The Capital Area Transit System is offering a new mode of transportation on weekends during football season to allow more area businesses to benefit from gameday visitors.
Trolley Rouge is a seasonal service running Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 4 p.m., beginning Saturday and operating through Nov. 26, according to a CATS news release.
Three trolleys will travel through the downtown area, passing Hollywood Casino and the State Capitol and stopping at hotels on Constitution Avenue and Corporate Drive. It will also stop at Towne Center and Perkins Rowe shopping centers before returning downtown.
Day passes cost $4 and will be sold at the Hilton Baton Rouge Capital Center Hotel, Hotel Indigo, other area hotels and at CATS headquarters. The trolley cars can transport about 30 passengers each.
Amie McNaylor, assistant to CATS CEO Brian Marshall, said the service has been in the works for about three weeks and has come together quickly.
“We’re looking at it as an economic driver for the city,” McNaylor said. “We get about 200,000 people here for the home football games. We’re looking to give them an easy way to spend money before and after home ride.”
Trolleys regularly run downtown on Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. as a free service, but haven’t run on the weekends.
Trolley Rouge is a partnership between CATS, the Downtown Business Association, the Downtown Development District, the Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Hollywood Casino and hotels and shopping centers throughout the city.
McNaylor said the cost for CATS to run the trolley service for nine weekends is about $14,000. Private partnership covers 75 percent of that cost, and CATS pays for the remaining amount.
McNaylor said CATS is excited to work with the collective companies and organizations to bring the service to visitors and locals.
 
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Contact Morgan Searles at [email protected].