Arizona Rail Passenger Association

July 14, 2007.

…Up to 10 million square feet of commercial space is in the works along Loop 101 on the Salt River Reservation…

Estimates foresee 40,000 to 60,000 people – another Scottsdale Airpark – eventually working on reservation developments. Their one way of getting there is Loop 101, already a parking lot at rush hour…

But we remain skeptical that buses alone will suffice. Transit officials continue to dismiss the idea of running a light-rail extension along Loop 101. Their attention is focused on Scottsdale Road… A route along Loop 101 would feed the northeast Valley’s two largest employment centers, which operate year-round…

rest of the story at in the Arizona Republic

This new website highlights everything from fish-n-chips to fine dining along the route of the new Valley Metro Rail line.

from the Metrolink Fact Sheet, received May 2007

• Metrolink operates 7 routes, serves 54 stations, and covers 388 route-miles (counting only once, track served by multiple routes).
• Metrolink operates 145 trains on weekdays, 40 on Saturdays, and 22 on Sundays. Trains average 40 miles per hour.
• In December 2006, 40,852 passengers rode Metrolink trains on an average weekday. (So much for the idea that Los Angelenos love their automobiles too much to ride transit!)
• 88 percent of Metrolink riders formerly made the trip, drove alone or carpooled.
• Metrolink carries 2.9% of the capacity of parallel highways.

from the Arizona Republic, 29 Jun 2007

Commuter rail in Arizona is beginning to gain traction, backers of building a so-called “heavy rail” line said this week.

More than 100 city, state, county and rail advocates met Thursday in Mesa to begin hashing out the pros and cons of high-speed trains that would link cities as far flung from each other as Phoenix to Tucson and counties as vast as Pinal to Maricopa.

“We must have rail that connects Phoenix to Tucson,” said Mesa Vice Mayor Claudia Walters in kicking off the meeting of Commuter Rail Stakeholders Group…

ARPA members Jay Smyth and Sam Morse are quoted.

Rest of the story in the Arizona Republic

RailPAC editorial by Noel Braymer… about housing, zoning, walkability and transportation –

In mid June of this year there were several news stories about a U.S. Census survey which showed that Americans, particularly Californians where driving alone more than ever. This is despite millions of dollars being spent to encourage car-pooling and ride sharing. Many of the stories in the papers harped on the old clichés about peoples so called “love affair” with their automobile and so on. One newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily News got it right. Their headline for the story by Brent Hopkins on June 13th said it all: Southland drivers are the loneliest in the U.S.; jobs, housing key reason.

Rest of the story on the RailPAC site