August 13, 2008

Friends,

This week’s Update has an article about ways people are reducing their costs to commute to work and includes a great section on how transit does just that. Click here to read the article. Also, visit Valley Metro’s website at www.valleymetro.org for information about buses, rideshare and vanpool and learn more about the transit options available to you to reduce your fuel costs.

Also, there has been much in the news lately about the TIME Initiative and whether or not it will even be on the November ballot. Since the Initiative directly impacts transit, we want to keep you informed about this issue. You will note from the stories below that at the moment, the Secretary of State has invalidated this initiative because of an apparent lack of necessary signatures.  Supporters of the initiative are trying to get the courts to put it back on the ballot.  We will work to keep you informed about this measure as it works its way through the legal process.  If it ends up back on the ballot, we will be sure to provide you with information about the initiative so that you can make an informed decision on Election Day.  Be sure to visit our website often for updates and developments-  www.friendsoftransit.org.

In the News:
Light-rail run takes Mesa into new era, Tribune, August 7, 2008
Metro tries hangers to attract commuters, The Arizona Republic, August 11, 2008
Funding setback for light-rail expansion? The Arizona Republic, August 11, 2008
Employers try to ease commute costs to offset high gas prices, The Arizona Republic, August 12, 2008
Invalid signatures put transit measure in doubt, The Arizona Republic, August 12, 2008
Backers of tax hike for transit to file lawsuit to get measure on ballot, Tribune, August 12, 2008

Don’t forget to visit Friends of Transit on the web at www.friendsoftransit.org!

 

Light-rail run takes Mesa into new era
Mayor behind wheel of train for preview ride from Phoenix
By BETH LUCAS
TRIBUNE
August 7, 2008

Light rail rolled into Mesa with the city’s first passengers Wednesday morning — an inaugural ride kicked off with Mayor Scott Smith behind the wheel.

City and business leaders gathered early in the morning for a 25-minute preview ride from Valley Metro light rail’s operations facility in east Phoenix through Tempe and then onto Mesa’s .96-mile of rail to the East Valley’s end-of-line station at Main Street and Sycamore.

Smith, an experienced pilot, got behind the wheel of the train and drove it through the first half-mile to the end of the maintenance yard.

“Is everyone still alive?” he said to the curious crowd of a couple of dozen as he stepped back from the driver’s seat.

“That was fun,” he added, comparing it to an Xbox game. “No one should get paid for actually doing that.”

Driver Carmon Wright took over as the train continued into Mesa — honking lightly as it passed intersections and onlookers.

The train pulled out onto Washington Street from the depot and onto tracks largely in the middle of busy roads, over Tempe Town Lake and looping around Arizona State University. It smoothly sped up to as much as 40 mph, matching speed limits. Average speeds are 22 mph, including stops.

City officials hailed the coming rail, even though its trip through Mesa isn’t even a full mile. Smith, who was among leaders who recently visited Denver and tested the light rail there, said it could change people’s daily routines.

“People don’t realize, but it changes their habits,” Smith said.

Addressing a crowd after debarking the train around 10 a.m., Smith said, “This is the start of something great. Light rail changes a community.”

City and Valley Metro officials predict that it will draw business to the area, alleviate freeway congestion and rush-hour stress, and help residents reduce gasoline consumption.

City Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh, whose district includes the rail line, called the ride “incredibly smooth” and said he’d already made plans to take it to ASU games since it passes right by Sun Devil Stadium.

The ride was “thrilling,” said Stephanie Wright, co-chairwoman of the Mesa Grande Alliance, which advocates on behalf of west Mesa residents. She said the area needs the help to prompt an economic upturn, and many residents are eager for the new option to get to work or sporting events.

Mesa is still studying with Valley Metro whether to expand the rail three miles into Mesa, and whether that expansion should go directly through downtown Main Street, or be diverted to First Avenue or First Street through downtown.

Crystal Russell, chairwoman of the Downtown Mesa Association, said businesses already struggling downtown could go out of business if they have to suffer through construction — causing Mesa to end up with chain stores instead of the unique shops it has now. She argued that First Avenue is a better route to prevent harm to Main Street and help develop the side streets to become an extension of the downtown business core.

