s services easier to use, closer to necessities, and more responsive, while creating more equity for riders.

MATA’s goal, eventually, he says, is to provide a transit system that “gets anyone to anywhere in the city of Memphis in no more than an hour.”

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Bus Stopped: The Battle over Route 31

Georgia A. King, 76, is a Memphian who needs her floral-decorated cane to assist in her instantly recognizable, purposeful stride. Whenever she steps out of her apartment near Victorian Village, she is likely to encounter grins and hugs from other Memphians as she makes her way around to her various destinations.   

Most call her “Mother King,” a moniker earned from her reputation, built by decades of organizing work for Memphis’ poor and her involvement with the civil rights movement.  

Since she herself relies on public transportation, pushing for equitable public transportation is high up on King’s exhaustive list of interests and pet projects.

Shortly after the Occupy Memphis protests of 2011, King formed a Transportation Task Force, which would become the Memphis Bus Riders Union in early 2012.

later evolve into the MBRU.

No matter where she is in Memphis — or what else is occupying her time — she watches the Memphis Area Transit Authority buses. “I watch for everything. Is the bus let down for disabled passengers? Does the driver look tired? Are the buses running when they are supposed to?”

King is not alone in her vigilance. She is joined by the other members of MBRU as well as the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713. Together they monitor the pulse of MATA, and right now one of their major concerns is restoring access to the historic, and once well-used Route 31 Crosstown, which was discontinued in 2013.

Crosstown 31 ran primarily along Cleveland and connected many North and South Memphis neighborhoods. For months, members of MBRU have been knocking on doors in tucked-away neighborhoods that used to bookend the 31. Demographically, these neighborhoods are majority black and marked by the all-too-familiar poverty that disproportionately strangles many black neighborhoods in Memphis.  

Armed with clipboards, volunteers with MBRU have been asking residents to sign their name to a petition and endorse the restoration of Crosstown 31.  

So far, they have more than 1,700 signatures, roughly 900 or so shy of the estimated number of riders that rode Route 31 daily for work and to get necessities, such as groceries, before it was discontinued.

The signatures are important, but they can only change so much, which is why Mother King is hoping city officials are watching and listening to the efforts of the two unions. After all, she says, “If the only people protesting are the ones that need this route, nothing will get done.”

Ron Garrison, CEO of MATA, stands in front of a trolley.

The Cut

When the decision was made to eliminate the 31 in 2013, MATA was facing a $4.5 million deficit in its yearly operating budget. MATA’s then chief executive officer, William Hudson, said that route eliminations would be necessary in order for MATA to continue to operate. Among other route changes that were made that year, a new route No. 42 Crosstown was created that combined and replaced Route 10 Watkins, Route 43 Elvis Presley, and the Crosstown 31.

At the time, Hudson defined vulnerable routes as ones with a low ridership, specifically 25 or fewer customers per hour. However, study findings in the Short Range Transit Plan, a transit study produced by independent consulting firm Nelson/Nygaard just two years prior to its cut, showed Crosstown 31 as Memphis’ third highest-used bus route, with an average of 2,600 riders daily. The route was second only to the 43 Elvis Presley, which funneled 2,700 daily riders between the heart of the city and South Memphis neighborhoods.

If you spread 2,600 riders over 19 hours of operation, the 31 had an average of 136 riders per hour. Unless there was a drastic (and undocumented) decline in Route 31’s ridership in the two years between the study findings and the route’s elimination, the old Crosstown route didn’t fit Hudson’s definition of low ridership.  

A few years later, it wasn’t the number of daily riders that MATA officials pointed to in defending the cutting of Route 31. Rather, it was a finding of the same SRTP study that said MATA would save funds by combining two of its five highest-used routes.

Very Long Walks, Very Few Stops

In a September 2016 guest column in The Commercial Appeal, MATA’s CEO, Ron Garrison, acknowledged the movement to restore Route 31 and pointed to the SRTP study findings that said “at the time” MATA would save money forming the new No. 42 Crosstown — which also connects North and South Memphis — by eliminating duplicate routes while still being able to adequately serve customers on both ends.

