MATA spent millions on trolleys before service halted
by: Jessica Gertler
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A recent decision to suspend downtown trolley services comes shortly after Memphis Area Transit Authority spent millions of dollars on improvements for the system.
WREG Investigators continue to dig deeper into the Memphis Area Transit Authority and its $60 million deficit.
MATA said in order to balance its budget, it’s cutting staff and services and pulled the trolleys last month because recommended repairs are too expensive.
The vintage streetcars, praised on tourism website Memphis Travel as a must-do in Memphis, bring new faces to downtown.
There were just over 318,000 riders in the fiscal year of 2023, which came close to the count clocked before COVID, according to a report given to the MATA board this spring.
“We’re committed to one day bringing this back,” MATA Interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin told city councilmembers.
But she also said they laid off 18 employees in the trolley division and admitted they can’t afford the $200,000 in brake repairs the state recommended.
It’s a small price tag though, when you compare it to what’s been spent on the trolleys in recent years.
In 2014, the trolleys were pulled after two caught fire. MATA later revealing in a 2015 meeting, 19 of their 20 trolleys needed work.
When the trolleys were pulled in 2014, MATA said one million people annually were riding the trolleys and that number dropped 40 percent when hybrid buses started running the routes.
It took four years to get the Main Street line back while work continued on the Madison line, as MATA tested modern trolley cars.
In all, a costly venture according to contracts the board approved in the last three-and-a-half years
In 2021, they signed off on a $1.4 million overhaul of trolley trucks.
More than $800,000 was spent on seven new rail cars and shipping containers of spare parts. Also, two staffers took a trip to San Diego to “inspect and assess the condition” of those cars, according to a memo. There is no mention of what that cost.
Add another $2.5 million in track repairs and paving over the past three years, $141,000 to demolish a building to make space for future trolley development, $88,000 for a rail pickup, $253,000 for six new pickup trucks and 2 SUVs for the trolley staff, and another $383,000 on equipment and lighting fixtures.
It adds up to a total of nearly $6 million in all of the contracts we found.
We asked MATA officials if that money could have been better spent since they chose to cut the service indefinitely.
In a statement, they wrote they’re “committed to maintaining all assets in excellent condition,” and they’re “required to maintain all assets in a state of good repair [sic].” They went on to state, “Due to stringent safety requirements and the long life cycles of many assets, repairs and maintenance can be costly.”
There have been calls on the city to help out. That’s on top of the money they, the state and feds already gave. Keep in mind, only MATA decides how to spend the money. Their governing body is their board, which is appointed by the mayor and approved by the council.
The popular Trolley Night in South Main rolled on recently without the street cars. Business owners are among the many waiting for answers from MATA and for some kind of detailed plan for its future. They’re all anxious to see the impact these cuts will have.
“I think we are talking about four miles of trolleys. What the heck? Four miles, and we can’t manage that? Come on now,” South Main business owner Tawanda Pirtle told WREG recently.
She owns Feelin’ Memphis and is concerned what impact this could have.
“Don’t think it’s going to take us down, because it’s not. It’s a piece of something that belongs to us that you guys, when I say you guys, the people in charge, mismanaged,” Pirtle said.
Tuesday morning, MATA will give another update at a council committee meeting. WREG Investigators will keep you updated.
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