The recent approval of a 20-year waiver of property taxes by Collierville and 15 years by Shelby County for the FedEx World Technology Center is a case study of the disconnects that exist between public policies concerning corporate incentives and job opportunities.
The PILOT approved for the $47.4 billion company means that it will not pay $75.5 million in Collierville and Shelby County taxes.
While economic development officials urged passage of the tax freeze in the name of jobs and salaries, it was yet one more job site that is not accessible by public transit. In fact, anyone trying to get from Memphis to the World Technology Center will learn that the sentence, “you can’t get there from here,” is more than a cliché; it is a fact.
More than anything, it is testament to how this community fails on many occasions to connect the dots. That’s because business incentives don’t take into consideration whether the jobs attracting the tax breaks are accessible by public transit.
In the case of the Collierville facility, the closest someone can get to it using public transit is the middle of Germantown (and from Soulsville, that’s a one hour and 20 minute bus ride).
From there, it’s a seven mile walk to the FedEx World Technology Center.
When asked about this, a Collierville official said that “everyone who works there owns a car so it’s no problem.” When asked if it was fair that people from South Memphis could not take a bus to get there, the response was that “these aren’t low skill jobs.”
Both comments were telling, both in the acceptance of our community as car-dependent but also in the perception that it is acceptable that not all jobs are reachable by all people (not to mention the stereotyping). That said, we shouldn’t be surprised because there are still major job centers – think Mitsubishi and Electrolux on President’s Island – where massive incentives have been given but where there is still no convenient public transit connecting workers to them.
Put simply, funding for MATA has not been sufficient enough to build a transit system as extensive and efficient as this region needs.
The Memphis region’s rankings in the 50 largest MSAs tell the story:
Transit Coverage
#37 – Share of working age residents living in block groups served by transit (51.4%)
Jobs Access by Transit
#31 – Share of jobs typical working age resident can reach within 90 minutes (26.2%)
Transit Ridership
#46 – Annual transit boardings per capita (9.9)
Transit Utility
#46 – Ratio of annual passenger miles traveled per square mile of urbanized land area (103,981)
Transit Expenditures
#46 – Annual operation expenses per capita ($51)
Transit Service Frequency
#5 – Median wait time for morning rush hour transit service in minutes – higher ranking means longer wait (15.8)
Transportation Expenses
#1 – As percent of median household income (27.3%)
Workers Who Commute by Public Transportation
#44 – Percent of Workers (1.1%)
Vehicle Miles Traveled Per Capita
#18 – Average daily vehicle miles traveled per capita on freeways and arterials (20.2)
Wow. MATA is horrible. Not any better since the 1960s when each city bus in Memphis was proudly labeled as “Cotton Towner”!
The status of our public transit system in Memphis and surrounds is yet another problem associated with the massive shift of our population further and further east. For a public transit system to be cost effective, there needs to be a relatively high population density per square mile. Memphis is nearly 50 square miles larger than New York City, yet has 1/12th of the population. We are 4 times the area of Chicago, a city with 4 times our population. We have the lowest population density of the 25 major cities in the United States, with the possible exception of Jacksonville FL, although that’s not an apples to apples comparison, as Jacksonville has a considerable amount of rural land in the MSA. Our urban core population has fallen by more than 40% since 1960. Fixing our public transportation system (which we HAVE to do) is a very complex problem. I often wonder how many of our elected officials follow this blog. It should be a litmus test for a candidate, in my opinion.
So true. These PILOTS are ruining the city. No excuse for giving them without public transit. Everything is spread so far out east and that trend continues. We will never have a viable downtown jobs market with this. Shame on FedEx for going east and no transit connection. Wouldn’t it have been great if FedEx had built a headquarters downtown 30 years ago?
Technically there is service to President’s Island via the 15, if one bus in the morning and one in the evening counts as service. Of course, MATA is proposing to cut this route entirely in their latest service change proposal. Go figure.
The comments provided by the Collierville official, while not surprising, show how completely out of touch they are with not only transit patterns at large but the preferences of many of the types of employees FedEx struggles to attract and retain. Collierville is “so 1990’s” and the lifestyle preferences of younger generations is going to make for a rude awakening for towns such as theirs which offer so little in the way of diversity and authenticity.
Thanks, Urbanut. Here’s an exchange from our Facebook page:
Bennett Foster
…The 15 Presidents Island goes from the North End Terminal and past every facility on the island, once in the morning and once in the evening. It only exists because MBRU fought to protect it using the argument that you make in you article. If the service was expanded to match all the shifts, and if the employers encouraged workers with discounted passes it would have higher ridership.
Tom Jones
And MBRU deserves more credit and gratitude than it often gets. City government has asked for more money for MATA to Mitsubishi and Electrolux and in meetings in City Hall, it’s been said there is no bus to either. I assumed I could rely on the comments. I’m sorry if the information is wrong. I should have checked bus route map. I certainly was not intending to diminish your impact. But bigger point is that if companies are going to get tax breaks, it should hinge on public transit access.