“Fast forward to today, and MATA still serves those communities with Route 42 and six other routes,” Garrison wrote, specifically referring to the New Chicago and Riverview-Kansas neighborhoods.

At last count, there are 1,700 petition signatures that say otherwise.  

“There’s definitely no proof of that,” said Carnita Atwater, the executive director of the New Chicago Community Development Corporation. “Because the 42 won’t circle around some of these neighborhoods.”

Atwater keeps frequent tabs on the residents of the New Chicago area through her work at the NCCDC. Half community center and half museum, the NCCDC is a bustling hub within an economically depressed area. From the building, you can see the towering smokestack of the long-closed Firestone Tire and Rubber Company — a reminder that steady jobs were once considerably more plentiful in the area. Now many of the residents are dependent on the bus to reach their jobs.

Atwater says MATA’s new route isn’t working. “I can tell you that many people have lost their jobs because of [the elimination of] Route 31. We did questionnaires after, and we can verify that.”

Like King, Atwater’s concern is focused on the dozens of smaller neighborhoods that the new Crosstown route doesn’t directly extend to and that feeder routes don’t regularly reach.  

“Most people out here don’t even own a bicycle, and walking to the nearest stop certainly isn’t always an option,” Atwater says. And jobs aren’t her only concern.

“Another major concern is families not being able to go into other communities to see family members. And churches. If you live in North Memphis, but your church is in South Memphis, you’re out of luck, come Sunday.”

According to Google Maps, 60 churches are directly on or within a few blocks of the old Route 31.

Down the line in South Memphis, the Riverview-Kansas neighborhood tells a similar tale. Just like New Chicago, recent census data shows the South Memphis neighborhood to be majority black and with a disproportionate amount of residents living in poverty and with a high unemployment rate.

The Riverview-Kansas area wa s once the south loop for Route 31, and it shares the challenges that New Chicago has with MATA’s 31 replacement plan: lots of residential pockets that would require a resident to either walk an hour or more —  and cross over an interstate — to access the new Crosstown route, or use multiple bus transfers.  

Neither one of those options work for those facing some degree of immobility, or for those who are so financially strapped that transfers must be carefully budgeted.

In fact, data gathered by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a research-based think tank for urban sustainability, shows the costs of public transportation for residents living in both neighborhoods comprises more than 20 percent of their take-home income.

Coming Soon to Crosstown …

The opening date for the Crosstown Concourse in the former Sears building has been set for May 2017, and among what have been dubbed as the “founding tenants” is Church Health Center, which has as its primary purpose serving the working poor. Its new location in the Concourse means that affordable health care is shifting a few blocks north from the health center’s current location on Peabody, to a location more in the middle of the Midtown/downtown area.  

For the new Crosstown bus route, the question becomes whether or not the route and its feeders can efficiently and economically bring residents from New Chicago and Kansas-Riverside to the Concourse for health-care access, not to mention the hundreds of jobs that will be available in the area once the Concourse opens.

“Crosstown, interestingly enough, was called Crosstown because it was once the easiest place to get to in Memphis,” says Church Health Center founder Scott Morris. “It was once where the trolley lines crossed, and so it was the easiest place to get to in Memphis.”

In Morris’ view, current public transit deficits have resulted from a mixture of decades of underfunding and a lack of creativity and cutting-edge solutions from previous administrations.  

“I’ve looked at their finances over time, and I don’t know how they do what they do,” said Morris.  

For the purposes of the CHC, Morris is more concerned that Memphians reliant on public transit have the routes they need to get to school and work.  

“The number one predictor of anyone’s health and outcome is their education, not their doctor,” says Morris. He says that most of the CHC’s patients, at the very least, have their transportation to work figured out, since a person must be employed to receive services from the CHC. But Morris is still concerned about the problems associated with the loss of Route 31 and the problems concerning MATA as a whole.

Referring to Garrison as “intriguing,” Morris says he has spent enough time around MATA’s leader to determine that he “doesn’t have his head stuck in the sand.” While Morris isn’t entirely familiar with all of the dynamics of restoring Route 31, he says it’s a conversation that neither he nor Garrison is ignoring.