“It’s going to be very painful for the downtown people, especially those on Main Street,” she said. “Main Street right now is struggling.”

But Smith said that diverting the rail from Main Street could also alter the downtown, and make First Avenue the “new downtown.”

As the train traveled toward Mesa, he joined other passengers and debated the future of rail, arguing that ultimately it should go all the way to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, a key economic niche for the city.

Sally Downey, superintendent of the East Valley Institute of Technology, predicted that light rail will bring more adult students to a growing number of night training programs offered at the Mesa campus, located just east of the end of the line at Main Street and Longmore.

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Metro tries hangers to attract commuters
by Jane Larson
Aug. 11, 2008 11:10 AM
The Arizona Republic

Valley Metro is betting that if it can get into commuters' closets, it can get them on an express bus.

The Valley's regional transit agency has launched a marketing campaign that advertises its budding Chandler-Scottsdale express bus route on the clothes hangers that dry cleaners send home with customers.

Valley Metro is the first transit agency in the nation to try the marketing gimmick, according to Hanger Network Inc., the New York-based company that distributes the hangers to selected dry cleaners.

The demographics of bus riders and office workers match, Valley Metro says, hence the effort to reach them where they dress.

"We know from our annual surveys that commuters in the 35-to-55 age range are most likely to try the bus, if they don't use it already," said Tara La Bouff of Valley Metro's public-relations agency, R&R Partners in Scottsdale. "And they are working professionals who often have clothes that go to the cleaners."

Dry cleaners in the northeast Valley and Chandler are getting 50,000 hangers to use over the next two months.

On one side, the plastic-and-cardboard hangers depict a motorist warily filling his vehicle's gas tank.

On the other side is Valley Metro's Web address, phone number and a detachable, wallet-size card with the schedule for the Route 511 bus between Chandler and the Scottsdale Airpark.

Advertisers like Valley Metro pay Hanger Network to put their message on the recyclable hangers it dubs EcoHangers. Hanger Network then supplies the EcoHangers for free to dry cleaners in the geographic areas the advertisers want to reach.

EcoHangers' advantage is that they go into the homes with working adults and stay for two months or more, the company says. Even better, Hanger Network says, the hangers go into consumers' bedrooms, where there is little other advertising competition.

Hanger Network's only other campaign in metro Phoenix was one earlier this year for pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. and its anti-baldness drug Propecia, a company spokesman said.

The Route 511 hangers are going to dry cleaners within a 10-mile radius of the buses' stops at the Scottsdale Airport and at 90th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale and their final stop at Arizona Avenue and Chicago Street in Chandler. Valley Metro is paying 45 cents per hanger, or $22,500 for the whole campaign.

Mike Choi, owner of Super Cleaners in Fountain Hills, figures he is sending about 200 express-bus hangers a day home with customers. He hasn't asked whether they plan to try the new route, but he praises the idea.

"We have people working in downtown Phoenix, commuting every day, and now they have knowledge of the schedule," Choi said.

He also likes that the hangers cost his store nothing, especially since wire-hanger prices are skyrocketing, he said.

Randy Dauer, owner of Prestine Cleanersin Chandler, will introduce his express-bus hangers to customers this week. He thinks the marketing is spot on, because commuters who use the local-bus stop in front of his store already drop off their cleaning in the morning and pick it up at night.

His store, at Alma School and Elliot roads, is 2.5 miles away from Route 511's stop in the ASU Research Park in Tempe.

The hanger campaign started July 14 and will run for two months.

Route 511 service started July 28, with four morning and four afternoon runs along the Loop 101. It attracted 143 passengers its first, free week of service, Valley Metro said, and 137 paying passengers last week.

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Funding setback for light-rail expansion?
by Ron Sanzone
Aug. 11, 2008 06:28 PM
The Arizona Republic

Unless an appeal to get Proposition 203 on the ballot succeeds, light rail will lose a chance to win hundreds of millions of dollars for the system's expansion.

