Orange Beach has agreed to support a new feasibility study examining whether a seasonal trolley system could once again link coastal communities along the Alabama-Florida line, more than a decade after a similar service was scrapped for lack of riders.
The study is being funded by $86,000 in federal urban transit money, with Escambia County, Florida, administering the funds since Orange Beach falls within the Pensacola-area urbanized transit region. The money is earmarked for transportation planning and comes at no direct cost to the city. Both the Baldwin County Commission and the Gulf Shores City Council have also pledged their support for the effort.
City Planner Griffin Powell said the study, coordinated with the Baldwin County Rural Transportation System, Gulf Shores, Escambia County Area Transit and the West Florida Regional Planning Council, will look at whether a seasonal trolley loop connecting the Alabama-Florida state line to Gulf Shores along the beach highway makes sense. Planners will weigh questions such as whether the service should run only during peak weekends like Memorial Day, July Fourth and Labor Day, every weekend through the summer, or even into the winter months, depending on projected ridership.
A beach trolley isn’t a new idea for the area. The Pleasure Island Trolley ran along the coast starting in 1999, operated jointly by Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and the Baldwin Rural Area Transit System at a fare of 50 cents per ride. Gulf Shores dropped out after just one summer, and Orange Beach followed a year later, ultimately ending the service in September 2000 after complaints about frequent breakdowns and a loud warning bell mounted on the vehicles. Baldwin County had purchased five new trolleys with a $1 million federal grant around the same time the cities decided to end the program, leaving transit officials scrambling to repurpose the vehicles.
Orange Beach City Councilwoman Joni Blalock, who remembers the earlier trolley effort, said traffic conditions along the coast have changed dramatically in the years since. Councilman Jeff Boyd said renewed interest in a trolley system grew out of discussions during past Thunder on the Gulf powerboat racing events, when organizers explored ways to shuttle visitors between Pensacola, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, The Wharf and the Flora-Bama.
City leaders said the new study will help determine whether growth along the coast in the past 15 years has created enough demand to make a revived trolley system financially sustainable, something the original service ultimately couldn’t achieve.