ST. CHARLES, MO – The St. Charles Trolley has been up an operating for at least year. It may be that the backers of the University City Loop Trolley should have taken a page out of St. Charles’ book.

You Paid For It investigator Elliott Davis dug into this deal and made an amazing discovery.

The St. Charles vehicle is a trolley on a truck chassis. That means it travels on the road and can go anywhere the driver wants. It’s makes a 5-mile loop around the city stopping at all the important attractions like historic Main Street and it’s free to ride.

The cost to the city is about $150,000 a year for the trolley that it got thru St. Louis Trolley.

That’s a far cry from the $51 million dollars for the Delmar Loop Trolley on rails that’s still not operational yet.

Elliott talked to the Loop Trolley’s main back Joe Edwards who said their project with the permanent tracks was the way to go. He says that gives people certainty on what the trolley’s path will be.

But a taxpayer watchdog sees things differently, saying the 2.2-mile $51 million dollar project is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

Sullivan says taxpayers would have been better off with something similar to what St. Charles has.