Morris says that solutions offered in lieu of Route 31 work for some, but not all. He adds, particularly around Crosstown, that people are “thinking long and hard and deep about this issue.  

“I met with Garrison last week, and I was saying, ‘We have to make this work for everyone at Crosstown. It can’t be just about the middle- and upper-class people who are coming there to work,'” said Morris, who continued to say, “I was singing to the choir when I was talking to him. My personal feeling was that he got it.”

Elena Delavega, PhD, University of Memphis Department of Social Work. Research published August 15, 2014.

What Everyone Agrees On (Money, Money, Money)

What’s to be done — if anything is to be done — about communities affected by Route 31’s elimination remains to be seen.

But, if there’s one sentiment that MBRU, Local 713, Morris, and Garrison can all agree upon, it’s that decades of inadequate funding of Memphis’ buses have created a swath of problems without clear solutions.

Route 31 has become a focal point for conversation and action, but it’s also just one problem in a public transit system that’s beleaguered by an aging fleet, outdated infrastructure, inadequate bus stop shelters, and sometimes inconsistent stops on established routes.

Where there are inadequate transit services, poverty is sure to follow, as we know from mountains of data compiled over the years. The most recent poverty figures (compiled in 2014 by data guru Elena Delavega at the University of Memphis) shows a startling income disparity between those who drive to work and those who use public transportation.  

Residents living in the major Memphis metropolitan area who drive to work have a median income of $34,199. The median income for those who use public transit is just $16,450.

If that bus rider’s median income supports more than one person, they are officially below the poverty line. While, it’s unclear how many children living in poverty rely on a public-transit dependent adult, the links between transportation access and earning capacity are statistically quite apparent.

How much can Garrison do to fix the system? His course of action is ultimately tied to how much money the city council is willing to put into MATA’s budget.

In the meantime, the city’s two transportation unions plan to keep pushing to publicize the challenges facing citizens dependent on public transportation — and for the money to address the issues.

Until that happens, citizens like Georgia King plan to keep watching the buses. “This isn’t about one person, this is about us as a city,” she says. “We’re locked in together. We’d love to get out, but we can’t … so here we are.”

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MATA Proposes New Routes

As rain beat against the windows of the Airways Transit Center last Thursday, Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) officials provided details and received feedback on a series of service adjustments that could begin by December.

The changes, affecting fixed-route bus service, will include eight new bus routes, 11 routes with timing adjustments, 10 routes with increased frequencies and span of service, 14 routes with routing adjustments, and one discontinued route that will have service replaced by others.

The adjustments represent about $500,000 in added service grants from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program.

MATA officials say the proposed changes will improve service by simplifying routing and increasing productivity, but riders who attended the meeting expressed exhaustion and confusion over the adjustments. That puzzlement appeared at times to be a miscommunication between officials and bus riders. At other points, though, the frazzle felt as though it was brought on by how complicated the city’s bus system can be — even without the changes.

“All these changes being made might be great for someone, but I don’t know who is benefiting,” said Leonard Ewing, a member of the Memphis Bus Riders Union (MBRU). Ewing was concerned that a change to the 57 Park route eliminating service to a portion of Lamar at Bellevue would affect him. “It might be rain-storming like it is today, and I’ll have to jump off this bus and take another bus and then hop on another bus — rain, shine, sleet, or snow — if I want to get to work.”

MATA’s Planning Manager John Lancaster, the session’s mediator, said a newly adjusted Route 56 to Lamar will pass by Bellevue and add service on Sundays.

A lack of Sunday service, particularly along Route 19 Vollintine, leaves residents who are dependent on the transit system stuck in their neighborhoods, said MBRU co-chair Cynthia Bailey.

“I’ve had a lot of riders in the community come to me that want to go to church or go visit family on Sundays,” Bailey said. “It’s almost like you can’t get out. If you have business, there’s the number 8 and route 52. But you’ve got elderly people who can’t walk that far. I’m hearing about the new 45 Appling Farm route … but it’s not benefitting the community.”

The Memphis Bus Riders Union has also created a petition to bring back the 31 Crosstown route, which was cut in 2013. Members say it was instrumental in connecting two high-poverty neighborhoods, New Chicago and Riverside, with the rest of the city.

