- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The future and the difficulties of mass transit in Memphis, tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by Gary Rosenfeld, president CEO of MATA.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you for having me, Eric.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

We'll talk about a lot tonight, we'll talk about, you know, state and federal money, we'll talk about the trolley system, we'll talk about the Rapid Bus Transit, and we'll talk about a conversation you had with City Council and County Commission about a regional transit authority and so on, but let's start with the, you had a meeting with some members of, a public meeting with some members of the County Commission and the City Council, and you talked about, you put on, I think you put on the screen in front, you know, a PowerPoint screen in front of everyone, 15.4 million, and that as I understand it is the gap in, or that is the need or that is, what is that $15.4 million, and then we'll segue from that into where MATA is with funding, with growth of the system and so on.

- Sure, it's helping us to set budget priorities.

If we wanna keep things the way they are moving into the next fiscal year, we're going to need an additional $15.4 million.

Public transportation, transportation in general is being hit by huge increases in inflation.

The St. Louis Fed reported, and period closing in March, that inflation for the transportation sector alone was over 11%, which is somewhat higher than what consumers are seeing, but the reasons behind it is is that it's commodity-driven and it's labor-driven, and those two items together add up to quite a bit of money, and as we enter labor negotiations with our employees over the next few weeks and we attempt to deal with some of the operational issues that we've been facing over time, that's the estimate of what we're going to need in order to solve those problems and improve, continue to improve public transportation in Memphis.

- There was not a vote, there was not supposed to be a vote.

This was a kind of informational meeting as we go into budget season, and MATA gets funding from the city, from the county and the state and the federal government, we'll try to break some of that all down as we talk today, but if you didn't get, let's just say you didn't get any of that 15.4 million, what kinds of things or what specific things would be on the table to cut next year?

- Well, we would have to evaluate all the services that we provide, not just, you know, not just fixed route, not just paratransit, not just on-demand, but how they all integrate.

We'd have to reevaluate and reconfigure the system to operate within the resources that are available and still stay within the guidelines of the Transit Vision which is our short-range transit plan.

The Transit Vision tells us what we're supposed to be doing.

It also has the price tag associated with it, or estimated, and we would just have to go back and reconfigure again, and nobody wants to see that happen, nobody wants to see cuts in service, 'cause it affects, it disproportionately affects underserved populations in our community and populations that in many cases don't have options, either they're zero-car families, or they have some issue that they can't drive and they can't move themselves.

We all recognize that mobility provides people with opportunities, opportunities for jobs, opportunities for education, opportunities for medical attention, and recreation.

Let's face it, we want a well-rounded population, and if we are forced to reduce those things, it just puts, it makes it difficult for those populations that are already underserved.

- And before I go to Bill, apologies Bill, the annual operating budget for MATA this year was, or is?

- About $75 million.

- Is the capital budget, which would be the purchase of new buses and new, you know, the building of new track or new, what is that?

- Facilities?

- Facility, yeah.

- That is, that's dependent on what we're able to attain from our grant program.

Local match dollars for our capital projects, about 20% of the total cost.

Right now today, we have over $500 million-worth of capital projects on the books in five or six big projects, then we have another 200 projects that are under a million dollars a piece.

So we're in, we are definitely delivering the federal capital, the state capital to our community, and now, we just need to, we need to back that up with more local investment.

- And when you say that 500, sorry to Bill, but when you say that 500, that's 500 on the books that is funded and is going forward, or is that 500 in need?

- Both.

In most cases, we have a big chunk of the funding that's required for those projects.

Our facility, operations facility for example, we were very successful in last year's grant process, and we were able to secure 500 million, or excuse me, fifty-four million dollars for that facility.

Our electric bus procurement project, we were able, we are funded, fully funded at $60 million for electric vehicles.

The BRT projects, both the east-west project, the Memphis Innovation Corridor, and the north-south project, the Crosstown project, have a certain level of funding.

The Innovation Corridor's fully funded.

The north-south is, we're still working on funding.

So those projects are big and they will have big impact, and when we're able to get to that point and deliver construction and opportunities, we'll bring probably close to five times the value of the project in economic activity surrounding the project.

- And MATA it seems is in kind of a middle ground in terms of operating financing, because you pointed out the gap that you have that you need filled, and some folks might say, Okay, well the City Council and the County Commission each came up with this plan to create $30 million total each year in revenue as PILOTs or property tax breaks roll off and those projects start paying full property taxes, that all goes to MATA, but you're not gonna have $30 million this year from that fund.

In fact, you're not gonna have the full 30 million from that for several more fiscal years, right?

