Or charge Downtown businesses a DT trolley sponsorship fee? Or do both?
It costs tens of thousands of dollars to keep the trolley running each summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and organizers are looking to the community to help foot the bill for what they say is a valuable resource for downtown businesses and tourists.
Doesn’t that say it all right there? Visitors use it to the benefit of DT businesses. I think a solution would be to charge say $5 dollars for a day pass and if you purchase something at a DT business over $25 that business would give you a $5 dollar discount with proof of your pass. Seems we don’t blink an eye to raise paratransit, why not have tourists pay? Every place I have traveled to requires me to pay for my inner city transportation. Why should SF be any different? Let’s just see how much of an impact the trolley rides really have on DT business, conduct an experiment. We may just find out people are hitching a free ride to Falls Park and not spending a dime in Downtown. If that’s case, to the auction block.
Also, whatever happened to the promise of FREE trolley rides from DT hotels and restaurants to the Events Center? Did that ever happen?