“Those neighborhoods have seen a lot of decline,” said Justin Davis, secretary of the MBRU. “There are eight new routes … a lot of those are out East and in the southeast. Our concern is if we’re taking all of this energy to put all of these routes in the east and southeast, are we putting the same effort into North and South Memphis? New Chicago, transit-wise, is almost entirely isolated. If you don’t have a car, you pretty much can’t leave.”

Lancaster said it took $3.5 million dollars to service the 31 Crosstown route before it was eliminated.

“To bring it back as it was, we would need $3.5 million dollars of new funding,” Lancaster said. “However, with the way things have been restructured, it would be a challenge. But we may be able to add some additional service to complement what used to exist.”

MATA will accept feedback on December’s proposed adjustments until September 7th. Additionally, the MBRU will host a demonstration calling on MATA to restore the 31 Crosstown Route on Saturday, Sept. 17th from 11 a.m. to 2 pm. at the New Chicago Community Development Corporation.

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News The Fly-By

MATA Reduces Bus Fares for Students, MLGW Defers High Bills Through August

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) began reducing bus fares for all Shelby County School students on August 8th, the first day of classes.

“It is important that we are able to help parents send their children off to school at a reduced cost and improve their access to public transportation,” said Ron Garrison, CEO of MATA.

The annual reduced student fare is $1.35 per one-way bus trip. Students may also purchase daily passes ($2.75), seven-day passes ($13), or a month-long ($40) MATA FastPass unlimited ride card.

Students must present a MATA identification card with their name, school, age, and photo to receive a discounted fare when boarding the bus. MATA advises students to bring two forms of identification and $3 to the William Hudson Transit Center at 444 N. Main Street to purchase an identification card. Students who bring a parent only need one form of identification. State or school identification cards, birth certificates, insurance cards, Social Security cards, or report cards qualify.

The transit authority will provide identification cards Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. until September 30th. Following that date, MATA will provide identification cards Mondays through Fridays from 1 to 5 p.m., and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m on Saturdays.

“MATA is pleased to continue to offer reduced bus passes for students to ride,” Garrison said.

MATA lowers fares for students.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) will ease its deferred billing rules through August to prevent customers with high bills from having their utilities disconnected.

“The major benefit is, during these extreme temperatures, MLGW has a payment plan that will offset our customers from having their services disconnected for non-payment,” said Gale Jones Carson, MLGW’s director of corporate communications. “If you can’t pay the total amount, we’ll work with you during these temperatures.”

Customers eligible for the loosened billing rules must have a bill that exceeds at least $250. They will pay 25 percent of the owed amount or $250, whichever is less, and the remainder will go on a payment plan that lasts up to five months. Should the deferred billing payment surpass a monthly $500 balance, customers may establish a payment plan for up to nine months. A current and approved residential service agreement must be filed before making an arrangement. Customers who qualify can bring two forms of identification to any of MLGW’s five community centers.

“Normally, customers only have three months to pay they bill, and the balance has to be a minimum of $500,” Carson said.

The relaxed deferred billing rules are different from MLGW’s weather-related moratorium policy. That policy states they won’t disconnect services for residential customers due to non-payment under the following conditions: The forecast wind chill factor will be 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below freezing for 24 hours or longer. The forecast heat index will be 100 degrees Fahrenheit or above at any time during a 24-hour period. The forecast heat index will be 95 degrees Fahrenheit or above at any time in a 24-hour period for customers 60 years or older, physically challenged, or customers dependent on life-support.

“We do this every year when the weather gets extremely cold or extremely hot,” Carson said. “We do this to help customers avoid having their services disconnected for non-payment. When the weather gets extreme, we focus on not cutting services off.”

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MATA, MPO Create Survey To Improve Bus Stop Standards

The Memphis Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (Memphis MPO) and the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) have partnered to improve the quality of bus stops throughout the city.

Complaints pertaining to bus stop standards prompted the organizations to create a survey. The survey will close on July 31. MPO and MATA will assess the answers and form a new set of guidelines to make the bus stops more comfortable and accessible for citizens. 

