A group of young Winston-Salem professionals has come up with brilliant idea: A trolley service running through downtown on weekend nights. You guessed it- the Journal thinks it’s a great idea, too:

The DASH, a group of young professionals that promotes activity in downtown Winston-Salem, has a good idea that would help accomplish their goal — and create a lot of fun in the process. The city and others should help this group start up a trolley service that would run through downtown on weekend nights…

The city is helping DASH estimate the costs. Once those figures are nailed down, the money could come from a combination of city, business and nonprofit sources. And, if it ever got going, perhaps local colleges could kick in some bucks to have the route extended to their campuses.

Funny, the trolley didn’t work out so good last time. DASH says it’s because people didn’t have time to trolley around downtown during their lunch time. But there were a couple of other reasons:

In July 2004, the city set up the free Downtown Lunch Line trolley service to get downtown workers to restaurants.

WSTA heavily promoted the service on the Internet and through local media. Pamphlets about the service were also distributed at downtown businesses.

But a lack of riders forced the city to shut the line down in early September 2005 when gas prices spiked after Hurricane Katrina..

The bus service consisted of two trolleys running along a 13-stop route that encompassed most of the major blocks in downtown. The trolleys ran every five minutes between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. weekdays.

Ridership peaked at about 45 passengers a day in the early weeks, but, within months, that number dropped to about 30 passengers a day. In the last month of the service, it had dwindled to 18 a day.

I guess that’s the funny thing about high gas prices. When they go up, they go up for everybody —– including the government. In other words, they go up for everybody. That’s something to think about when you see empty city buses running around town because local officials say there’s a demand for public transportation due to high gas prices.

Funny, I was talking with a not-so-young professional in Fishbones the other night and he thought a trolley was just what Greensboro needed to further drive its downtown nightlife. What the hell —-did someone send out talking points?