December 28, 2009

Friends,

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since the grand opening of light rail!  Today’s top story, Phoenix marks first year of light rail, is a great representation of the first year of the METRO system, including highlights and a look at what’s ahead for light rail. Click here to read the article.

In the News:
Phoenix Public Transit hires Kini Knudson as Deputy Director for Facilities, City of Phoenix, December 16, 2009
Mesa faces critical light-rail decisions, Tribune, December 22, 2009
Valley light rail system observes first anniversary, The Arizona Republic, December 24, 2009
Phoenix marks first year of light rail, The Arizona Republic, December 26, 2009

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

 

Phoenix Public Transit hires Kini Knudson as Deputy Director for Facilities
Knudson brings 13 years experience in public sector
City of Phoenix Release
December 16, 2009

Phoenix — The City of Phoenix Public Transit Department announced today that it hired Kini Knudson as its new Deputy Director for Facilities.  Knudson comes from the Phoenix Engineering and Architectural Services Department, where as an engineering supervisor he oversaw procurement of contracts for capital projects citywide.  In his new role as head of the Facilities Division, he will be responsible for implementing the planning, development, construction, and maintenance of park-and-rides, transit centers, bus stops, and bus garages, as well as bus route planning and scheduling. 

“It is a pleasure to have Kini back in the Public Transit Department, working on our capital projects and transit planning — especially given the new dimensions that ARRA-related projects have brought to our work,” said Phoenix Public Transit Director Debbie Cotton.

Knudson brings over 13 years experience in the public sector, with more than six years as an engineer/project manager in Phoenix Public Transit’s Facilities Division

“One of the best things about working in facilities is that our projects meet many different needs, and serve many different customers.   Whether it’s development of park-and-rides to assist passengers, or planning to improve overall efficiency of the transit system, we really work to improve every aspect of the public transit experience,” Knudson said.  

Prior to joining the City of Phoenix, Knudson served as a naval officer in the United States Navy Civil Engineer Corps, where he was responsible for the construction and maintenance of naval facilities. 

Knudson is a Registered Professional Engineer in Arizona.  He holds a bachelors degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Arizona, and a MBA from Arizona State University. 

 

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Mesa faces critical light-rail decisions
GARIN GROFF
TRIBUNE
December 22, 2009 - 7:50PM

Mesa will design critical elements of the downtown light-rail line in the next few months, making decisions that will help shape the downtown's character for decades to come.

The city is working with downtown merchants and residents to determine how wide Main Street should be, where stations will go and the location of a park-and-ride lot.

Construction will start in 2012 to extend Metro from Sycamore to just east of Mesa Drive, and decisions on some design work need to be made this spring. The line is set to open in 2016.

It's difficult to reconfigure tracks or stations once the transit system goes into use, which makes the upcoming decisions so significant.

"How Metro integrates in downtown is really critical in the future of downtown," said Mike James, Mesa's transportation director.

The most complex issue is the width of Main Street.

Metro rail tracks will take up 27 feet of the road, which won't leave room for the existing two lanes of traffic in each direction and left-turn lanes. The city could keep two lanes in each direction without any turn lanes, or have one lane each way with left turn lanes at intersections.

Some merchants want the wider street so more traffic can get through downtown. But others want the single lane to slow down traffic. That encourages people to walk around and allows the city to keep parking.

"My preference is a single lane and then to have as much parking on the street as they can," said Jeff Gunnell of Gunnell's Jewelry. "Main Street was set up that way 100 years ago, for parking in front of the stores."

The wider street would handle more traffic - but not as efficiently. A computerized traffic model shows the single-lane configuration would let traffic flow more smoothly while leaving space for a dedicated left-turn lane.

Mesa is showing all the light-rail options to a 42-member committee appointed by Mayor Scott Smith, letting them come to a consensus on many issues. The single-lane option got a favorable review during a meeting this month, but no decision has been made yet. The group is headed by Vice Mayor Kyle Jones, who said merchants have told him they like the narrower road.

"They would prefer to have people slow down because people are just passing through," Jones said. "They want people who are coming down for the destination."

