During its first full month in operation, CATS’ new Garden District Trolley attracted fewer than 600 riders, or about 17 per day. But CATS officials say they’re not disappointed that initial ridership was relatively lackluster.
“Obviously we would like to see more ridership and our expectation is it will grow,” says CATS CEO Bob Mirabito. “We’ve had some hiccups but we are working through those bugs.”
The trolley, which connects downtown to the Garden District and the University Gardens neighborhood just beyond the Perkins Road overpass, was one of several new lines announced by CATS last year, and was created in response to demand from area residents. Recently, Ogden Park residents have asked for a trolley of their own, which CATS officials say is a good sign that the Garden District line is catching on.
“This could become a cookie-cutter thing for us,” Mirabito says.
Compared to other new routes, the trolley has done relatively well. The downtown/airport express, for instance, attracted fewer than 350 riders during the month of January, while the Mall of Louisiana/Downtown line carried 463 and the O’Neal Park and Ride had 176. The Southern University Shuttle had the lowest ridership, with just 51. All of those lines were rolled out last spring, months before the Garden District Trolley.
Mirabito says CATS recently hired a transportation planner from Atlanta’s MARTA system, who will be evaluating all CATS routes to determine how the system can become more efficient.
“It may be that we don’t change the routes but change the scheduling,” he says. “We will continue to evaluate all of our routes and where we identify buses without any customers we’ll make adjustments.”
In a series of media interviews Thursday, Mirabito defended his record in 18 months as CEO of the once-beleaguered transit system. Last week, CATS board member and Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle called for Mirabito’s resignation, accusing him of ineffective leadership.
