Havre de Grace Trolley System Gets Go-Ahead From City Council

HAVRE DE GRACE, MD — Trolley service will soon start in Havre de Grace after the City Council cleared what organizers said was a state regulatory hurdle.

Soon people will start seeing signs for The Tide, which is the name for the electric trolley service that will take visitors around the city.

The city ordered its trolleys in March 2021, Director of Capital Projects and Grant Management Patrick Sypolt said.

"Little did we know that it would be a long and tedious process," Sypolt told the Havre de Grace City Council during its special meeting Monday night to consider a resolution indemnifying the state transportation department. City officials said the state required that before it would release the license plates for the trolleys.

"There's no trolleys like it here in the state of Maryland," he told the council, so it was a new process.

A police inspection was required before the state would allow the city to operate the trolleys as well.

The people who make the trolleys do not release them unless people buy them, so the city had to buy the trolleys first, according to Sypolt.

The first trolley arrived in December 2021, after hitting hurdles due to the supply chain amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Sypolt said, before Maryland State Police conducted an inspection and asked the city to make some modifications.

Related: Trolleys Prompt Special Havre de Grace City Council Meeting

The Havre de Grace City Council approved a resolution Monday night that will hold harmless and indemnify the Maryland Department of Transportation for any and all liability resulting from the use of the overweight low-speed vehicles, according to city officials.

Four drivers have been hired to operate the vehicles. "We are still looking," Sypolt said, for more drivers.

While the trolleys would hit the road later in the season than the city hoped, Sypolt said it will give time for city officials to determine how they want to handle any fares.

For now, the trolley will be free, according to Mayor William T. Martin.

"We're not paying for gas," Martin said.

To run the trolley will take a penny or a penny and a half, according to Sypolt. The trolleys are solar-powered out of Perryman, he said.

"It will operate primarily on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays [and] during special events," Sypolt said.

Below is a slide show that Sypolt presented to the council at the May 23 special meeting about the trolleys and the road to getting them: