Ten questions about light rail, answered
Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Ten questions about light rail, answered

PhxLRT2
It's the tenth anniversary of the completion of metro Phoenix light rail (WBIYB). I'll have a history of the project in a special insert of the Arizona Capitol Times. In the meantime, some common questions and answers.

1. What decided the route of the starter line? It was a combination of demand, available right-of-way, and cost. The line follows the route of the old Red Line bus, which was at 125 percent of capacity by 2000. This ensured high ridership and a favorable outcome in federal funding (with an invaluable assist from the late Rep. Ed Pastor).

2. Why was it built at grade rather than as a subway or monorail? Cost. While both those modes — especially a subway — would have been preferable to street running, the funding was not available. The federal government once spent heavily for such subways as the D.C. Metro and Atlanta's MARTA (originally meant for Seattle), but that aid largely ended by the 1980s. Monorails also have the problem of controversy about being unsightly to some, although the Skytrain in Vancouver, B.C., part overhead and part subway, is highly successful.

3. Did Mesa almost miss out on light rail? Yes. The most conservative big city in America was especially wary of the project, and the starter line might have ended at McClintock Drive in Tempe. If so, it would have been very expensive to eventually build into Mesa. Mayor Keno Hawker played a leading role in securing city council approval of the line to Sycamore. This set the table for extending light rail deep into downtown Mesa under Mayor Scott Smith (now Valley Metro CEO). With Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa on board, this helped the metro area rise in the national competition for federal assistance.

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Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix’s light-rail hope

I shed much blood professionally for the Valley Metro light-rail system, as the only columnist, or even journalist, to consistently stand up against the lies, myths and misconceptions that might well have killed this essential project if Phoenix is to have a future. This, as much as my outing of the Real Estate Industrial Complex and illuminating Arizona's looming water crisis, led to my demise at the Arizona Republic.

The opposition was powerful, ranging from suburban developers to right-wing thugs who didn't even live in the city. Some opponents were merely ignorant. Others were happy to see the central city die. They failed. So forgive me, as Metro prepares to open, for a moment of crowing.

We built it, you bastards.

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Posted inPolitics: National

A new low in Phoenix’s war on the poor

I supposed it's a small thing in comparison with a region that celebrates a sheriff ordered by a federal judge to stop "depriving jail inmates of adequate medical screening and care, feeding them unhealthy food and housing them in unsanitary conditions." This from the New York Times, another chamber-of-commerce moment for Phoenix. A small thing in a city where 15 percent of the population is below the poverty line, where wages lag far behind competing cities (yet living costs don't), the gap between rich and poor is one of the biggest in the nation and the homeless are left in the deadly heat, on the streets despite "get tough" few-benefits policies. A small thing versus the thuggish persecution of the immigrant population that keeps the economy running and gives the affluent their inexpensive lawn services and housekeeping.

Still, the decision by the Phoenix City Council to eliminate what it considers "late night and early morning" bus service should rank right up there in the Hall of Shame. All trips will be eliminated before 5 a.m. and after — get this — 10 p.m. The "nation's fifth largest city" won't have any bus service after 10 p.m. Dayton, Ohio, has bus service after 10 p.m.!

City council members who drive about Phoenix's 500 square miles in air conditioning and accompanied by their entourages seem to have no idea of how many Phoenicians live: in low-wage jobs — often holding down more than one — working overnight shifts and without cars. Much of this is part of the tourism, construction or retail economy that is about all this "city" has. Have these august solons ever looked out their SUV windows late at night to see a crowded central city bus stop — or are they safely at home in their faux stucco suburban digs.

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