I have suggested every year that MATA needs to provide bus service to Memphis in May festival site (Tom Lee Park) but all they have is a dropoff on 4th Street (that’s a LONG way from Riverside!) for $7. At that price and inconvenience, I’m sure it’s cheaper to pay $10 to park your own car.
I attempted to take a MATA bus last fall. On Union near downtown it took over 30 minutes for any bus to arrive. On the bus it was almost empty at lunch hour and it was absolutely filthy with trash and bad odors everywhere. Never again.
SCM and others (please excuse my rambling here),
I think that is one of the key points that continues to vex MATA: frequency. I realize MATA is working within limited resources and these resources are subject to the annual budgetary whims of City Hall. I may being going too far here, but in some cases- President’s Island being a great example- service routes and frequency seems to indicate a degree of charity on the part of MATA. As if riders should be grateful that service is provided at all, let alone with frequencies and times that are actually useful to the broadest segments of the population. Why else would service be defined by only two busses daily to President’s Island? Does that even qualify as a legitimate service?
I will be the first to admit that I do not really understand how and where service is provided based on the existing system map. For arguments sake, let’s assume that in place of providing service that appeals to all segments of the population, MATA instead should focus only on providing service to low income residents (defined by the Smart Location Database as earning $1,250 per month or less). Census data is able to pinpoint where those who earn lower incomes live and where they are employed. Overlay MATA’s system map and frequencies and glaring gaps appear. There are several locations with higher concentrations of these jobs. One of the largest numerical agglomeration includes the Brooks Road- Airport – Lamar Avenue Logistics districts. While many such jobs are located in these areas, as a whole their density is very low. The Union/Poplar Corridor supports even more of these employees at much higher densities. The portion of the corridor between Goodlett and Ridgeway supports a number nearly equal to that found in the Books-Airport-Lamar district mentioned above but at over 2.5 times the density. However, service in this same areas is largely confined to 2 bus routes: 50 and 57. Frequencies on Route 50 transition from 15-minute intervals to one hour intervals starting at 5:15 pm and 20-minute intervals to 40-minute intervals (then one hour intervals) on Route 57 beginning at 5 pm. Morning time frequencies decrease at 8:15 on Route 50 and decrease as early as 7 am (!) on Route 57. Both of these routes provide a level of service far above what one finds on most other routes throughout the system where 10-12 busses PER DAY are a fairly common standard. All this to say, even where transit is provided in locations with where those who are transit dependent are more likely to live and work, the level of service is sub-par. There are several census districts where large numbers these types of jobs exist that either lack access to transit entirely or would require a walk of 2 miles or more along streets that often lack sidewalks in order to find the closest bus stop.
I know this is largely repetitive but playing devil’s advocate here… Let’s assume that we did require a transit component associated with public investments in economic development which is a completely reasonable requirement. Simply because a bus route is adjacent to or near a site, in no way ensures that any reasonable degree of service will be provided. Without a vision for what transit should be (instead of assuming what it could be) coming from either the mayor/city council or MATA itself, it will be hard to justify investment in the organization. I have hope that MATA is beginning to change under the new leadership put in place there. A priority must be placed on describing the attributes of a great transit system to local officials, leaders and the general public.
Great thoughts as usual. Thanks, Urbanut.
…and then there are the comments from MATA CEO Ron Garrison posted today in the CA: “verge of collapse”.
It’s clearly put up or shut up time:
The Memphis Area Transit Authority is on the “verge of collapse,” and needs an additional $7 million or so in operating funds from Memphis next fiscal year to avoid “stark cuts,” MATA CEO Ron Garrison said Tuesday.
Garrison told a City Council committee that MATA needs $30 million in operating funds and $5 million in capital funds to avoid cuts in bus routes and service frequencies.
MATA needs $5 million in capital funds next year to replace 40 of MATA’s 162 buses, according to a handout of Garrison’s presentation.
“As we get these funds, we can actually bring MATA back from the dead,” he said before the meeting.
MATA could spend $18 million in capital funds through fiscal year 2021 to replace the 72 fixed-route buses eligible for replacement, the handout said. Memphis’ share of that capital cost is 42 percent, or $7.6 million.
Garrison said MATA’s operational costs have risen about 2.2 percent every year since 2009, and should reach $66.9 million in fiscal year 2018. But funding decreased in that same time, and is expected to fall to $53.6 million in fiscal year 2018, creating a cumulative deficit of $66 million between fiscal years 2009 and 2018.
Second article today and the severity of the situation is beginning to dawn on some (or at least a few journalists at the CA). Forget amputation, the patient is in extremely critical condition if the word privatization is even remotely able to enter the conversation.
…I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this severe. At the time it was suspected that the trolley’s were simply the canary in this coal mine, but the overwhelming dimensions of deep rooted systemic failure is still surprising.
Avoid MATA crack head and drunk city you are bound to see a fight a bus ride it’s just disgusting will have you overthingin your life like really why am I on this mf