- That's correct, Bill.

We don't see 30 million, or 32 million I think is the largest number that's projected, until 2032, so it sounds like a long way away, it's, in geological terms it's tomorrow, and we need to plan for that.

But the funding that is being made available, and I wanna thank everybody that came up with the funding formula, because it is innovative and it does, it's a big step in the right direction, the funding formula is still only going to deliver about 30% of what the projected cost of implementing the Transit Vision is.

So there's that delta there.

We had a presentation at the MATA board meeting this last week from the consultants that were reviewing the Transit Vision for a review to ensure that the original assumptions still hold true post-pandemic.

I'm happy to report they do.

That'll go out to the public for public comment here in the next few weeks, but the consultants did note that of the $390 million that the program would cost over the next 10 years as we get into, as we move towards 2032, there's only 130 million projected revenue from the PILOT fund over that same period of time.

So it's about 30%.

We're going to, if we are serious about it as a community, we're going to have to narrow that gap and bring in additional forms and additional types of revenues to allow us to produce what is so, what the public really is thriving for, which is high-quality mobility and transit in the community.

- And you've made the argument before, the City Council members and county commissioners who were gathered there at the Pink Palace for this retreat, you made the case that there's a better way to do this, there's a broader way to do it, it's called the Memphis Area Transit Authority, but you talked about a regional transit authority that would go broader than that, and one of the more intriguing things was that you talked about looking at transportation, public transportation as more than a bus system, more than a trolley system, but hypothetically, something that could deal with the status of roads, of infrastructure, things that are now with public works divisions of the city and the county and those kind of places.

That's quite a leap.

- It is, and I just wanna clarify one thing.

It isn't that the transit authority or MATA would be taking over those things, it just that those items within those departments, it could become a funding source for them, so we have no desire to go fix roads in terms of that work.

That belongs to, you know, a public works department in both the county and the city.

At the same time though, road repair, sidewalk repair, path of travel is a part of mobility, so it makes perfect sense to bring together all of the various different pieces of mobility together under one roof to establish a common set of goals and objectives.

It doesn't do us a lot of good to create a high-frequency, high-quality transit system if we're going to compete with parking in the downtown corridor, for example.

So we want to bring things, all things mobility together so that we all establish the same goals and objectives and bring a stability if you will to all things mobility through these funding formulas.

And if we can get to the point where we are actually planning for the future at a fully funded rate, we can do some wonderful things in the community.

But we need the ability to plan for the future, we need the ability to do our own bonding, to do our own revenue generation, and control that outside of the, some of the emotional decisions that get made at Council and in Commission with respect to the current events in the community at the time.

- Revenue generation, you just mentioned, bonds is borrowing, right, I mean that's, what other sources, there's rider fees is a source of revenue generation, what else?

- Well, there could be, there's probably a half a dozen different things that you could utilize in order to generate revenues, whether it be transportation utility fee, whether it be another layer of property tax.

Sales taxes in our community are pretty much maxed out according to, you know, based on where we're at with current legislation, but if you bring together a host of these different things to the point where not everybody's paying the, you know, a huge sum of money but everybody's paying a little bit, now we are able to spread the opportunities out in a way that makes sense and more and more people can take advantage of it.

We're seeing growth in transit.

Our ridership this year is up a couple of points over last year, and-- - It's about five million, six million, or-- - This year, I think we're probably gonna be in just shy of four million.

- Okay, sorry.

- You're thinking pre-pandemic numbers, but it's growing and it's showing good signs.

But we also note from our discussions with our customers that more and more younger people are looking to not be involved with cars, more and more, our population is aging, so we need to be prepared to deal with an aging population and being able to deal with an aging population's issues and needs on that basis.

So the Transit Vision update does, you know, discuss where we're at with the current situation, with the current route network, but it also identifies that the growth and positive acceptance of the on-demand programs that we've put out there is really a growth opportunity for our system generally, here locally as well as as we look towards a regional approach.

- The on-demand programs include the Groove program, people in, what is it, Medical District, Downtown.

- The Groove and READY!

by MATA, yes.

- Yeah, where you'll see the little minivan kind of things that they, and they operate a bit like an Uber, right, within a limited footprint.

- Yeah, it's Uber Transit.

[laughs] You know, - Yeah, right.

- But no trademark infringement, but it is the same type of a platform and it gives people the same opportunities as many of us utilize when we travel by Uber or other shared network systems.

- To the people, and I think we've talked about this before, but to the people who listen and say, "Well, look, I pay for my car, I pay gas taxes, "I don't wanna get on the bus, "I don't wanna get on a trolley, "I don't wanna get on a Groove vehicle.

