Action News 5 crew tests MATA service

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – To understand someone’s suffering, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. To experience what MATA customers go through, you need to ride on the city’s public transit system.

A trip from Whitehaven to Downtown Memphis by car normally takes 15 minutes. But that journey took an Action News 5 crew 8x as long when they traveled by bus a few days ago, invited by the Memphis Bus Riders Union.

“You try and get to your destination and then you have to sit and wait for hours,” Sammie Hunter, co-founder of the MBRU told us, “You might be getting off a job or you may come from the grocery store or you may be going to the doctor. It’s rough out here for people trying to wait for a bus for two or three hours.”

The published MATA bus schedule said Bus Route 42 from Elvis Presley Boulevard to Lamar should arrive at 3:04 p.m. to pick us up. We arrived at 2:45 p.m. and waited. And waited. And waited. With the bench at the MATA shelter now filled up with customers, the bus arrived one hour late.

“We’re at a 10 right now on the frustration level,” said Hunter.

Here’s something we didn’t expect: the fare box on the bus didn’t work, so we rode for free. Riders were quick to share their frustration with MATA’s inconsistent service.

“I used to rely on it 100%,” said a woman named Davita, “but since it’s unreliable, I use Lyft since the bus is always late or not showing up. I depend on Lyft more than the bus which costs me way too much.”

Another young man told us his managers at work, after seeing numerous television reports about MATA’s massive delays, now understands when he shows up late. When asked what he does when the bus doesn’t arrive, he said he walks, his journey by foot sometimes taking two to three hours.

At Bellevue and Lamar, we transferred to Bus Route 36 to take us to the transit station in downtown Memphis. Mario Scurlock’s wait a few days ago at this same bus stop took so long, he said, that Memphis Mayor Paul Young noticed.

“The Mayor rolled up on us the other day during his lunch break,” said Scurlock, “and he saw that we were still there when he came back and he said he was going to take care of the problem.”

Our bus trip from Whitehaven to downtown usually takes about 15 minutes by car. On this day, it took us two hours using MATA. One glance at the monitor inside the transit station revealed other routes with similar delays.

In January, the City of Memphis hired consultant TransPro to help fix the broken transit system at a cost of $1.3 million. The contract runs through August.

It’s well worth the price, said Hunter, if real change happens at MATA.

“A city of this magnitude should have a better transportation system,” said Hunter, “We shouldn’t have to go through what we’re going through. And it hurts to see people sitting out here waiting on buses for a long period of time.”

What do bus riders and taxpayers get for $1.3 million? Action News 5 sat down for an exclusive interview with TransPro’s John Lewis who is now the acting CEO of MATA. See what his team on the ground in Memphis is doing and his promise to steer MATA back on track on Action News 5 on Thursday, March 27 on the 6:00 p.m. newscast.

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