Take the survey here. 

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News The Fly-By

MATA Board to Consider Service Changes

Following an announcement from Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) CEO Ron Garrison that the city’s bus system could collapse without additional funding, the transit authority will vote on various service changes as MATA prepares for an upcoming fiscal year looming with uncertainty.

“We are mostly concerned with the future,” said Sammie Hunter, the co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders Union. “This is nothing compared to what we might face in July if MATA does not receive the funding request they made to the city. People need access to the whole city to have better options and improve their situation.”

Three timing changes, six service changes, eight routing changes, the removal of the President’s Island route (which carried less than five riders for all of February), and five new routes are tucked away in MATA’s proposed changes. MATA’s board will vote on the changes on March 21st, and, if approved, the changes will go into effect on May 1st.

The changes are a cost-neutral plan to address Memphians’ concerns about on-time performance and bus connections while MATA awaits Mayor Jim Strickland’s budget proposal in April.

“Additional funding would negate the need to cut bus service in July 2017,” Garrison said. “Instead, MATA will be able to improve on-time performance and make service more reliable.”

Garrison has been vocal about MATA’s need for increased capital funding, as they have relied on capital dollars to satisfy operational needs. When the new fiscal year begins on July 1st, Garrison said MATA would need an increase of $7 million for the operating budget and $5 million in capital funding.

“Not only are we way underfunded, but we have buses that should have been retired years ago — probably to the tune of about 60 buses,” Garrison said. “Some of them have over 700,000 miles. We had to borrow money from the city twice last year and bridge funding we had to pay back just to make payroll.”

The bus rider’s union’s worries center around route cuts and inadequate shelters at the new transfer locations, Hunter said. One proposal would make the Frayser Plaza Shopping Center a major connection point. Hawkins Mill Route 18, a new feeder route, would replace the north end loop on Crosstown Route 42, which has the second highest ridership, according to Hunter.

“Without increasing service and building adequate shelters at these new transfer locations, folks will be waiting for their transfers out in the elements,” Hunter said. “Those who can only afford a one way pass will be forced to pay twice as much as they normally pay per day or walk the rest of the way.”

MATA touts 9.3 million passenger trips per year and currently operates 109 buses. Justin Workman, a 31-year-old food industry worker, has relied on the bus system since the age of 18. Scheduling a trip across town is often unpredictable, Workman said.

“The routing and scheduling make it nearly impossible to rely on it as a sole means of transportation,” Workman said. “Try to take a bus to Wolfchase Galleria from downtown or Midtown — I hope you have the entire day.”

The bus system could see a few positive changes by the end of year with MATA’s Short Range Transit Plan, which was announced last week. It would streamline routes, add express service, and make the system easier to navigate and understand, and they say those changes can be made without significantly increasing operating costs.

But, overall, MATA’s service will abate or improve based on the city budget when the clock restarts this fiscal year, Hunter said. Solutions, such as having Shelby County chip in, he says, need to be addressed.

“The city has got to look at its budget with compassion for the working class people,” Hunter said. “No amount of police or downtown development will solve the problems we have. We can start by allocating the funds to MATA that it needs to make it through this fiscal year without more cuts. Then we can look at long-term solutions.”

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MATA To Revamp Bus Service

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) and the city have agreed upon a short-range transit plan that they say will improve service and make the system easier to understand and use.

The plan calls for MATA to straighten out routes to increase the frequency of bus service. They also plan to add several express routes linking downtown with the eastern parts of Shelby County. MATA and the mayor’s office have agreed that the improvements in the short-range plan can be made without significantly increasing operating costs, and they should be in place by the end of the year.

“It’s essential that we have a solid transportation plan that allows people to get to work on time and helps the city recruit businesses to Memphis,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

Additionally, MATA is studying world-class transit systems in other cities to determine the best long-range plan for Memphis transit.

This announcement comes just weeks before MATA plans to cut some underused routes and redirect others. A public hearing on those cuts was held at Central Station on Tuesday, and the MATA board of directors will vote on those cuts at the end of the month. 

At a Memphis City Council meeting last month, MATA President Ron Garrison said the bus system would “collapse” unless the agency was able to get additional operating funds and capital to buy new buses.