The city is also looking at the best spot for station locations, which require more space than just the rail track. The city wants to find places that require the least disruption to existing businesses while making sure they are in places where passengers will want to board.

A major goal in each decision is to keep as much of the existing sidewalks and landscaping as possible. The city figures that will soften the impact of construction on merchants.

The extension will bring Metro to Lesueur, two blocks east of Mesa Drive. The city is also working with the light-rail committee to choose the precise place for a 300-space parking lot.

Metro will focus its most disruptive construction during the summer, when business normally drops off for merchants, said Wulf Grote, Metro's project development director.

"We're working with the downtown businesses in Mesa because I know that's a real sensitive area," he said. "We're trying to make sure we minimize the effect on their businesses."

The downtown light-rail construction won't be as painful as the work on the initial 20-mile line that opened a year ago. Mesa rebuilt Main Street a decade ago and moved the underground utilities in anticipation of Metro's arrival. The utility work is usually the most disruptive.

Still, Gunnell expects some disruption. He remembers the Main Street construction a decade ago and an even more painful project in 1984, when the city choked off access by replacing the road and sidewalks. He figures this will be easier to survive.

"It will be painful when they do it, but I think for the long term, it's the best thing the city can do."

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Valley light rail system observes first anniversary
by Dianna M. Náñez 
Dec. 24, 2009 08:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The silver and teal trains that light up the bridge over Town Lake, swish through downtown, sound their bells near campus and travel along Apache Boulevard have become part of Tempe's identity.

Metro light rail has changed the landscape of the city since service began last Dec. 27. As the transit system marks its first year of operations Sunday, Tempe is celebrating the successes.

Ridership has far exceeded expectations and land values have skyrocketed along the Tempe portion of the 20-mile rail line, which extends through Phoenix and one mile into Mesa. There have been challenges, too-a string of accidents, problems with the fare system and budget woes stalling expansion of the system.

Meanwhile, many Valley residents have become dedicated riders.

Mark Cone takes the bus from his central Tempe home to downtown Tempe's light rail station, where he boards a train to his work in central Phoenix.

"It's really been an added benefit to the economics of my life, saving me gas costs," he said.

Though Cone started taking light rail tosave money on his work commute, as he grew more familiar with the bus system, he began using it outside of work.

"It's enabled me to see public transportation in a different light-a car is not the only option," he said. "If I'm going to go to downtown Tempe I can use my (transit) pass. It may take me a little longer but overall, now I think it's a better option than driving."

Tempe had hoped light rail would persuade a large section of residents who disliked buses to try alternative transportation. The city was an early champion of the transit system and Tempe leaders boast that it is the only city where light rail extends border-to-border.

Though Mayor Hugh Hallman is pleased with light rail's first-year, he hopes to integrate bus and light rail better so that residents who live farther from the rail line will have an easier time connecting to it.

"It's seeing more success than we thought it would. (But) the community's investing a lot of money in this . . . we still have to improve total usage," he said.

Budget challenges will make that difficult. Financial woes and poor sales-tax collections are forcing Tempe and other cities to cut back on public transportation.

Carlos de Leon, a Tempe transportation manager, hopes that cuts to light rail will be done efficiently so that ridership is not affected.

"We're looking at areas where we can make small changes to save money," he said.

Cuts being considered now, he said, include shortening the morning and afternoon peak hours and decreasing the frequency of trains during peak hours. Currently, the trains run about every 10 minutes. Transit officials are considering the financial savings if that was stretched to about every 12 minutes, he said.

Though Cone understands that cuts are necessary, he worries that riders would abandon the system if service were slower. Already, he said, trains are often stuck at red lights. Decreasing the frequency when riders have to get to work or going home would be troubling, he said.

"But if they could time the signals and give trains some priority, I think they'd see a big increase in ridership," he said.

Light rail has improved its speed. Since launching, it has cut six minutes from the time it takes to travel the 20-mile line, de Leon said. It takes about an hour to travel from Main and Sycamore streets in Mesa on the east end of the line to 19th Avenue and Montebello Drive in Phoenix on the west.

