As the remnants of Hurricane Francine brought high winds and rain into Memphis on Sept. 12, Kema Mosby waited at the bus stop a few blocks from her South Memphis home.
The 40 – Stage & Lauderdale bus arrived on time, around 5:57 a.m.
From there, she rode to the Hudson Transit Center in downtown Memphis, then switched to the 52 to take her on a roughly 40-minute journey to her job, the Walmart at Austin Peay Highway near Bartlett.
She arrived shortly before 7 a.m. Yet, like most weekdays, her shift didn’t start until 10 a.m.
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This was a good day despite the storm. The bus is supposed to come every hour, but Mosby is blunt about why she takes the 5:57: “If it comes every hour, it’s a miracle.”
Waiting on a later bus would mean not arriving on time to work, she said, so she usually spends the three hours between her arrival and the start of her shift in the breakroom resting or eating a snack. Sometimes, her job lets her clock in early.
That Thursday, she went into the store to purchase some dry shoes.
Bus riders have long expressed frustration at the Memphis Area Transit Authority, with leadership acknowledging that buses don’t come as scheduled, often break down and don’t meet the needs of night shift workers. Now, years of inadequate funding have finally reached a tipping point, with MATA leadership saying they can no longer operate at current levels and continue to exist. For riders, the changes mean fewer options to get to work, the doctor, school, and the grocery store.
Last month, the MATA board voted to take its operating budget from the $85 million needed to continue current operations to a new budget of $67.8 million, reflecting its expected revenues. The week after that vote, drivers and other employees began receiving layoff notices.
At a Sept. 17 meeting of MATA’s service and development committee, commissioners considered the latest proposal, which would:
- Eliminate five routes (16 – Southeast Circulator, 28 – Airport, 34 – Central & Walnut Grove, 37 – Perkins and 69 – Winchester)
- End service at 7:15 p.m. on weekdays, 6:15 p.m. on Saturdays and 4:15 p.m. on Sundays
- Make changes to several routes to fill gaps caused by the five eliminated routes
- Have 60-minute bus frequency for most routes on weekdays and Saturdays, then 120-minute frequency for most routes on Sundays.
- Have 30-minute frequency on weekdays for the top five routes (8 – Chelsea & Highland, 36 – Lamar, 42 – Crosstown, 50 – Poplar and 52 – Jackson).
On Sept. 24, the board is expected to vote on how to restructure the system in what Interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin called “radical changes.” The new network is expected to launch Nov. 3.
“This is really my only way of transportation,” Mosby said as she rode the bus to her job, where she makes $17 an hour. “I don’t have a car, can’t afford one right now. Hopefully, they don’t cut any routes at all, but I know they probably have to cut some.”
Later that night, she would catch the bus back to the transit center and then call an Uber to take her the rest of the way home. She had no choice, she said, since the last bus from the transit center to her home would have come and gone.
Transit already ‘not enough,’ riders say
On Labor Day, MATA rider Dorothy Conner caught the bus three blocks away from her apartment. The stop is obscured by foliage, and while it’s been there for 20 years, some of the newer bus drivers pass right by since they can’t see it, Conner said.
She caught the 52 heading to the William Hudson Transit Center with the plan of, from there, taking the bus out to the FedEx Copy Center on Union Avenue to make flyers asking people to sign a petition urging City Hall to fund MATA, stopping its “death spiral.”
“I’m glad that we have what we have, but it’s not enough,” said Conner, co-chair of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope transit equity team. Now, she fears riders will have even less.
In addition to the fixed route buses, MATA offers on-demand microtransit in four specific service areas as well as paratransit for people with disabilities. Until this year, MATA also maintained a beleaguered vintage trolley system, now on indefinite shutdown due to safety concerns about brakes.
The shutdown of the trolley means Conner now has a more difficult route to get from the William Hudson Transit Center to City Hall or MATA board meetings, where she advocates for riders. She’s tried the on-demand system but says it falls short of meeting the needs of riders.
Conner, who has used MATA off and on since the 1980s, remembers a time when there were 62 bus routes. She also remembers cuts in 2008, 2017 and then during COVID-19, bringing the system to its present-day 23 routes.
More than 25,000 households in Memphis don’t have access to a vehicle, according to the nonprofit Innovate Memphis.
In fiscal year 2024, MATA saw more than 3 million boardings among all its modes of transportation.
In 2018, the city published Transit Vision, a component of the citywide Memphis 3.0 development plan. Approved by MATA and the Memphis City Council, Transit Vision called for an additional $30 million investment in transit, with a goal of making 39% more jobs reachable by transit in an hour for the average Memphian and 49% more jobs reachable in an hour for low-income residents.
But, the funding for the project was never secured. Instead, MATA operated at a deficit — with more expenditures than revenues — for at least the past 10 years, according to Hamish Davidson, an external auditor hired to work as interim chief financial officer for the transit agency.
For MATA riders, the decline has been apparent. Regina Beach remembers buses starting as early as 3 a.m. and going until midnight under former MATA President William Hudson Jr. Since then, the system has “tremendously failed the community all over, especially low-income families who’s trying to make it, and they lose their jobs or can’t get to their doctors appointments like they should on time,” Beach said.
She has to take three buses from her South Memphis home to the University of Memphis area, where she works and studies. Sometimes the buses break down, leaving her stranded. Often, she has to call an Uber or find another ride.
Riders fear losing routes
With cuts looming, MATA riders aren’t sure what to expect.
MATA officials have promised that by cutting some routes, buses on the remaining routes will be more likely to arrive consistently and on time. They’ve also said that where routes are cut, they will seek to fill in the gaps with on-demand options.
For KC, a South Memphis bus rider who asked to be identified only by his initials, the fear is specific. The route he uses most often, the 13 – Lauderdale, was previously combined with the 40 – Stage route. The combined route falls among the five MATA routes with the least ridership, at one point putting it at risk of elimination.
That route is KC’s “lifeline to the rest of the city,” he said, adding that he uses it to get groceries and to get to work.
If he misses the bus after work, he has to wait more than three hours for the next one. If route 13 is cut, he won’t even have that option, KC said.
At the Sept. 17 meeting, eliminating the 40 – Stage/Lauderdale route was not on the table. Instead, the proposal the MATA Board considered would have buses arrive every two hours.
“We want people to know that we want a better transit system,” said Sammie Hunter, co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders’ Union. “We deserve a better transit system. In the city of Memphis, we shouldn’t have to be going through what we’re going through. Waiting two to three hours on a bus is unheard of.”
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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