Arizona Rail Passenger Association

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

RailPAC’s Paul Dyson explains how hybrid technology can save 20% or more fuel compared to traditional diesel-electric in this article on the RailPAC site.