Budget challenges are not the only difficulties light rail faces. Earlier this year, transit officials acknowledged troubles with its transit-pass system that showed Metro was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fares. Riders were failing to tap their passes at turnstiles, which meant Metro couldn't charge them for the ride.

As of early December, Metro had also racked up 51 accidents. Transit officials have said that the accidents are part of the learning curve as drivers navigate a myriad of new signals.

But critics of the Valley's accident rate point to Metro light rail nearly exceeding the unprecedented 62 accidents during the first year of rail operations in Houston, where people began referring to rail as the "Wham Bam Tram" or "Streetcar Named Disaster." The Valley's accident rate bolstered early arguments that Metro would suffer the same traffic problems as Houston. Both systems were designed so that trains and cars share streets rather than using a dedicated right-of-way for trains.

So far, no Metro driver has been faulted for an accident and only one accident has resulted in concerns about faulty Metro equipment. That occurred in Tempe in January and involved a truck that was cited for crossing the railroad tracks near University Drive and Rural Road before the railroad-crossing arm was fully raised. But witnesses said the arm was malfunctioning.

Tempe has had so many problems with drivers getting too close to that crossing's rail arms, which triggers a signal that lowers the arms onto vehicles, that they added warning signs and marked the area where vehicles should steer clear.

"The reason we took corrective action is because normally if you see something once it's not a problem but if you see a trend . . . that needs to be addressed," de Leon said.

Despite the accidents and other troubles, light rail has far exceeded ridership expectations. Through November, weekday ridership had reached 34,740, or 34 percent greater than projected. Weekend ridership has fared even better, with Sunday and holiday ridership exceeding projections by 64 percent.

Mesa was on track as of September to have the busiest light-rail station at Sycamore and Main Street, with nearly 630,869 riders leaving the easternmost end of the line and 611,286 coming into the station. In November, Tempe recorded about 30 percent of the month's total rail ridership compared to Mesa's 9 percent and Phoenix's 61 percent.

People driving from the West and East Valley to get to the nearest light-rail station made the Phoenix and Mesa end-of-the line stops the most popular of the 28 stations. But Tempe's station near University Drive and Rural Road is on track to be the third most frequented stop. Students and faculty using that station and others hubs near Arizona State University account for a bulk of light-rail riders.

An ASU study released earlier this year also showed Tempe's land value near rail stations had increased at a greater rate compared to Phoenix and Mesa.

Reflecting on the successes, Metro officials are hoping to build on light rail's first year.

"It has been an amazing year for light rail. We are extremely pleased to see how people have embraced the system and use it every day." said Hillary Foose, a Metro light rail spokeswoman. "If this year's any indication we have many more good years ahead.

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Phoenix marks first year of light rail
by Sean Holstege 
Dec. 26, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A year ago, light rail was a promise, an untested idea in this desert, car-centric city.

On Sunday, Metro light rail marks its anniversary by looking back at a largely successful year while bracing for financial perils as the economy takes a toll on public funding.

The past year has been one of trial, error and refinement for the Valley's new 20-mile light-rail system. Critics weren't silenced but were muted by Metro's better-than-expected ridership. More than 10 million people boarded the sleek trains.

Metro's second year will determine if the agency builds on its successes or just hangs on, risking stagnation.

It's likely to be a study in contrasts, as was the first year.

On Dec. 27 last year, Metro opened on time and on budget. Over the next 12 months, the $1.4 billion system carried an average of nearly 35,000 passengers a day, 34 percent over estimates. At the same time, Metro struggled to collect fares and averaged almost a collision a week, causing lingering doubts about light rail's safety.

Next year, a new chief executive officer from Portland, Ore., arrives to oversee a system that has already laid off train operators, trimmed support staff and postponed expansions, some indefinitely, to make ends meet. Yet Mesa's downtown extension will gather momentum, and federal support looks likely.

A year of highlights

Before Metro opened, nobody really knew if people in a sprawling, auto-dominant region under a blazing desert sun would embrace urban trains.

May 13 was the first real test. That day President Barack Obama delivered the commencement speech at Arizona State University hours before the Arizona Diamondbacks were scheduled to play in downtown Phoenix. More than 50,000 people braved triple-digit temperatures to ride the trains that day, without a major incident.

