The Coolest Ride In Riverside
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/3159249782_v654QP7-M.jpg)
This weekend marks the second half of the Riverside Avondale Night Trolley's trial run ferrying passengers throughout Riverside and Avondale on the first Friday and Saturday of the month from 6pm to 2am. Today marks a crossroads that will determine this viability of this service continuing past the trial period.
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-apr-the-coolest-ride-in-riverside
My wife and I are going to be using the trolley tonight! We've been wanting to get out and try it for so long! Glad we could finally make it on a week that is so important.
Really important that you all ride the trolley tonight.
And remember, don't stick a $5 bill into the farebox and expect change back... and don't think you can buy a $4 all night ticket on board the trolley, you can't. Buy a STAR card ahead of time or bring exact change for the $1.50 fare one-way.
Pull up trolley.jaxmob.com on your smartphone and check out where the trolley is throughout the night.
Can't wait to ride!
There's plenty of parking in Murray Hill church parking lots and in the Bank of America parking lot. Would be great if the trolley expanded to include Murray Hill within this circle.
Saturday night looks like rain, so it figures it would be a trolley night.
Zen Cog is going to have a fun event though.
http://jessicagreenfoundation.org/pt-event/bikes-beers-brats-night/
looking forward to this...and hoping in the future for a connector to downtown!
Trollies bustling tonight?
Quote from: edjax on April 04, 2014, 10:15:53 PM
Trollies bustling tonight?
The trolley car that I took at about 11:30 was absolutely packed!
^Same here.
Ridership over the weekend dipped slightly from last month.
From users: anything you feel can be improved upon?
From people that haven't used it: what's holding you back?
Really appreciate the feeback and patronage.
Quote from: fieldafm on April 08, 2014, 12:27:44 PM
Ridership over the weekend dipped slightly from last month.
From users: anything you feel can be improved upon?
From people that haven't used it: what's holding you back?
Really appreciate the feeback and patronage.
To be honest, since it was raining Saturday evening we
almost just drove instead of using the trolley to go grab a bite to eat; fortunately we had awnings to stand under to get out of the drizzle but nice covered shelters would probably make a difference for some folks between grabbing an umbrella to wait a few minutes or just jumping in the car if the trolley does become a permanent thing.
Quote from: Apache on April 08, 2014, 12:49:27 PM
Quote from: fieldafm on April 08, 2014, 12:27:44 PM
Ridership over the weekend dipped slightly from last month.
From users: anything you feel can be improved upon?
From people that haven't used it: what's holding you back?
Really appreciate the feeback and patronage.
Haven't used it yet. For those outside the immediate route, we still have to drive to Riverside then drive home. Guess I could Uber over to the Trolley and bar hop then Uber home. Guess I'm of the age that I don't barhop much anymore. I feel like if I did use it, it would be strictly for the one time experience to check it out. Maybe I'm just outside the target demographic though.
How big was the drop in ridership?
Another option besides the bar hop, is to use it for visiting different areas. So you can eat dinner at Orsay, catch it to Intuition for a drink, then head to Sun Ray for a movie, catch trolley back to Orsay and drive home. Or you could hit the shops in Five points, catch the trolley to Mellow for dinner, then trolley back to five points for your car and then home.
The best thing we've found about the trolley is that we can hit all these areas for different things, but we don't have to drive to each spot, hunting for a parking space.
Have the merchants noticed an uptick in business? I would think so.
One suggestion might be one of the trollies running the opposite way? We were at Bold City and decided to walk to Intuition and then just decided to walk to the King street bars instead of catch the trolley all the way around.
We live in San Marco and had to drive over, and took it with friends who also don't live in Riverside. However, it was very convenient as we were meeting them over at Cork. I expect there's less interest from non-Riversiders to use it, especially before barhopping hours really set in. Our trolleys were consistently packed after 11 pm or so, much more so than when we first got on.
Several people I met were thrown off by the payment. Some didn't realize you could ride without a pass by paying per-ride (and some didn't have exact change for it anyway). Others I met didn't know about the day passes or that you couldn't get them on the bus (or that buses don't usually take credit cards. Oh, Millennials).
However, I think one of the biggest issues is the one you can't control: the rain on Saturday. Though it eventually cleared up I'm sure that put a big damper on peoples' plans. I was over at Bold City and it was pretty slow for a Saturday. I expect if there was only a small dip, that's why.
Thanks for all you do, Mike.
Quote from: fieldafm on April 08, 2014, 12:27:44 PM
Ridership over the weekend dipped slightly from last month.
From users: anything you feel can be improved upon?
From people that haven't used it: what's holding you back?
Really appreciate the feeback and patronage.
The obvious is connect it to Downtown. Avondale is pretty boring. I would much prefer to be able to get from King St. or even Five Points to Downtown than to Avondale, and it's the same distance.
The rain is a killer. I wonder if anybody takes the weather into account of these ridership numbers. It's like Art Walk. March was supposed to be huge and the rain squashed it but April Art walk was off the chain.
Comparatively, Friday's numbers werent too far off (rain was an issue all night Friday). Saturday had perfect weather, yet was the worst Saturday since the first month of the pilot (where weather was awful).
June is the last chance to reverse these clear trends.
Quote from: fieldafm on May 06, 2014, 01:04:41 PM
Comparatively, Friday's numbers werent too far off (rain was an issue all night Friday). Saturday had perfect weather, yet was the worst Saturday since the first month of the pilot (where weather was awful).
June is the last chance to reverse these clear trends.
Is it at all possible for you to post all of the numbers?
I'm just really curious, and a huge fan of the service.
In May, there were 998 trips taken, which is statistically equivalent to the 963 trips taken the first month of the trial period.
Quote from: fieldafm on May 06, 2014, 03:40:11 PM
In May, there were 998 trips taken, which is statistically equivalent to the 963 trips taken the first month of the trial period.
Thank you.
I have noticed while riding the trolley that past midnight, every passenger that is boarding with a $4 pass bought from one of the participating businesses is getting an error message upon swiping their pass.
It has happened to me the last 3 months, and I've watched as 10s of people board while the error message beeps and the driver just waves us on. How are they keeping track of the ridership past midnight when it seems that our passes have become "expired?"
Quote from: johnnyliar on May 06, 2014, 03:50:07 PM
Quote from: fieldafm on May 06, 2014, 03:40:11 PM
In May, there were 998 trips taken, which is statistically equivalent to the 963 trips taken the first month of the trial period.
Thank you.
I have noticed while riding the trolley that past midnight, every passenger that is boarding with a $4 pass bought from one of the participating businesses is getting an error message upon swiping their pass.
It has happened to me the last 3 months, and I've watched as 10s of people board while the error message beeps and the driver just waves us on. How are they keeping track of the ridership past midnight when it seems that our passes have become "expired?"
Exactly what I was wondering as well since this past Friday was the first time I ever rode the trolley after midnight.
Quote from: johnnyliar on May 06, 2014, 03:50:07 PM
Quote from: fieldafm on May 06, 2014, 03:40:11 PM
In May, there were 998 trips taken, which is statistically equivalent to the 963 trips taken the first month of the trial period.
How are they keeping track of the ridership past midnight when it seems that our passes have become "expired?"
The driver has a manual key punch that tracks these trips after midnight.