Memphis, explained
Access Memphis Editorial Team 
There is no train or subway line into Memphis from its airport. The practical options are rideshare or taxi from the terminal curb, a MATA city bus that connects to the downtown transit network, or a rental car onto I-240 — a drive of roughly ten miles that typically runs fifteen to twenty-five minutes depending … Read more
Memphis International Airport (airport code MEM) is a commercial airport in southwest Memphis that serves passenger flights, but it is best known as the global superhub of FedEx Express. It is a freight hub because FedEx built its central sorting operation there in 1973 and has expanded it ever since, making MEM one of the … Read more
Parking downtown means a mix of metered on-street spaces, city- and privately-run garages, and surface lots, priced and enforced most heavily on weekdays and event nights. Rates and hours are set by the operator, not fixed citywide, so the practical answer is to check the specific garage or the city’s own parking services page before … Read more
MATA — the Memphis Area Transit Authority — is the public agency that runs Memphis’s fixed-route buses, the Main Street Trolley, and a paratransit service called MATAplus. Its bus network covers most of the city on a map, but frequency on many routes is low, a gap tied to a funding shortfall that MATA’s own … Read more
The Main Street Trolley is a heritage rail line in Downtown Memphis, operated by the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA). Vintage and replica streetcars run on fixed rail down Main Street, and on lines that have not always been fully staffed or running, along the riverfront and out Madison Avenue toward the Medical District. It … Read more
Yes, for most practical purposes. Memphis has a public bus network and a Downtown trolley, both run by the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA), but the metro area is built for driving: neighborhoods, museums and daily errands are spread across Shelby County at distances that transit was not designed to close quickly. A visitor staying … Read more
Memphis, Germantown and Collierville are three separately incorporated places in Shelby County, Tennessee. Memphis is the large, historic anchor city on the Mississippi bluff; Germantown and Collierville are smaller, independently governed municipalities to its east, each with its own mayor, police department and school system. They are neighbors, not districts of one city. Are Germantown … Read more
What is the Medical District? The Medical District is a concentrated area of hospitals, research institutions and a health sciences university just west of Downtown Memphis. It is not a residential or entertainment neighborhood in the usual sense — it is an employment and treatment center, home to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Le Bonheur … Read more
Uptown Memphis is a neighborhood immediately north of downtown, built largely since the early 2000s on and around the site of the demolished Hurt Village public housing project. It is anchored by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and functions today as a planned, mixed-income residential district rather than a historic or commercial one. Where is … Read more
The Edge District is a small area on the northern rim of Downtown Memphis, running roughly along Union Avenue and Danny Thomas Boulevard between the Downtown core and the Memphis Medical District. It was the city’s automobile row in the first half of the twentieth century, and its surviving dealership and garage buildings now hold … Read more
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