The Secretary of State's office announced Monday that the Arizona measure to raise $42.6 billion in transportation funds through a 1 cent sales tax increase did not receive enough valid signatures to qualify for November's ballot. Transportation and Infrastructure Moving Arizona's Economy, the organization that wrote the TIME Act, as the initiative is also known, is expected to appeal the decision.

If the appeal succeeds and voters approve the new tax, Maricopa County would receive $600 million for what the Arizona Department of Transportation categorizes as "light rail, modern streetcar and related high capacity transit."

According to TIME, up to $400 million of that money would go to expanding the Valley's light rail system. However, ADOT says that it would decide along with Maricopa Association of Governments how to allocate the full $600 million that includes the light rail project in the county.

Tom Ziemba, TIME's campaign manager, says that even more money could be funneled into light rail. Proposition 203 would send 20 percent of the revenue it raises directly to cities and towns across the state to spend on the transportation needs they deem most pressing, potentially including light rail.

Ziemba believes that Proposition 203 would have an "extremely significant" impact on light rail expansion if it becomes law.

"This would be the funding to really take our light rail system to the next level, to expand it to more roots, to connect it to more of the county," he said. "It will provide the resources to connect the light rail system in a meaningful way throughout Maricopa County."

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Employers try to ease commute costs to offset high gas prices
by Betty Beard
Aug. 12, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

High gas prices have done more than suck away consumers' cash. They also have led many bosses to approve four-day workweeks, telecommuting options, flexible schedules and mass-transit subsidies.

Call it sticker shock. This year's pump prices stunned employers and employees alike into realizing that commuting alone to work could become prohibitively expensive for many workers.

Over time, consistently high gas prices could forever change how we work, experts believe.

Avondale has followed Utah's lead and switched to a four-day workweek, and Arizona is considering doing the same.

Other major employers, including Intel Corp., Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service Co. and Phoenix, already offer public-transportation subsidies, flexible schedules or telecommuting.

U-Haul also has about 500 employees working at home in sprawling metropolitan Phoenix.

After this year's run-up in gasoline prices to $4 or more a gallon, more companies are expected to institute similar programs.

If that happens, experts say, workplaces could change in ways unimaginable, with huge growth in home offices and telecommuting, fewer big-building headquarters and less need for office parking garages, unless public transportation increases dramatically or vehicles become a lot more fuel-efficient.

Even though gasoline prices have come down somewhat, flexibility to help workers deal with gas prices, especially raising mileage reimbursement, has become the workplace perk of the year.

"It definitely has become a huge concern . . . as it centers around general satisfaction and ability to recruit and retain workers," said Steve Williams, director of research for the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va.

"They (employers) realize that long-distance driving to work is past becoming a hassle. It has now become an economic issue, and the companies are addressing it by giving employees options," he said.

'Green Fridays'

The high price of gasoline is fueling the movement of closing offices on Fridays and switching employees to four-day workweeks and 10-hour shifts.

The Arizona Department of Administration began looking at compressed workweeks for eligible employees about a month ago as gas prices kept climbing, said Alan Ecker, agency spokesman.

There are about 40,000 state employees.

He said officials are investigating what they can do, given that the state has a legal obligation to be open for business Monday through Friday.

"People's lives outside of work may not allow a 10-hour day. They may be going to school. They may have secondary jobs. They may have day-care issues with their children. We're looking at all that," he said.

This month, Utah switched most of its agencies to a four-day week, opening from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

It is a one-year experiment to save energy and help alleviate air pollution.

There are exceptions for prison guards, public-safety officers and some other departments.

Avondale on June 2 started a "green Friday" pilot program in which most city offices are closed Fridays.

Residents still can call police, get their garbage picked up and go to senior centers on Fridays, though.

Monthly stipends

Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center near downtown Phoenix earlier this year began offering a $50-a-month stipend to hourly employees who commute at least 15 miles one way.

The idea is to thank employees who continue to commute to downtown Phoenix, even though there may be another Banner hospital closer to their homes.

Out of about 3,900 employees, 690 qualify.

