What it means
The trolley in Scottsdale is a bus. It wears green paint, brass-look trim and a streetcar’s silhouette, but it runs on tires on ordinary streets, and it is free. When a local says “take the trolley,” they mean the city’s fare-free circulator, and when a visitor says it, they usually mean the Old Town loop that once ran between the galleries, Fifth Avenue, the Waterfront and Fashion Square.
That gap is the thing to know. The Old Town route was suspended in March 2020 with the rest of the system, and when the other routes came back that August it stayed off. As of the city’s trolley page, last updated May 29, 2026, the system is three routes on weekdays: 68th/Camelback, Miller/Hayden and Mustang, every 20 minutes from 5:45 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. The riders are mostly residents getting to work, school and the senior centers.
The site’s trolley guide covers how to use it; read it alongside the city’s current map, since the routes have changed more than once. In Old Town itself, distances are short enough that walking usually wins.
Where you’ll meet it
On hotel concierge cards that predate 2020; at marked trolley stops on Camelback, Indian School and the Miller and Hayden corridors; in the Valley Metro and Transit apps, which track the vehicles live; and in the getting-around guide.
Where the word came from
The trolley was a tourist idea first. A 2013 city council report gives the history: the system “started as a seasonal private enterprise Downtown Route in 1987,” a service called the Molly Trolley on Scottsdale and Camelback roads, run as a partnership between the city and the Chamber of Commerce. The city contributed $50,000 to have Ollie the Trolley add service into downtown. In 1998 Scottsdale began paying directly for the privately owned vehicles, and in 2003 the city bought its own fleet with federal funds and a local match. By fiscal 2013, three routes (Downtown, Neighborhood and Miller Road), paid for by the city’s transportation sales tax, were nearing a million boardings a year at a little over three dollars each.
The streetcar costume explains the word. Scottsdale’s General Plan now excludes rail and modern streetcar entirely, so a bus dressed as a trolley is the closest thing the city has to one, by design and by name.
On October 22, 2018 the city redrew the map: the Camelback, Neighborhood and Miller routes became two, a new route (first called Cactus, then Mustang) pushed north to the Mustang Transit Center and HonorHealth Shea, and every route moved to 20-minute service except the Old Town loop, which ran every 15. The pandemic shutdown in 2020 cut the Old Town loop, and it has not been restored.
What it is not
It is not light rail, which never enters Scottsdale; see Valley Metro and the light rail. It is not a sightseeing tour, though the old Old Town loop worked as one. And it is not a way to reach North Scottsdale’s resorts, the Preserve or the airport.
The fine print
The rider numbers explain the shape of the 2026 system. A survey reported to the Transportation Commission in December 2019 found about 2,200 trolley trips a day, 88 percent of riders Scottsdale residents and 3 percent visitors. The 68th/Camelback route carried 43 percent of trips, Miller/Hayden 34, Mustang 13 and the Old Town trolley only 10, after a 2018 reroute stopped it from entering Fashion Square at Marshall Way and from serving Fifth Avenue. Weekend ridership, the same meeting heard, was relatively low.
When the system returned on August 3, 2020, it came back weekdays only on the three commuter routes, with the city saying the Old Town route would “remain suspended until further notice” because its ridership had been declining before the pandemic. The city manager had estimated the shutdown saved $1.4 million.
As of May 2026, the city also noted a detour on the 68th/Camelback route for the Roosevelt Storm Drain Project, which runs through December 2026. The trolley connects with nine regional Valley Metro bus routes, which charge fares, and service skips New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. If the Old Town loop returns, the city’s trolley page is where it will show up first.