Riding in Memphis

My parents raised me like a good Oregonian to appreciate public transportation. Heck, I started riding the school bus in kindergarten! When I was in middle school, I rode the city bus across town, by myself, to help out at a day camp. During my study abroad excursion in Central America I hopped on and off all sorts of public transit. I did own a car from age 23-25, but as soon as I moved to DC I sold my little sedan and (usually) happily got around town via bus or Metro. The next 5 years I spent car-free until marrying into vehicle ownership. Even then, D.F. and I just had the one car and I took the bus to work. 

All that preamble to say, it's been a bit of an adjustment to live in Memphis, which is a really car-dependent place by comparison. We're actually fortunate to be within walking distance (0.5 miles) of a grocery store and other shops. Since I work from home, there's really no need for us to have two cars, but the bus system here has a kind of bad reputation, so I've been hesitant to try it. 

But today, necessity won out. I had to be at an appointment before D.F. would be home from work to give me the car. When I checked the bus routes online, I realized it was just a straight shot on one bus for me, so I figured what the heck, let's give it a try! 

The way that Memphians talk about the bus, I was expecting it to be a total sketch-fest of weirdness, but y'all, I gotta tell you, it was just about the most normal, uneventful bus ride I've ever taken. For real! I fully confess that I only have one data point, and for my study to be conclusive, I'd need to conduct further research. But I will testify that based on my limited experience, the bus seems totally fine to me. 

Here is what I observed on my 35 minute ride around 4:30pm:

• Passengers: mostly young African-American women. People playing on their phones, some chatting.
• Number of riders: lots! The bus was pretty much full, but almost everyone had a seat
• Timeliness: bus arrived to my stop 3 minutes after scheduled time
• Fare: $1.70 one way
• Driver's ability: drove safely, if a bit slowly
• Weirdos: maybe one, depends on how you define "weirdo." A young man was sitting up on a wheel well where I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to sit. But he didn't seem that weird, just like he didn't care about the rules.

By comparison, here is what I usually experienced in Seattle:

• Passengers: wide variety of age, gender, race. People playing on their phones, some chatting. Often homeless people with big carts and dogs, especially downtown. 
• Number of riders: during rush hour, totally crammed, standing room only followed by another bus that is half full, which passes you on the viaduct while you stare longingly at it from your sardine can
• Timeliness: good at picking you up on time, but then you'll get stuck in a huge traffic jam and be late arriving
• Fare: $3.00 one way during rush hour
• Driver's ability: drive like maniacs because they have to if they ever want to escape the aforementioned traffic jam
• Weirdos: HA HA HA! like half the bus! Someone will be trying to start a drum circle in the back, teenagers making out, tons of piercings everywhere, an old dude ranting about something...
• Bikes: no one was using the bike rack in Memphis today, but lots of people load their bikes in Seattle

Now before you think everything is rainbows and butterflies over here at MATA, I must tell you, it's not. Service is woefully inadequate for a city of this size. The bus I caught today was running every 30 minutes down one of the busiest streets in town. In rush hour! The comparable routes in Seattle run every 5-7 minutes during peak hours.

Route options: really lacking. Here is the system map, if you're interested. Look at those huge gaps between bus lines! And also note how the routes are set up, mostly, on a wheel-and-spoke system. Meaning, imagine that downtown is the center of the wheel, and all the other routes are spokes that go out from it. So if you want to go anywhere, you'll probably have to ride downtown, wait, transfer, and then head back out. And remember, each bus is only running a couple times an hour, so you might be waiting a long time.

The reason both of the above are really important is that Memphis is a city with a lot of poverty. Owning and maintaining a car can quickly eat up a huge chunk of your income, especially if you're working a low-wage job. Activists are trying to raise awareness. Some people are talking about plans, at least. 

Leadership is another issue. MATA is currently searching for a new general manager, and although certain groups are calling for an outsider to come in and shake up business as usual, I get the impression that's not how things usually play out around town. Just in case the future leader reads my blog, I will now offer a few meager suggestions.

Fares: why is the fare $1.70? Who caries around dimes with them? Just make it $1.75. But as an aside, I noticed a lot of people using magnetic stripe pass cards, so maybe most people don't pay with cash and it doesn't matter.

Technology: I couldn't find any app like One Bus Away for MATA so I just looked up my trip on Google. When I arrived at my stop, a sign listed an email address and stop number, and it said you could text for an update on your bus's arrival time. I sent a text but got no response. If you want young, wired people to use your services, MATA, you've got to make it more user friendly.  

Stop spacing: MATA really needs to look at re-spacing their bus stops. There were blocks that literally had 2 stops about 100 feet apart. That is ridiculous, and it results in slow service.

And thus ends my naive bus post based on a single ride. I'll have to hop on again sometime soon to gather more data!