As the Memphis Convention Center construction continues to impact local transit rail service, I used the IBM machine and came across this:


Trolley Bells Adjusted After Complaints

By Bill Dries

When the Memphis Area Transit Authority decided to put shuttle buses on Main Street in April to substitute for the sidelined trolley fleet there was a problem. And the solution has since become a problem as well.

Pedestrians have become accustomed to the nearly year-long absence of the trolleys but remember the distinctive noise the trolleys made that allowed you to know they were coming.The green electric buses are so quiet by contrast that they became a safety issue.

So MATA outfitted the buses with a recording of a trolley bell that got the attention of pedestrians on Main Street and beyond.It’s so loud and sounds so often that some have complained about it. But bus drivers can’t control the volume of the recording because the unit is located under the buses.

So the transit authority began making a few changes Friday, May 1, as the critical test of the substitute service began – the busy Downtown weekend that is the first weekend for Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid as well as the Beale Street Music Festival weekend inTom Lee Park.

The changes include reducing the volume of the bell recording by half and changing the frequency that it is played from once every 45 seconds to once every 90 seconds.

And at the end of the trolley line, the buses won’t idle during the 3 to 5 minutes of down time but will instead be turned off, which disables the bell recording.Transit authority officials hope to have all of the fixes in place by May 5.