Subject: Valley bus agency to improve schedules, travel times Date: Monday, June 26, 2006 4:12 PM Valley bus agency to improve schedules, travel times Sean Holstege The Arizona Republic Jun. 26, 2006 12:00 AM Waiting for a bus in Arizona's heat is unpleasant enough. Stepping off midway to wait for a second bus traveling the same route is brutal. It's a daily hassle for a number of Valley bus riders. Causing it is a patchwork of bus schedules that vary by city, which means buses stop less frequently, or not at all, along stretches of intercity routes. All of that is starting to change. Next month, the Regional Public Transportation Authority, which oversees Valley bus service, will unveil the first leg of what it calls Super Grid, a multimillion-dollar investment that will add more buses on more routes that cross city boundaries. Tens of thousands of people ride these routes across city lines every day. The first line to get the improvement is Route 72 along Scottsdale and Rural roads, where expanded service starts July 24. Within 20 years, 33 more Super Grid routes will be enhanced. Priority was given to heavily used lines that serve established neighborhoods with big employment centers or other draws, such as schools or sports venues. "A rider should not feel any difference in their trip as they travel from city to city," said Friends of Transit Executive Director David Schwartz. "It's a story of haves and have-nots. Anything that can be done to fix that will be greatly appreciated." The improvement is enabled by Proposition 400, which was approved by voters in 2004 and puts $3 billion into the bus network, more than what is being spent to expand the light-rail system. The first of the Proposition 400 money arrived in the spring. The transit authority starts Super Grid by investing $5 million in Route 72, plus another $10.5 million on five other routes over the next five years. The effort is intended to beef up the backbone of the Valley's transit system, local bus lines, which have struggled to keep up with growth in and around the nation's fifth-largest city. David Boggs, a 30-year transit veteran who has run the transit authority for a year, said the Super Grid problem is unheard of elsewhere in the industry. "This is so fundamental to transportation, why haven't we done this before?" he wonders. Money, of course, is the answer. The transit authority is spending $100 million a year in regional money with Proposition 400, compared with $7 million previously. In the past, local cities paid the lion's share to run Super Grid buses, but that has reversed. The regional money means more reliability for major bus routes and more financial flexibility for cities. The first route Route 72 is the busiest north-south route in the Valley. Buses take two hours to travel 28 miles north from Chandler Fashion Center to Princess Resort in Scottsdale along Rural and Scottsdale roads. Riders boarded a Route 72 bus 1.2 million times last fiscal year. With 11 more vehicles, the transit authority will plug holes in the Route 72 schedule. People will travel farther north and south more often than they can today. Northbound buses will reach the resort every 15 minutes instead of every hour. Buses will run in Chandler on Sundays for the first time. "That's great. I'll definitely use that service," said Chad Bell, a 34-year-old machine technician who takes the southbound bus from McKellips Road to work at Intel Corp. in Chandler during the week. On Sundays he has to drive. Although his schedule puts him on the bus just after 5 a.m., when service is thinner, he has never been stranded. But his son, who visits friends in Tempe, has been, and Bell has had to go get him. To ensure that the Route 72 improvements work, Scottsdale, Tempe and Chandler officials are meeting with transit authority planners to define the measurements of success. In 2010, its performance will be audited, as required by Proposition 400. Ridership, cost and reliability will be compared with the measurements agreed to this summer. It's a reflection of how the Valley's transit network depends more than ever on strong regional coordination. The dozen local agencies that constitute the Regional Public Transportation Authority also have to coordinate proposed expansions of the light-rail network in addition to local bus lines envisioned to feed it. Route 72 will feed the University Drive light-rail station. What's beyond Boggs and light-rail chief Rick Simonetta frequently tell people local buses and trains complement each another. If bus service improves, buses will carry more people to the trains. If light-rail proves popular, it will pull more people onto buses. Light rail and the Super Grid are integral parts of a more comprehensive transit network. Longer-distance commuter buses, the Rapids and Express routes, are also slowly being expanded to help people whom light rail and Super Grid buses can't serve because they stop too frequently. Transit planners also are weighing bus rapid transit, or BRT, which runs like light rail, with platforms and limited stops in the middle of long boulevards. It costs less because it uses specialized buses rather than expensive steel track and has proved a successful alternative in cities such as Los Angeles. Bus rapid transit will be evaluated for selected routes in bus and light-rail expansion plans. In the meantime, local buses like Route 72 remain the backbone of the system. People board a bus 205,000 times a day, much more than the 26,000 riders projected for light rail on opening day. "It all has to fit together," said Boggs, who calls Proposition 400's bus investment a "good partial catch-up" to transit service in comparable cities.