Why should I have to pay for that?"

- Because you benefit from it.

If we take people off the roads, you have less congestion.

If we take people off the roads and put them on buses, buses are still the most environmentally friendly form of transportation that we offer as a transit authority.

If we put 35 or 40 people on a bus, the emissions per passenger, per passenger mile are much lower than that, than you would see in a car, and shared network services and all those other programs in their current format usually are just a single-occupancy vehicle just being driven around by somebody.

In our programs, our on-demand programs, it's shared rides, so you're gonna get on, you'll get on maybe with two or three other people, so we are even reducing the emissions per passenger mile because we have more passenger miles for the same vehicle.

The same thing with the fixed route network, the same thing with the trolley network.

We take all of the people that we do transport on a daily basis and put them in cars, you're going to see a huge increase in congestion, huge increase in traffic accidents.

Transit is still the safest, one of the safest forms of providing transportation, so, and if we bring all these things together, you still benefit even though you're not taking advantage of it, because as a community we have these issues and we need to solve so much of it.

- And do you have some plans to expand on-demand, but you've also had some things like you ordered more on-demand vehicles and had a set number that was coming to you, and then all of a sudden, the person you had the contract with said, "Oop, we can't deliver," I think they delivered two to you and you had ordered 10, was that?

- They delivered 10, we ordered 50.

[chuckles] So, but good recall, Bill.

The, yes, we are, just like any other business and so many of us, we are, you know, paying for issues like supply chain issues.

So the good news is is that next month they will deliver another 10 and we, it's just been slowed down in the delivery, we've been able to work through it.

But the cost of everything is going up.

That's why the big ask for next year's budget.

Capital assets like those READY!

vehicles are doubling in price.

So you know, that will take its toll on what we're actually able to do and we'll have to reforecast how quickly we can bring services on board.

But in its current, in the revised format, the Transit Vision calls for a big increase in on-demand programs.

We will be limited by how many people we can hire, how many vehicles we can get.

It does, it just wanna be very clear about this, it does not call for a reduction in fixed route services.

There's always that delicate balance.

Fixed route services, it still calls for increased frequency on main trunk lines, it calls for the reduction of ride time, and the increase in frequency to get every route in the system at one hour or less.

- But in areas where you had fixed route service, I think maybe this was southwest Memphis, you correct me if I'm wrong, I think you had 700 folks who were riding the fixed route service there, you brought in on-demand, and that number went up a lot.

- Ten-fold, during same time period, so we're transporting thousands of people within the community.

Many of them are just local trips.

Many of them connect to a fixed route so that they can go from community to community.

It's working the way it was intended, and the results are there.

It should also be noted that the changes in the fixed route service that were made, all but one bus stop was incorporated into other fixed route services, so we're still serving the fixed route passengers in the community, but we're also transporting several thousand boardings on a monthly basis in on-demand service.

A surprising group that is utilizing the service, which is great in my eyes, is school children.

We are seeing a big demand in that.

Also, paratransit customers, because paratransit service, the way it's designed and some of the legislative stuff that's out there that we have to comply with, does not necessarily create friendly rules of operation for the passenger.

- You're saying para-, para-?

- Paratransit.

- Paratransit.

- The MATAplus.

Right.

- MATAplus.

Disabled people or people-- - People with special needs, and so they may utilize a trip to go to the doctor's office but then they'll call for on-demand service to get back from the doctor's office because there's some silly rules in paratransit, and it's not our rule, it's a federally legislated rule that says we can't come back for four hours to pick you up.

The on-demand program doesn't have those rules.

So, so-- - Sorry, that's not funny, if people heard me laughing, I'm not laughing, it's just, it is really one of these crazy guidelines.

- Yeah, I call it one of those mean and stupid rules, you know, where it was set up to ensure that the broadest number of people had access to the program, but it hasn't grown with the improvements in technology, so we need to revisit that, but that particular community is very gun-shy about getting into discussions because of how hard they had to fight to get the program to begin with.

But it is, Bill, thanks for bringing it up, it is, the on-demand program is a success everywhere we've put it.

- Trolleys.

We've got about seven minutes left here, six minutes left.

Where we are with the trolleys, let me see if I get this right, the Madison Line has been running for some years now, with-- - Main Street.

- Main Street, thank you, sorry, Main Street, the M, I already screwed it up.

You have said the Madison Line, you're hopeful next September, this September or next September?

- This September.

- This September.

- The fall of this year, we are, as of right now, it appears though that we will be ready to begin operation, certified operation in September of this year.

That's what we're shooting for.