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MATA Plans Trolley Return

CREDIT: Memphis Area Transit Authority

While the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) is building a trolley system “that will never allow anything unsafe to happen again,” its leaders say they are working even harder on procuring new buses to replenish its aging fleet.

Two weeks ago, the Memphis City Council approved MATA’s purchase of a fully restored trolley that looks identical to MATA’s familiar, larger trolleys. The price tag was just north of $950,000, but the council also allowed MATA access to its full, current-year trolley budget of $2.25 million.

MATA president Ron Garrison said the move will leverage the $2.25 million into the equivalent of $11 million to purchase three or four trolley cars, after a set of funding maneuvers through state and federal channels.

Memphis Area Transit Authority

MATA has purchased this rebuilt, vintage trolley to add to its fleet.

Limited rail trolley service could begin again here, he said, with a couple of trolleys working in conjunction with the trolley buses. Those buses could be retired if MATA had 10 rail trolleys up and running, Garrison said.

MATA has the resources to rebuild or buy “nine, maybe 10” trolleys at present, he said. To operate at full capacity, the Memphis trolley rail system requires 20 trolleys.

Trolleys are just one piece of the overall fix for the Memphis rail system. The other pieces are parts of the rail system itself. Garrison said since the trolley system was closed in 2014 after two trolley cars caught fire, MATA has repaired and upgraded portions of the trolley tracks, the catenary lines that run over the trolleys and provide them power, and power stations along the entire rail system.

“What we’re putting in place is a system that will never allow anything unsafe to happen again,” Garrison said. “What we’re putting in place is what the rest of the country will look to when they want to do vintage trolley start-ups.”

Garrison said he’d like rail trolleys to run again here this spring but said “it’s going to be much longer than that,” noting it would be “foolhardy” to come up with a date for the trolleys’ return.

Over the past few months, members of the Memphis Bus Riders Association (MBRA) and others have voiced frustrations on the perception that MATA has prioritized trolleys over buses.

“Just last month a bus was burning on the news,” said Cynthia Bailey, MBRA co-chair. “You only get so many favors from these legislators, and I’m afraid they’ve been spent getting funds for the trolleys. We don’t see any five-year plan to get millions for these buses like they’ve done for the trolleys.”

Garrison said he’s aware of the criticism, but he said that as hard as MATA is working on getting trolleys, the agency is working even harder to purchase new buses, calling that project “our main goal.”

MATA needs about 55 new buses for its fleet, an order that would cost about $24 million, Garrison said. To get there, Garrison said he’s talked with Mayor Jim Strickland about the need and will soon meet with individual city council members. Also, MATA is investigating new sources of funds to buy the buses.

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Bus Riders’ Union and Bus Drivers’ Union Team Up

Less than a week after the announced partnership between the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713 (the local bus drivers’ union) and the Memphis Bus Riders Union (MBRU), Congressman Steve Cohen announced that $2.6 million in federal funds, secured through the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), would be allocated to fund three electric trolleys for downtown Memphis.

Members of the MBRU congregated at their monthly meeting at the Memphis Center for Independent Living said the funding felt like a familiar slap in the face; so familiar, that the funding announcement invoked little surprise, and the discussion quickly refocused to the litany of problems faced by everyday Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) users.

“When you put money [only] downtown where the trolleys are, you’re forgetting about your citizens,” said Cynthia Bailey, outreach coordinator for MBRU. “You’re forgetting about the people who need transportation to get to jobs and destinations.”

The narrative of bus riders and drivers drawing attention to unmet transit needs while money continues to pour into the trolley system is hardly new, but with each announcement of trolley funding, members of both unions have become increasingly desperate to look for solutions.

According to both Bailey and Sammie Hunter, MBRU’s co-chair, the bus riders’ union has little faith left in MATA’s CEO and general manager Ron Garrison, who they said showed initial interest in solving MATA’s problems but has not followed through with solutions.

“We took his word, but I think he’s all about the money instead of the citizens,” Bailey said. Hunter nodded in agreement and added, “I never trusted him from the beginning, and now his true colors are coming out. He’s not about the citizens.”