"It sends a signal that we get it. I mean, $50 may not be enough to get a tank of gas, but we get it," said Michael Fleming, chief human-resources officer at the hospital.

Other employers didn't have to do much differently this year in response to high gas prices because they already offered public-transportation subsidies, flexible schedules or telecommuting.

U-Haul International Inc. has about 500 employees working at home in various customer-service and reservation jobs in the Phoenix area. SRP offers a four-day workweek of 10-hour shifts. Another option is to work eight nine-hour shifts, which gives employers every other Friday off.

Company perks

The most popular perk being offered by companies around the country this year is to raise the mileage reimbursement, to the Internal Revenue Service cap, for employees driving their cars at work, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. The IRS raised that cap to 58.5 cents a mile for the second half of the year, starting July 1, an increase of 8 cents a mile over the first half of the year.

The society found that the percentage of companies matching the IRS amount climbed modestly, from 8 percent in 2005 to 13 percent in 2007, when gas costs surpassed $3 a gallon. Then, when gas prices exceeded $4 a gallon this year, the number soared to 42 percent. Percentages of companies offering telecommuting and public-transportation discounts also rose significantly from 2007 to 2008, the surveys said.

A survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago job-placement company, found that the percentage of employers who offer no programs to alleviate commuting costs fell from 86 percent in 2005 to 43 percent this year.

Transit options

Increasingly, employees are taking advantage of the perks their employers offer.

In February, Pamela Lynn, a north Phoenix resident who works as a secretary for the city in downtown Phoenix, finally took the city's offer to subsidize bus trips and began riding the bus. She not only saves on gasoline and wear and tear on her car but doesn't have to pay $47 a month to park in a city lot. She is able to take an express bus and gets to work in less time than it took to drive.

"You just sit back and relax and watch the traffic that is stuck on the freeway as we go through the HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lane and pass them by," she said.

Roxie Allen, a Phoenix customer-service clerk who also lives in north Phoenix, began in the spring to alternate between taking the bus and carpooling and estimates she is saving more than $200 a month.

She has worked for Phoenix for 11 years, had never ridden a bus and was surprised to discover she likes it.

"It totally blew us away how nice the buses are, how quick it gets us down here, the number of time it runs, how easy it is to catch a bus. Whoa," she said.

SRP has had such an increased demand for its vanpools that it is buying five more Valley Metro vans. SRP already has 24, which the company believes is the largest fleet in the city. Each van carries eight riders, including a driver.

Members of one long-standing SRP vanpool, nicknamed Van Gough, that started in February 1999 have learned that they not only save gas and relieve the stresses of commuting but have become a social group. They have an annual Christmas party, sometimes meet for happy hour and have decorated their van with postcards from vacation trips.

"We've been together so long, we've been through graduations, weddings, deaths and cancer," said Carolyn Addie, a training analyst.

Telecommuting

A survey by Dice Holdings of 1,500 tech professionals found that 37 percent would take a cut in pay of up to 10 percent if they could telecommute.

But of all the options being offered to help employees deal with gas prices, telecommuting has been the most problematic and slowest to catch on, human-resources experts say.

Of 1,463 jobs listed recently on Dice.com, a Web site for technical professionals, only 10 listed telecommuting as a job option.

Tom Silver, vice president of customer service for Dice Holdings, a New York job-placement company that operates Dice.com, said one problem is that managers are so used to managing people face-to-face that they are unsure how to manage them in a virtual sense.

"Sometimes, companies might be a little slower on the pickup because moving people from the office to a home office involves different types of management practices in order to make sure employees are as productive as they need to be, that employees have a section of their house that is appropriately separated from the house," he said.

Parents of young children would find it especially hard to work at home, he pointed out.

Also, some employees don't like telecommuting because they prefer to be with co-workers.

Companies also worry about protecting company data, Silver said.

Mark Ogden, an attorney with the Phoenix employment- and labor-law firm Littler Mendelson, said he is getting more calls from companies asking about policies for telecommuting and flexible work schedules.

They are becoming more popular as ways to help employees deal with high gas prices and as rewards in lieu of bonuses and raises.

