What are we paying Transpro for if they cannot produce a sustainable transit network plan? The above chart shows the change in ridership for various cities since 2019 Pre-COVID. 

Based on ridership, the need for the 2019 MATA Transit Vision is now dead. Transit Vision was advanced by “transit advocate” Innovate Memphis, which has been publicly subsidized to perform transit advocacy, all while MATA imploded. Makes no sense.  

In 2019, Transit Vision called for a dedicated funding source to fund $30M in additional local funding for public transit. Yet MATA ridership has cratered from 453K riders in March 2019 to 185K in March 2025. This is a decrease of 59% and obviously a casualty of a publicly ripped off transit system. Nashville’s ridership declined by 3.2%, Knoxville 3.6% and Little Rock at 24.7%.

For example, Knoxville’s March 2025 ridership of 220K exceeds MATA’s 185K. And Knoxville is 1/3 the size of Memphis. Knoxville’s bus operating budget at $19M is 50% of Memphis budget of $40M while having greater ridership. True, Memphis has a larger service area, 2x the size of Knoxville, but still there is clearly a problem.

The solution is the elimination of multiple bus routes and the expansion of more reliable on demand to improve service. Memphis led its peer group in 2023 in on demand per trip cost, while at the bottom in bus per trip costs. At $40 per trip, a $5M increase in on demand service would serve 125K riders. The elimination of numerous inefficient bus routes would naturally help fund this transformation while improving service for those that depend on public transit.

The elimination of unneeded bus routes could potentially fund the entire expansion of on demand at no cost to taxpayers or very little additional costs. If Transpro cannot declare the death of Transit Vision, the elimination of bus routes and the expansion of on demand, what are we paying them for?

PS. Per MATA public meetings, the forensic audit is supposed to be completed by June.