According to Bailey, if both the MBRU and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713 (ATU) are able to meet with Mayor-elect Jim Strickland and bypass Garrison, it will be a victory.

“I think [Stickland will] understand us better,” Bailey said. “The ATU has experience with the board on the inside, and we have experience from the riders’ perspective on the outside. If we’re merged together as one organization, it will have a big impact.”

Local 713’s business manager William Barber not only echoes MBRU’s concerns but is also eager that the union merger will erase the long-standing perception of blame-placing that pits the bus drivers against the bus riders.

“What I want our public to realize, is that it’s not drivers against the public, it’s management against the public,” Barber said. “We want everybody to join us, listen to our rally points, get on board with the unions and MATA so we can make this city better for everybody, not just for a certain group of people.”

Barber is also quick to point out that he’s highly in favor of trolley drivers having jobs. “We want everyone to benefit,” Barber said.

Garrison said that he wants to keep an open dialogue with both unions.

“I think to the extent that we can make ourselves available, my staff and I would be happy to sit down with them to work through their concerns. I’ve tried to meet with them a number of times and have,” said Garrison, who noted that there have been no additional funds spent on the trolleys except for specific funds that can only be used on trolleys.

Additionally, the funds recently granted by TDOT could mean that the current buses used in lieu of trolleys on Main could be redistributed to MATA’s fleet.

“I welcome anyone to talk to our mayor, and I would be glad to do that with or without them,” Garrison said. “I would like to partner with them to get additional funds.”

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MATA Launches New Smartphone App

Locating a city bus is about to be as easy as requesting an Uber or Lyft car.

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) is launching a smartphone app that will bring real-time bus data to customers.

North Carolina-based TransLoc has developed an app called TransLoc Rider that shows buses as they move along routes and displays the arrival times for those buses. The app is already being used in other cities like Gainesville, Florida, and San Jose, California.

Locally, the University of Memphis has been using TransLoc to track its shuttle service for students, and that partnership helped open the door to MATA.

Josh Cohen, director of strategy and partnerships at TransLoc, said the company is focused on expanding public transit to be the first choice of users, rather than a “last resort.”

To TransLoc, perception is part of the problem. Waiting for the bus can feel almost 50 percent longer than reality, according to a University of Washington study that focused on transit waiting times. In the study, the commuters who used an app called OneBusAway, which tracks transit systems in real-time, did not have that issue.

“The more people who are riding transit, the better our communities are,” Cohen said. “More people are getting around cities and communities more effectively and cost-effectively. [The app] helps on a micro level — people don’t have to stand out in the rain waiting for the bus — and the macro level, so that the more people who use transit, the less traffic we all face.”

Chooch Pickard, who sits on the MATA Board of Commissioners, said the app will make Memphis more competitive with other cities in terms of public transportation. Increasing ridership is also a potential benefit for MATA. He said the organization has run into issues attracting Memphians who choose, rather than need, to ride the bus system.

“I think it’ll definitely increase ridership,” Pickard said. “In order to provide the best service for the city for everyone, we need to increase ridership from everyone. A lot of people who have other options that are not transit-dependent will be more likely to use MATA if they have a tool like this.”

According to Pickard, it’s millennials and baby boomers, both of which make up the largest populations in the United States, who need to become part of the focus as the organization expands.

“Right now, funding for MATA from the city and use of MATA is really focused on transit-dependent customers,” Pickard said. “If we want to be progressive, keep up with other cities, and be able to attract millennials to Memphis, we have to have a first-class transit system.”

According to the American Public Transportation Association’s study of 1,000 millennials on transit usage, real-time updates were the second-most wanted feature of public transit, at 55 percent (The most-wanted feature was “more reliable systems,” at 61 percent.).

Pickard said he initially proposed a MATA app five years ago but met resistance from the previous administration. MATA Traveler, the text-message service that was designed to let riders know up-to-the-minute bus arrival times, wasn’t “user-friendly enough,” he said.

“We need to be creating a transit system that takes care of everybody’s needs, from young to old, transit-dependent to those who choose to ride the bus,” Pickard said.