Companies want to know about legalities, how to handle on-the-job injuries that happen at home, how to make sure workplace computers are secure and other issues, he said.

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Invalid signatures put transit measure in doubt
Invalid signatures found; backers pledge to appeal
by Glen Creno
Aug. 12, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Arizona's Secretary of State's Office on Monday tossed out a $42.6 billion transportation initiative aimed at the November ballot, but backers of the measure say they will fight to put it before voters.

State officials disqualified the initiative, which sought to raise the state sales tax by a penny per dollar, for not having the required number of valid voter signatures.

The measure needed 153,365 signatures to make the ballot, but was about 15,000 short, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Signatures can be rejected for a variety of reasons, from procedural filing problems to signatures from people not registered to vote.

The TIME Coalition, which crafted the initiative, is challenging the decision, saying it believes it can prove many of the rejected signatures are valid.

TIME representatives Monday were examining the rejected signatures. If they can challenge enough of the invalid signatures, TIME says it will file a lawsuit to reinstate the signatures. Attorneys were drafting the complaint Monday.

If they can't challenge enough of them, it's unclear what the group will do or what will happen to the transportation plan.

"Based on our analysis of the signatures that were thrown out by the secretary of state and Maricopa County, we're very confident we will get enough to qualify for the ballot," TIME spokesman Tom Ziemba said.

The statewide transportation-improvement initiative would increase the state sales tax by a penny per dollar over 30 years beginning in 2010. Revenue would pay for freeways, trains and buses. Critics of the plan say a tax increase won't fly with voters during the economic downturn. TIME gathered 260,698 signatures in favor of the initiative and submitted them by the July 3 deadline. Of that number, 122,247 were invalidated during the review.

Verifying the signatures

The Secretary of State's Office and all of Arizona's counties have a hand in verifying signatures on an initiative.

The secretary of state takes the first look, reduces the pool by tossing out invalid signatures. Then a sample of signatures goes to each county. Each county recorder's office then reviews the signatures.

Maricopa County accounted for 83 percent of TIME's signatures. TIME said its valid-signature rate outside of Maricopa County was in the 70 percent to low 80 percent range. In Maricopa, the rate was 55 percent. TIME representatives are trying to figure out why the percentage of signatures invalidated by the Maricopa County Recorder's Office was so high.

Karen Osborne, Maricopa County's director of elections, said the secretary of state sent the county 10,445 signatures to examine and 4,712 were ruled invalid. People not registered to vote in the county made up the bulk of the invalid signatures - more than 4,100. The rest of the invalid signatures were due to things such as duplicate signatures, signers who were too young to vote or who registered to vote after they signed a petition, and signatures that didn't match the signatures on file.

More challenges

The clock is ticking for TIME. Another week or two of legal squabbling could leave the group with only a couple of months to sell the proposal to voters if the measure makes the ballot at all.

Even then, TIME could be faced with a separate challenge. A judge ruled earlier this month that a legislative group charged with writing impartial ballot-measure descriptions tried to give the transportation initiative a negative slant. The judge ordered that the description be rewritten. That ruling could be appealed.

The deadline for printing ballots and publicity material is around the end of this month, said Kevin Tyne, spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office. Backers of the measure say there's enough remaining time.

Tyne and Osborne said their offices followed the law in reviewing the signatures and defended their offices against TIME's claim that they improperly invalidated thousands of signatures.

"If it ends up as a court challenge, we'll be happy to defend our process," Tyne said.

TIME is a collection of business, political and other groups promoting the initiative. Gov. Janet Napolitano has supported the measure, and her spokeswoman, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, said she still does.

"Her support has not wavered," L'Ecuyer said. "This isn't done."