Outgoing Metro CEO Rick Simonetta said then that it was his best day. Few rail systems had ever faced such a test so early.

"We didn't know what it would mean for ridership," he recalled. "We put everything we had out there."

By July, Metro had answered the clamor to begin late-night service on weekends. Popularity was building.

In September, Metro and US Airways Center teamed up to use Phoenix Suns' and other event tickets as train fares, in the first such arrangement in the country. The experiment worked: Metro came close to carrying 15 percent of Suns fans by train and added 11,000 passengers in the campaign's first month.

On Oct. 2, Metro carried a record 50,562 passengers. Phoenix's First Friday street fair took much of the credit.

Growing pains

Metro's first year had its setbacks, too, with crashes remaining the most visible and lingering challenge.

In September, an SUV ran a light and smashed into a train door at high speed, knocking the train off the tracks and bringing down a power pole. That was Simonetta's worst day.

"That morning I got an alert that we expected our first fatality," he said. "He walked out of the hospital at 2 p.m."

Early this month, a van ran a light and got pinched between the train and a curb. The van was folded in half against a power pole like a soda can, rupturing the fuel tank.

The two crashes have left two train cars out of service with significant damage. Other, more routine crashes have caused nearly $500,000 in damage to the light-rail system.

No one has died, and no pedestrians or bicyclists have been hit. Police have attributed every accident to motorists ignoring traffic signals.

Metro struggled with slow trains. An end-to-end trip was supposed to take 55 minutes. Initially, it took 75 minutes. For six months the schedule was unreliable. Metro was months late with automatic-station announcements telling passengers their wait times.

"They sold us a sports car and delivered us a dump truck," said longtime Phoenix resident Bob McKnight, one of Metro's most studious critics.

Metro also struggled to collect its fares. Confusion about the employer-issued Platinum Passes cost Metro nearly $800,000, or nearly 10 percent, of potential revenue. A Metro contractor was months late in delivering portable devices to scan the cards. Some fare inspectors still rely on a visual check and can't verify payment.

The year ahead

Finances will be Metro's biggest challenge when new CEO Steve Banta takes the helm.

As of now, with layoffs, shorter trains during slow times and adjustments to the way on-call drivers are used, Metro expects to meet its $33 million budget. When the fiscal year ended in June, the agency topped its budget by less than 1 percent.

But despite a sharp fare increase, Metro still missed its cost-recovery goals. Also, Metro depends on Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa to subsidize its operating costs. Metro could face a battle to hold on to its current funding as cities face historic deficits.

Cuts could mean shorter hours or less-frequent trains when the next fiscal year starts in July. Sharp cuts could undo Metro's luxury of having busy trains throughout the day carrying people to and from more than just work.

"The light-rail system in a lot of ways has become a gathering place," Metro planning director Wulf Grote said.

Metro's ridership that includes tourists, event-goers and people out on the town makes the system more efficient than traditional systems that attract mostly commuters.

Longer term, the economy forced Metro to push back most extensions a year or two, and some expansions into northwest and northeast Phoenix are on hold indefinitely. It remains unclear whether Tempe will embrace a southern extension or turn to a simpler, cheaper rapid bus line, such as the LINK service in Mesa.

Once lukewarm about light rail, Mesa now seeks a 3-mile, four-station extension into downtown to revitalize its community.

Mesa's prospects are good. The Sycamore station is Metro's busiest. Studies show a large demand for rail service east and south.

Metro points to more than $7 billion in public and private investment in developments within walking distance of the light-rail line.

The Obama administration has emphasized financial support for rail projects with development potential.

It created a new program to get smaller projects built sooner. Mesa's proposal falls within that category and is well-positioned to receive federal funding by the end of next year.

But McKnight and other skeptics remain unconvinced light rail is a wise investment.

"We're changing the whole economics of the Valley, and we want to put this system in concrete. I'm sorry, that doesn't make sense to me," he said.

Rail fans such as Friends of Transit Executive Director David Schwartz say they expect ridership to steadily grow in the second year.

"I don't think you'll hear so much from the naysayers," Schwartz said. "I think light rail has sold itself."

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