Free trolley rides set for summer

Rock Region Metro is dropping the $1 fee to ride its downtown trolley cars for the summer.

The Pulaski County transit agency’s board voted Tuesday to make the rides free in June, July and August in hopes of building ridership year-round.

The Rock Region board also decided to reinstate its reduced student-fare pass for the summer on its regular buses. Available for any student through the 12th grade, the reduced fare will cost $30, which is about half the cost of regular bus service for three months.

Both measures are aimed at boosting ridership on both the system’s regular bus service throughout the county and on the trolleys, which run on a 3.4-mile route in downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Regular bus service and the streetcars both are experiencing declining ridership through the first three months of the year, particularly the trolleys.

The Metro streetcar system has been operating for nearly 13 years. Its first phase opened in 2004. A second phase that took trolley service to the Clinton Presidential Center opened in 2007.

Streetcar ridership declined 28.8 percent in March compared with the same month in 2016, with ridership falling to 5,841 from 8,205.

For the first three months of 2017, the drop has been more precipitous, falling 36.3 percent, to 10,951 from the 17,187 in January, February and March of last year.

The decision to shut down the trolley at peak hours while the Broadway Bridge was closed to traffic for about five months was certainly a factor. The new bridge opened to traffic March 1.