Read the article on the Commercial Appeal’s website.

Another shining example of overlooking the obvious.

You know why more people don’t shop/hang out/walk on main street? Because there’s nothing fucking there. Because the trolleys have retarded hours. Because everything on main closes at 6pm.

Let’s start with the trolley, since it’s the biggest problem from my perspective.

Ok, let me understand this…you have an entertainment district that serves alcohol until 5am every night. You have very few bars/clubs in the general area that close before 3am. So the logical time to stop trolley service on weekdays is…11pm? What the fuck?

Ahh yes, nothing like booking a room in a north main hotel, jumping on a trolley for a mere dollar to get to the entertainment district, then leaving to find that the trolley isn’t running anymore, and you’re walking ~10 blocks back to your hotel alone, at night, in an unfamiliar city. Welcome to Memphis! Enjoy your mugging!

Even on the weekends trolley service stops at 1am. That’s just insane. It renders the trolley absolutely useless. No one wants to have to leave at 12:30 on a weekend or face a long walk home.

As for the other points, people don’t shop on the majority of main because there’s nothing on the majority of main. Starting at Gayoso, you have Wangs, the couple of shops between Gayoso and Union, then nothing until the dollar store and then walgreens, which closes at something like noon. What exactly are people supposed to be shopping for? How exactly will vehicle traffic increase sales of said nothing? Speaking of traffic, where exactly are all these people going to park in order to patronize these imaginary stores on main street? At the existing parking spots on side streets?

Great plan. “I went to the same abandoned building, and parked in the same place, but I drove down main instead of front. Great success!!”

Putting cars on Main street will just give the MPD another street to block off any time there’s more than 11 people downtown. People still won’t frequent the businesses there, because they don’t exist. People will still avoid the trolley, because it’s useless if you can’t use it as your transportation for a night out on the town.

Want more people on Main? offer incentives for businesses on Main. Push the existing businesses *cough* Walgreens *cough* to stay open AFTER people get off work. Run the trolleys until at least 3-4am, at least during the summer. Double the fare after 11, I’d much rather pay $2 for a trolley than walk 10 blocks at 4am.

Just don’t open it to vehicle traffic. The lack of motorized traffic is pretty much the only thing Main has going right now.