With MATA’s future uncertain, city steps in. But how much will it need to do?
The Memphis City Council confirmed members of the new Memphis Area Transit Authority board on Tuesday, Oct. 15. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)
Memphis Mayor Paul Young’s move to overhaul the Memphis Area Transit Authority started with sacking its entire board earlier this month, and it will likely end with significantly more city investment in the transit system.
The new MATA board will meet for the first time on Tuesday, Oct. 22. It will likely use a scathing consultant’s report as its guide to stabilize and reposition the transit authority. The document, produced by TransPro Consulting, questions MATA’s long-term projects and said the system needs 18 more buses to serve routes.
But the bus system seems to have dodged, for now, the drastic downsizing promised by the former board and current management.
The new Memphis Area Transit Authority board
Young said this week that he hopes MATA can find a way to pause the cuts, but that likely means finding a way to further fund MATA.
Young’s bus system overhaul follows his $30 million decision to buy the Downtown Memphis Sheraton and save it from the auction block. The MATA overhaul could be just as expensive and resonate over just as long of a time period.
“If we get this right, it has a positive impact on our community. Great cities have great transit systems, and our goal is to improve MATA such that it has great service for those that are transit dependent but also such great service that choice riders are flocking to the service,” Young said in an interview Tuesday, Oct. 15.
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Samuel Hardiman
Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise reporter who focuses on government and politics. He began his career at the Tulsa World where he covered business and K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on the intersection of government, public policy, influence and how public dollars are spent.
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