Here's why a $12 million federal grant to boost Memphis' mass transit is a big deal

Tonyaa Weathersbee | Memphis Commercial Appeal

If Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris needed the means to persuade voters to support a more efficient mass transit system, the federal government just handed him one.

This week U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, announced that the Memphis Area Transit Authority will receive a $12 million federal grant to build a bus rapid transit line that will link Downtown Memphis to the Medical District, the Overton Square entertainment district, past the Benjamin Hooks Library and to the University of Memphis campus.

In other words, to the places where jobs exist that pay a living wage, and where people can get an education to get one of those jobs.

“It certainly will help people get to well-paying jobs,” said Gary Rosenfeld, executive director of MATA. “It’s a great opportunity for us.”

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Harris, who has been struggling to find ways to pay for transit improvements — the Shelby County Commission recently opposed his plan to tax households with three or more vehicles $145 a year to bolster MATA — said the grant was welcome news.

Not only will it help people who need decent jobs get to those jobs quicker, but it will also attract riders who already have decent jobs and are looking to use their cars less, he said.

“The rapid transit route, if MATA is able to pull it off, will change the demographics of its ridership,” Harris said.

“There is a stigma — a deep and toxic stigma — that public transportation is only for certain people. It’s great that MATA will have a chance to change that and show that mass transit is for everyone.”

The grant, however, will pay for only part of the 8-mile project, called the Innovation Corridor. It is expected to cost about $65 million.

But that $12 million will pay for what’s needed to persuade people to use MATA: routes that transport people to jobs in less than an hour, and convenient places for them to wait, Rosenfeld said.

Among other things, the grant is expected to pay for nine electric buses with Wi-Fi and electric loading docks. It will also pay for 28 new transit stations — as opposed to stops.

The stations will shield people from the rain and the cold as they wait for the buses — something that tends to deter people from using mass transit, said Sammie Hunter, co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders Union.

“Also, a lot of women use the buses, and when they are at the stops alone, they are sometimes targeted (by criminals),” Hunter said. “So yes, the stations are a good idea.”

Also, said Harris, “through buying electric hybrid buses, MATA will enhance its image with a younger clientele, who care about climate change. It will make them seem more hip and cool.”

And if that grant yields results that turn out to be anything like Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue project, it can, as Harris alluded to, be the catalyst to persuade taxpayers to support more MATA funding.

In Cleveland, private developers are gearing up to pour more than a billion dollars in investments along a 4-mile strip along Euclid. The reason for the energy, according to The Plain Dealer, is that the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority used $200 million to reshape Euclid Avenue around a rapid transit bus line.

The rapid transit line is adding value to the area by connecting people to jobs, it said. Rosenfeld said that Memphis’ Innovation Corridor holds the potential to create that same kind of energy.

Or, as some would say, momentum.

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“This is a pretty big project,” Rosenfeld said. “As we roll out a higher capacity service, it should be a way to persuade people to use transit and create more development along that area.”

But, said Hunter, who has to make a two-hour trip from his job at Methodist South Hospital to his home off Shelby Drive on the bus, he hopes Harris is right; that success with that $12 million will lead to more MATA funding.

People like himself, he said, need it.

“I hope it goes good. But those of us on the outskirts still need help,” Hunter said.