Baton Rougeans love to complain about the city’s gridlock and infrastructure issues—and justifiably so, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column.
“Both anecdotal information and hard data suggest our traffic problems are legitimately troublesome,” Riegel writes. “We also love to lament the lack of a ‘real’ public transit system, whatever that means. If only we were Charlotte or Austin, someplace progressive or funky, we might have a tram or bus system that people would actually ride, or so the thinking goes. But would we?”
Early this year the Capital Area Transit System rolled out a series of new routes, Riegel notes, including one in particular that targets so-called “riders of choice”—those who use mass transit because we want to, not because we have to.
“The line is the Garden District trolley, which has five streetcar-style buses that run from downtown through the Garden District to Southdowns before turning around and heading back to the State Capitol. It was created in response to rider demand, and it is ideal for commuters who live in the heart of the city’s older neighborhoods and work downtown,” she writes. “In other words, it’s everything New Urbanists and those who aspire to be like them have been clamoring for. And so far, the handful of riders who have been availing themselves of the new trolley have nothing but praise for the service, a CATS spokeswoman says.”
The only problem, Riegel says, is that very few people are riding the trolley.
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