TIME isn't considering what it will do if the measure doesn't make it, said David Martin, co-chairman of the TIME initiative committee and the president of the Arizona Chapter of the Associated General Contractors. "We're going to make the ballot," he said.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Signature validation
The Arizona secretary of state disqualified the statewide transportation-improvement initiative because it lacked the minimum number of signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot. Here's how the validation process worked:
• The TIME Coalition filed a petition with 260,698 signatures with the Secretary of State's Office before the July 3 deadline.
• The Secretary of State's Office reviewed the signatures. It removed ineligible signatures and invalid petition sheets. All told, the office removed 21,824 invalid signatures, leaving 238,874 eligible signatures. The signature must be that of a registered voter to be valid.
• Random samples of 5 percent of the remaining signatures then were sent to county recorders statewide, who checked signatures and voter registration. When the recorders were done, 122,247 valid signatures remained. That's about 15,000 short of the minimum number needed.

What's next?
• TIME is examining the rejected signatures.
• A lawsuit could be filed in the next few days against the Secretary of State's Office and the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, contesting their invalidation of signatures. The case would likely be heard as a single complaint to speed the process.
• Printing of publicity materials for eligible measures and ballots starts around the end of this month.
• If TIME does not file a lawsuit, the initiative won't be on the November ballot.

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Backers of tax hike for transit to file lawsuit to get measure on ballot
By HOWARD FISCHER
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
Tribune
August 12, 2008

Hours after being disqualified from the November ballot Monday, supporters of a statewide transportation measure said they will file suit to get back on.

Backers of Proposition 203, the TIME initiative, have been examining petitions for several days in anticipation that Secretary of State Jan Brewer would deem the measure short of the 153,365 signatures needed to qualify.

Nearly half of the 260,698 signatures submitted by last month’s deadline were tossed out.

“I am very surprised that a ballot measure ended up with over 42 percent of its signatures being invalid,” Brewer said in a statement Monday. “That is among the largest overall invalid rates that I can recall ever seeing from a citizens initiative drive.”

The initiative, championed by Gov. Janet Napolitano and business and economic development groups, would ask voters to hike state sales taxes from 5.6 cents on every dollar spent to 6.6 cents to finance $42.6 billion worth of freeways, trains, buses and other transportation needs over the next 30 years.

Between Brewer’s office and a random sample of 5 percent of signatures from each county recorder’s office, 122,247 signatures were wiped out.

Attorney Charles Blanchard said TIME coalition supporters already have identified about 10,000 signatures disqualified by Brewer’s office that he will challenge in court. Examples include petition sheets that were thrown out because the county name wasn’t filled in.

Blanchard also contends Maricopa County, where most of names were rejected, failed to count the signatures of some people who have moved but were still registered to vote at another address.

Maricopa County elections director Karen Osborne said she has done no such thing.

Blanchard doesn’t need to convince a judge there are 153,365 valid names on the petitions. If he can show the figure, based on that random sample, would reach 95 percent of that, the measure would be placed before voters because there is not sufficient time for each county to check every one of the signatures submitted.

That means he needs to convince a judge that 7,668 additional signatures are valid. That legal challenge has Napolitano’s backing.

“This is by no means over,” said gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L’Ecuyer. “The governor’s support is unwavering and we expect to see this on the ballot”

One bit of irony is that Tom Ziemba, the consultant hired by initiative backers, refused to accept petitions with 18,231 names collected independently by the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

The homebuilders had cut a deal with the governor to re-draft the initiative to remove a provision to impose fees on new homes. That left just the sales tax hike. In exchange, the organization agreed to provide $100,000 to help put the measure on the ballot.

Connie Wilhelm, the group’s executive director, instead paid circulators of her own choosing. She submitted those petitions, along with a check for $27,129, to the consulting firm running the campaign.

Ziemba refused to accept the signatures, saying he had his own plan. He insisted Monday that rejecting Wilhelm’s petitions was not a mistake. But Wilhelm said it could have saved the coalition and lot of time and trouble.

“We believe now that it would have them and it probably would have gotten them over the hump,” she said.

Backers of the road tax plan have so far raised close to $1 million, primarily from contracting companies that could get a share of the projects, with much of that going to hire paid circulators. There has been no organized opposition to this point, though a number of incumbent legislators and challengers have said they will not vote for the measure if it makes the ballot.

Brewer’s office has qualified six measures for the November ballot, disqualified two and three more initiatives are being verified by county recorders.

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