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News Archives
June 2009 Newsletter Available
ARPA’s 25th Anniversary! Our June newsletter is available here (PDF)
- ARPA at 25 — President Rob Bohannan
- METRO ridership report
- Daily service on the Sunset Corridor?
- Ponderings on Arizona Service — John Gale
- City of Surprise buys Land for Commuter Rail station
- Tucson orders Streetcars
- New Mexico Rail Runner strong
- BNSF: Passenger Rail Principles
- High Speed Rail Projects Update — Noel Braymer, RailPAC
- Simple Ways to Improve Amtrak — J. Bruce Richardson, URPA
- Passenger Trains Make Money, but Railroads need Freight to be Profitable — Noel Braymer
- Trains to ride in Arizona
Surprise buys land for a park-and-ride lot
Lily Leung reports in May 29, 2009’s Arizona Republic –
Surprise’s strategic placement of a park-and-ride lot near a railway stretching from downtown Phoenix to Wickenburg is the first heartbeat in an ongoing effort to bring commuter-rail service to the Valley…
The Surprise City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to pay… for land on the southeastern corner of Grand Avenue and Bell Road. The 3.27-acre lot is near the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and will be used for a 500-space park-and-ride facility… [initially express buses] to downtown Phoenix and Scottsdale. But city officials also see securing the property as a “good positioning exercise” if a commuter railway does come in within the next 5 to 10 years, said Randy Overmyer, city senior transportation planner.
Grand Avenue and Bell Road is a heavily traveled intersection that could be a possible commuter-rail stop, according to a Maricopa Association of Governments feasibility study slated to come out by year’s end…
Rest of the story at: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/05/29/20090529parkandride0529.html
Tucson orders modern streetcars
The City of Tucson in late May ordered seven modern streetcars from Oregon Iron Works (www.oriron.com), the first American company in sixty years to manufacture one. The company, in Clackamas, Oregon, has received orders both from Portland and now Tucson. The company, founded in 1944, builds bridges and military patrol craft; and especially because of “Buy American” requirements, could capture a fair percentage of orders from the dozens of cities across the country considering streetcar service.
Story from Oregon Public Broadcasting: http://news.opb.org/article/5078-tucson-orders-seven-streetcars-oregon-company/
METRO adds permanent weekend Owl service
PHOENIX: “Metro will start late night service on weekends in July… [using] some of the savings that cities accrued when the feds paid back early… [this is about double the cost of] Owl trains… about $256,000 a year… Metro won’t run a one-year experiment. [Huzzah!] Late trains will be part of service from now on. That means the last train will cruise through downtown Phoenix and downtown Tempe just after 2 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday…”
Also: “planners told the board that the economic slump will force Metro to delay by one-to-two years the upcoming extensions and that plans to extend light rail toward Paradise Valley Mall may have to wait until voters adopt a new sales tax. The problem is the last transportation tax, Prop. 400, is bringing in billions of dollars less than expected. No decision was reached. A vote is scheduled for June 17…”
Rest of the story: http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/lightrailblog/53722
