Mall Merchants Lukewarm on Funding Trolley Service

CAPE MAY — Business owners here have expressed mixed feelings about providing funds to run the summer trolley that runs from the Cape May Elementary School parking lot to the Washington Street Mall to Beach Avenue.
Steve Smarro, chairman, of the Washington Street Mall Management Company, which operates the mall’s Business Improvement District (BID), presented the group’s 2011 budget to City Council at a Mon., Nov. 15 meeting. The budget totals $70,200 with $12,000 in its surplus fund.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. asked Smarro if the BID would continue to be one of the sponsors of the trolley.
“We are considering it,” said Smarro. “It’s a very 50-50 issue with our trustees.”
He said mall merchants did not feel the trolley was bringing in customers for the shops and saw little benefit from the service.
Smarro said the BID wanted to discuss with Dick Adelizzi, president of Great American Trolley, operator of the service, taking passengers across the bridge to Schellenger’s Landing from Cape May.
“We don’t see any contributors on the other side of the bridge,” said Smarro.
He said that was a sore point for restaurants on the Washington Street Mall that pay an assessment to the BID.
Smarro said mall merchants would love to see the trolley become a success but they viewed it “pretty much” as a failure.
“When I talk to people they say, ‘I saw six people on the trolley,’” he said.
Mahaney said Adelizzi provided a report to council, which included five initiatives for 2011 including providing service into Schellenger’s Landing up until 5 p.m.
“To me that is short-sighted,” said the mayor. “I know there are many people out there, especially at the marinas, who are looking to come into town at night to patronize what we have downtown.”
He said he understood Smarro’s concern that restaurant traffic would flow one way to Schellenger’s Landing which houses such restaurants as the Lobster House, Lucky Bones, Dock Mike’s and the Cactus Grill.
In past years, merchants on Schellenger’s Landing contributed to the trolley funding but there was some dissatisfaction with the level and quality of the service they received, said Mahaney.
He said it was important to resume service to the landing.
Deidre Hineline, secretary for the mall management company, said issues from merchants included no set schedule for the trolley and not knowing where it runs and where it stops.
She said customers come into businesses and ask, “Where do I catch the trolley and when will it be there?”
“Nobody knows,” said Hineline.
Mahaney said a route was approved by council, which included posting signs at trolley stops.
City Manager Bruce MacLeod said the regularity of how often the trolley runs its route through the city is altered by summer traffic. He said there has been discussion of operating two trolleys during the heaviest times of use.
The trolley begins service at noon and ends at 11 p.m., said MacLeod, operating from July 1 through Labor Day. He said he believed the trolley was a “very worthwhile venture,” and something the BID should continue to consider funding.
Smarro said the BID contributed $5,000 or nearly 10 percent of its total budget to the trolley. He said merchants did not feel they were getting a good return on their investment.
“We really can’t make any promises,” he said.
Mahaney said council was committed to providing some of the funding for the trolley. He suggested service gradually be included into the shoulder season, after Labor Day, to extend Cape May’s tourist economy to 10 and-a-half months per year.
The mayor said beachfront hotels and motels and the city’s Tourism Commission have been major sponsors with some assistance from bed and breakfast inns. He said beachfront hotels were concerned about the lack of financial support from mall merchants and vowed if mall merchants did not get involved, the beachfront merchants would stop funding the trolley.
Mahaney said the city was paying about 50 percent of the trolley’s operating expenses. He suggested a meeting be scheduled between Adelizzi and mall merchants.
Hineline said a promise was made last year of a mall employee shuttle. She said the trolley left from the gazebo at Rotary Park at 11:15 p.m. but did not address getting employees to the mall at the beginning of their shifts from wherever they park their cars.
Mahaney said ridership was “way up.” He said the trolley was a “work in progress.”