- With more modern cars, and you think it won't-- - Actually, the launch will be with heritage cars and then we'll move to the modern cars as they become available.

- Okay.

And then the River Loop is?

- Shortly thereafter.

- Shortly thereafter, so within a year.

- Most likely.

There's still a lot of bridge work and a lot of track work that needs to be done, but they're working on it, well, they're working on it now, and as we see progress we'll make a firm date.

- You have the cars, you'll have the cars, 'cause that has been one of the challenges.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

The, for people, I mean it was, the Main Street Line was down for four years, sorry, two years, two or three years, right?

Something like that.

The River Loop and Madison have been down for eight to nine years.

What went wrong, and how, when you talk about these expansion of all these other services, and you talk about grants from federal government or state government, sometimes one time or short-term or medium-term, is there something to learn from what went wrong with the trolley system, which was like originally built by I think a lot of federal money, right?

I mean, there wasn't the operating money to sustain something that was started with federal money.

I mean, or how do you just debrief and look back at this, you know, frustrating, maddening, and I'm sure for you and for everyone at MATA, I don't think anyone's happy about this, how do you say, "We don't want this to happen to the READY!

Program "or the Groove program or the Rapid Bus Transit program, "or we don't want it to happen again to the trolleys once we get 'em going."

How do you keep the system going and avoid this eight-year, nine-year outage?

- That's a great question Eric, and what it boils down to is having the documentation in the service plans.

The Transit Vision is, like I said, is the short range transit plan for MATA, and we need to honor what that plan says.

There's a host of 20, probably 25 other plans that MATA is required to have, whether it be a trolley maintenance plan, bus maintenance plan, trolley facility plan, everything is done by a plan, that's the nature of what we do and it's also the nature of what our funding stakeholders want to see it, because they don't wanna see these things happen again, either.

That's why the steps that we've taken with the trolley, the Main Street trolley, they were very deliberate, we were working with the FTA to recertify a system, which had never been done in the United States.

They'd never had a system voluntarily relieve itself of the certification, and then we came back and we designed the programs to ensure that that won't happen again.

The rollout of the Madison Line and the Riverfront Line, same thing, we have to go through each and every checklist item to ensure that it comes up to the standard of certification, and then we have to constantly monitor the maintenance practices on a daily basis to ensure that we're meeting those standards that are predefined in all of these plans that we have.

The other thing, you know, again, just like everything that we do or touch, it comes down to money.

We have a certain level of local funding for these things.

We would love to get the ridership back up on the trolley, on the other lines on the trolley because part of our funding is contingent on the number of people that we transport, so the more people we transport, the more funding that becomes available at the federal level.

- Not just the dollars in the box or whatever it is, but the match money, they can say, "Hey, this is successful, we wanna invest in this successful," yeah.

- Correct, correct.

- Just two minutes left, Bill.

- Yeah, on the trolleys themselves, talk about the market for that, because it's not exactly the same as the folks who are taking the buses or the folks who are taking the on-demand services.

- Correct, so on the Main Street trolley, about 80% of the passengers are local, so they're using it to get up and down Main Street, which is great, that's what it's there for, we wanna move a lot of people in that fashion.

The other 20%, visitors coming in, whether if they be convention center visitors or just tourism in general, that's what that makeup is.

What we have seen on the Madison Corridor is a change in housing density, we've also seen a change in employment density.

That's why we've worked towards moving to the modern streetcar, 'cause when we get it up and going, we feel that it will be so popular with these groups, the high-density housing group and the high-density employment group that we will need the capacity of a modern streetcar compared to the trolley.

But we recognize those changes, we've worked with some of the developers in the area, some of the employers in the area to have information so that we can make these projections, and we will continue to do that and hopefully continue to have that type of a positive impact on future development in other corridors.

Doesn't have to be rail, it can be bus, we're looking at the same type of, we wanna see the same type of development along the BRT corridors too, 'cause BRT is the closest thing to light rail in a bus, and it will deliver high-quality service to the community.

- BRT being Bus Rapid Transit.

I, the Ford plant, do you have plans, with just 15, 20 seconds left, to get people out there?

- Yes, TDOT dropped their study off a couple weeks ago.

It calls for a commuter bus network to go between Memphis and other areas and Stanton, and we'll be working with them on a financial plan over the next few weeks to deliver and seek funding for and bring that program together.

It does link all of the communities around us as well.

- All right, thank you Gary, thanks for being here, thank you Bill, and thank you for joining us.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode online at WKNO.org or YouTube or you can go and listen to the audio of the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks, and we'll see you next week.

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