Students looking for a late-night ride to businesses on the north side of town will have to look beyond Muncie Indiana Transit System's North Loop.
Mary Gaston, assistant general manager for MITS, said the North Loop was discontinued indefinitely on Wednesday because of a lack of sponsorship after running for four weeks.
Jeff Phipps, owner of Bygone's Bar & Grill and a sponsor of the former North Loop, said there were not enough riders to justify continuing the service.
"It didn't look like anybody was taking it to heart," Phipps said. "Nobody seemed to want to help put forth the effort. We did what we could do and put forth quite a bit of effort."
The trolley was originally set to run on a trial period until Dec. 15, Phipps said, but the sponsors did not see much reason in continuing it.
"We didn't really see any growth," he said, "and [Ball State University students] are heading into finals."
Gaston said during the North Loop's first weekend, it had 17 riders. The most it ever had was 27, she said.
Phipps said sponsorship of the trolley cost the five sponsors $720 a week, and it ran Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Phipps said he did not know if he would try to restart the North Loop.
"If somebody gets something going, we might do this again," he said. "It just seems like the interest isn't there."
Phipps said the five merchants sponsored the North Loop to increase business and offer a service to the community.
"It's always good to increase your business," he said. "We tried to offer something to the kids to go to the north side of town off of the campus and to the kids that don't have rides and to the kids who did have a ride but didn't want to drive drunk."
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