Arizona Rail Passenger Association

METRO and the cities of Tempe and Chandler have been working together to analyze transit options to better connect the southeast Valley. The Tempe South High-Capacity Transit Study, funded by the Year 2000 Proposition 400, has evaluated a range of transit technologies and potential north-south alignments from the light rail starter line in Tempe since the study’s inception in 2007. The transit option selected will improve mobility in this city and region, support future growth and work in complement with the existing transit network.

Modern streetcar in the Mill Avenue corridor — generally south from downtown Tempe to Route 60 — has been analyzed and is becoming a reasonable option for this extension and community.  Modern streetcars have the ability to increase transit ridership in this corridor, support the growing demand of this area and its special events as well as stimulate development and revitalization of downtown Tempe and its neighborhoods.

The study is moving toward a final Locally Preferred Alternative.  Please share your input on this project.  METRO and the partnering cities will conduct a public input process sharing the study findings this fall.  The process will include a public meeting, group presentations and online comments.  Visit www.metrolightrail.org/tempesouth or contact Carla Kahn at 602-744-5552 or ckahn@metrolightrail.org to learn more about the findings and ways to provide your input.

From the East Valley Tribune:

Mesa has struggled for years to make its mile-long downtown vibrant, but a new light rail segment is triggering calls to extend the city’s urban core by several miles.

Key city officials say they want to expand the downtown-style streetscape at least two miles to the west, where the Metro system now ends at Sycamore Street.

Nick Davis, whose family owns the Citrus Grove trailer park, [said] “Main Street is ripe for redevelopment if light-rail is built on it and the city incentivizes it. I honestly believe that it can happen if you have a real downtown in Mesa, something that people are really proud of and proud to go down to.”Davis said he was a skeptic of light-rail’s redevelopment potential until watching new businesses sprout up after the initial 20-mile segment opened in late 2008. His family owns a plaza in Phoenix at 4700 N. Central Ave., which is south of Camelback Road. Davis said that part of Central enjoys much of the life that downtown Phoenix has, demonstrating a large amount of redevelopment can take place over a wide area.

The economy could make redevelopment tougher now, but Davis said he’s encouraged by how quickly light-rail improved an area he recalls as lifeless growing up in the 1980s and ’90s…

Dated 2010-05-17. Rest of the story here.

by Sean Holstege – May. 11, 2010
The Arizona Republic

…modern, electrified streetcars are making a comeback around the country, including in Arizona.

In February, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Tucson a $63 million grant to help build a 4-mile streetcar line linking the University of Arizona and downtown. Arizona’s second-largest city beat out hundreds of competitors for the money.

In Tempe, momentum is building behind a proposed 2 ½-mile streetcar line along Mill Avenue that would connect with the Valley’s starter light-rail line. Planners found that the streetcar is cheaper in an era of tight budgets and quicker to build than an originally conceived light-rail spur on Rural Road…

Rest of the story in the Arizona Republic

Full story by Sean Holstege in the Arizona Republic, 14 April 2010

Changing demographics, ridership patterns point to different lines in future

Regional planners are mapping new light-rail lines in places that were inconceivable a few years ago, as they grapple with how urban Arizona takes shape in the coming half-century.

Preliminary studies show that sufficient demand will exist for light rail to succeed on 44th Street, Camelback Road, south Central Avenue, Bell Road and other routes not previously planned, building a web far more expansive than what is currently envisioned…

Proposed METRO Rail Station Name Changes.

Transit systems in every city in America and across the world have stations named for landmarks, to help visitors and residents find their way. If Washington DC named their stations the way the Phoenix stations are named, they would have a station called “12^th Street and Independence Avenue SW” instead of “Smithsonian.”

Phoenix’s Metro, for unknown political reasons, has utterly failed to name their train stations. Stations need proper names to establish a sense of place, foster community pride, and make the system easy to talk about.

I served as a volunteer on opening day. On that day and ever since, tourists have asked me what station the Airport is at, and does the train go to Sun Devil Stadium? Even Congressman and former Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell didn’t know what “Veterans Way and College Avenue” was – it needs to be the Sun Devil Transit Center. Worringly, Metro has issued safety alerts about the “Tempe Transportation Center” but without explaining that is the same as the  “Veterans Way and College Avenue” station.  Two different names for the same station! The same problem exists with Central Station, the downtown bus terminal, which also has the redundant train station name of “Van Buren and Central Avenue.”

Short, simple station names help riders find their destinations quickly. They help tourists know what is along the line. They make maps easier to read. Stations become sources of neighborhood identity. Naming stations after street addresses is cold, confusing and unhelpful. When riding the #17 bus, the announcements say, “Approaching 16th Street” and “Approaching 24th Street” — not “Approaching 16th Street and McDowell” and then “Approaching 24th Street and McDowell” — the McDowell part is obvious because that’s the bus you are on. Repeatedly saying “…and Central” on the train is silly and pedantic.

Worse, announcements talk about eastbound and westbound trains, but the platforms are not signed that way, unlike other transit systems. Nor do Metro’s maps point out east and west (it is not obvious to everyone.)

Furthermore, the stations with two platforms need to be named as one station. Signs there should be updated to, for example, “For Dobson, use platform on 1st Avenue.” Boston eliminated confusing one-way station names (Milk one way, Water the other) in the 1960s.

These station names must be changed as soon as possible.

Even more bizarrely, scrolling signs on the platforms read “Thank you for riding Metro” while on the trains they read “Thank you for riding the Metro” — pick one, folks!  And “light rail” is an adjective — METRO is a light rail line operating light rail vehicles to light rail platforms.  You do not ride “the light rail” any more than you ride “the diesel.” The rails sit firmly in the streets.  METRO trains are trolleys, just like in San Diego.  Or “trams” to use the British word, but “trolley” is simpler and historically correct to Phoenix.

The entire line should then resume the Red Line name, as it replaced the (pre-metro) Red Line bus… and before that, the Washington Street #1 streetcars which carried red marker lights since the 1920s at least… giving the Red Line an eighty-plus year history. As other lines are built, they should resume the color line names (Green Line on Thomas — not Highway 10!, Blue Line northeast on Highway 51, etc.)

– William Lindley, Arizona Rail Passenger Association. 2010-02-25.