Transit system testing Bentonville trolley

A historic-style trolley bus will cruise downtown Bentonville to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art on today and Friday, said Joel Gardner, Ozark Regional Transit executive director.

The trolley trips allow transit officials to collect data that could lead to a permanent trolley route in Bentonville, Gardner said. The idea is to offer a service the transit system hasn’t before, and to do it with the kind of vehicle that fits into the tourism atmosphere Bentonville is building, he said.

“I think it would be really cool if we could put something together,” Gardner said. “I just realized communities need more than what we are offering.”

The transit system offers fixed bus or para-transit services in Benton, Washington, Madison and Carroll counties. This year, the transit staff introduced several new routes, including one in Rogers, and concentrated on making buses on time and efficient, Gardner said.

The new services seem to have boosted ridership with daily passengers on fixed routes up about 18 percent this July over the same time a year ago, according to Ozark Regional Transit figures released Monday.

The trolley rides will be free while transit employees research the route, Gardner said. The compiled data will include route hours, roads to use, number of loops per hour, costs, fuel consumption and vehicle type. The study will also include a look at whether the trolley service hits key points of interest for the downtown area, Gardner said.

On Monday, a loaner trolley bus from National Bus Sales arrived at the transit’s Springdale headquarters. Gardner turned on the air conditioning and checked out the bus, which has ceilings around 10 feet tall. The windows were large and the benches wooden.

The trolley, costing roughly $170,000, sits 22 people or 18 people and two wheelchairs. Another dozen can ride the conveyance standing, Gardner said.

The first route starts at the top of every hour at Crossmark, located near Southwest F Street. The main route winds through Southwest Fourth, Sixth and A streets before heading up Southeast Third Street to Southeast F Street and East Central Avenue. The route then hits Southeast J Street with one stop on Meadow Wood Lane on its way to the museum.

If the route becomes permanent, Gardner plans to tweak the roads used, he said. For now, he wants to avoid construction.

The main route will operate starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 9 p.m. with a three-hour lunch break between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., when a lunch route will take over.

The lunch route delivers people from Crossmark to Downtown Bentonville Inc., with one other stop on South Main Street, according to a map provided by Gardner. The idea is to create 15-minute routes that meet the demands of lunch crowds, Gardner said.

Downtown Bentonville has a high volume of traffic, especially during lunch hours, so a trolley or bus service may help alleviate congestion and parking problems, said George Shatwell, manager of Pressroom. That could help businesses downtown, he said.

Offering either a bus or trolley service will mean more sales tax collections “via transactions at either the museum or the downtown area,” Mayor Bob McCaslin said in an email. The service would offer convenience will benefit the city.

Troy Galloway, city community and economic development director, and Gardner have been in talks about the trolley route, they said.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Galloway said. “I think everything we can do to provide transportation options benefits everyone involved.”

Gardner said he plans to use the data collected this week and ask the Bentonville City Council to chip in. He hopes the city will want to invest in the project, he said.

“I want them to be on board with it,” Gardner said.

The transit needs more money to run the trolley route, Gardner said. He plans to seek city, state, federal and other funding. Galloway said the transit is separate from the city. The trolley service is not the city’s expense, he said.

McCaslin said the city already funds the transit operation. The amount the city gives helps cover the cost of Bentonville riders, he said in an email. Giving taxpayer money to “solely fund transportation to a privately owned facility would be inappropriate,” he said.

Bentonville currently funds the transit at $125,757 annually, which is at the same percentage as other cities, Gardner said. Last year, transit officials asked cities and counties to give the transit 20 percent of what the entities expected to see in revenue from the new, statewide transportation tax.

The transit has a total budget of about $2.7 million.

Galloway said Bentonville officials have thought about a trolley service for years, but Alderwoman Mary Baggett said a proposal for a trolley has not come before City Council.

Baggett said she is interested in hearing from Gardner and would consider funding a trolley service, if the city can afford it. Having a trolley may be a “tourist amenity” that fits into Bentonville’s efforts, she said.

City officials, residents and transit employees have some time to consider whether a trolley will work. The earliest the trolley could start is next year, Gardner said.

“I want to give (Bentonville) options,” Gardner said. “I want to give give them a system they can be proud of.”

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