Main Street Trolley to be Auctioned by City

St. Charles will auction a trolley that used to run up and down Main Street, despite a push from Mayor Sally Faith to get it up and running again. 

The city stopped running the trolley at the end of 2010, citing cost concerns and low ridership. According to a 2010 article published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it cost the city more than $60,000 a year to offer the trolley rides free of charge.

The city council approved a request to declare the 1999 trolley as surplus property during the Nov. 6 meeting. Council member Mary West, Ward-4, was the only person to vote in support of keeping the trolley.

"If in the future we want to look at something that's more of a holistic approach to potentially doing a trolley, I think that's fine, but I think it's time to go ahead and surplus it," Councilman Dave Beckering, Ward-7, said.

Mayor Sally Faith said she wasn't surprised the council decided to declare the trolley surplus. Earlier this year council members decided to put $30,000 the Mayor budgeted for the trolleys toward renovating the Greater St. Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau next year.

"I've not given up," Faith said. "I will be working on it all year."