Is MATA Listening to Customers?

Ask the customers

  
By Johnnie Mosley
I’m sure Ron Garrison believes what he wrote in his Sept. 25 guest column, “MATA CEO: ‘We are listening’ to customers.” As chairman of Citizens For Better Service, I say if you really want to find out whether MATA is listening to its users, just ask them.

Ask the senior citizens who are forced to go numerous blocks to catch a bus to Downtown Memphis. Ask the working people who have to leave home two to three hours early to get to work on time. Ask the restaurant managers who cannot hire or keep good employees because there is no night service in various parts of Memphis. Ask the parents who had to quit their jobs because the bus they used to catch no longer exists.

The so-called plan that called for $500,000 of bus service improvements is the same old consolidations and service cuts disguised as improvements.