Rail Life “Flickr Pic” Of The Week – The Light Rail Song is a post from: Rail Life

This weeks pic of the week is actually a video I saw posted by our friend, Yuri Artibise. The video is titled light rail and is preformed by Jeremy Messersmith.

In the video Jeremy tells us that “if your cars too spendy and your bikes to slow” you can take the light rail. OR, “if you want to see the future, we can get there fast.”

It sounds like Jeremy spends a little bit of time riding the Metro Transit system in Minneapolis. One has to wonder how long it is until we get a theme song for METRO here in the valley. :)

Remember, Rail Life has a Phoenix Light Rail Group on Flickr. Basically, we want to share some of our pictures from the community and allow people to add their pics (or videos), as well. These can be light rail related, but we also want pics of your favorite spot, restaurant, sports team, community, event etc.

Rail Life “Flickr Pic” of the week – Keepin’ Cool is a post from: Rail Life

It’s no secret that the a/c works *really* well in the METRO cars in Phoenix. In fact, the people at METRO seem to be pretty proud about how well the air conditioning units on the trains keep us cool. METRO has said the system works “6x more than the typical AZ home” and have said “we feel that we have the best air conditioning system in the nation.” During testing of the trains, the units stood up to temperatures of 137* for extended periods of time.

That’s all well and good and I enjoy the break from the heat on the trains once in a while, but today I decided to send the “pic of the week” from Flagstaff Arizona. I am sitting in a coffee shop just a block or two from a railroad station in a nice breeze with no a/c needed. Yeah, I’ll be back to the 110* temps in the Valley soon enough, but is sure is nice to have options for escaping the summertime heat in AZ! :) Heck, it’s gonna be in the low 50’s tonight. I hope I brought a sweater…

I shot the video below 2 years ago when testing was underway. It talks about the a/c system in the light rail cars. :)

Remember, Rail Life has a Phoenix Light Rail Group on Flickr. Basically, we want to share some of our pictures from the community and allow people to add their pics (or videos), as well. These can be light rail related, but we also want pics of your favorite spot, restaurant, sports team, community, event etc.

]]> http://raillife.com/blog/2010/07/11/rail-life-keepin-cool/feed/ 1 http://raillife.com/blog/2010/02/05/fat-tuesday-mill-rockin-mardi-gras/ http://raillife.com/blog/2010/02/05/fat-tuesday-mill-rockin-mardi-gras/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:09:16 +0000 Rail Life http://raillife.com/?p=2507 Fat Tuesday on Mill Rockin the Mardi Gras is a post from: Rail Life

Rail Life “Flickr Pic” of the week – Light Rail Ride New Year’s Eve is a post from: Rail Life

Happy New Year to all! With a short week and a nice little vacation for myself and my family, I almost passed on the “pic of the week.” Thanks to our friends at Right Brain Photography for posting this video to our group and making it easy for me to share this classic light rail video of a ride home on New Year’s Eve. Heck, it kind of reminds me of a “Train Tracks” or a “Motion Theatre Company” performance.

For sure, they were Rockin’ the Rail Life!

Remember, Rail Life has a Phoenix Light Rail Group on Flickr. Basically, we want to share some of our pictures from the community and allow people to add their pics (or videos), as well. These can be light rail related, but we also want pics of your favorite spot, restaurant, sports team, community, event etc.

Changes Coming to Tempe Transit System is a post from: Rail Life

We often talk about the early success of our light rail system and how it appears to be changing the way many people look at transportation in Arizona. One interesting topic that comes up regularly  is the demographics of Phoenix light rail riders. According to a recent survey, 26 percent of AZ light rail riders connect from a bus. Another interesting topic is the popularity of light rail with recreational users.

Restaurants, the arts, and sporting events are very popular destinations with light rail riders. It has been said that “1 in 7 Suns fans take Metro to games.” Have you checked the average price of a Suns ticket lately? People that go to the games are probably not the typical demographic you think of when you think “public transportation.”

To me, it appears that the success of light rail has introduced people to other forms of public transportation. I think of it this way. If a person begins using light rail for recreational purposes, there is a chance they will begin to also consider using rail or other public transportation for future travel. If this is the case, those people might be interested to know that changes are a comin’ to the Tempe bus system.

According to a city of Tempe news release:

Changes coming to Tempe’s Orbit and bus systems

On Jan. 25, changes to the existing Orbit neighborhood circulator and fixed route arterial bus systems will occur in Tempe. Affected routes include 30, 62, 65, 66, 76, 77, 81, 92, Orbit Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter.

The majority of the changes include hours of operation and frequency reductions during non-peak hours and weekends. In addition, many of the Orbit and arterial bus routes were modified to reduce redundancies along major streets.

These changes are due to the slowing economy. The Tempe transit system is funded primarily by a half cent sales tax, which has dramatically decreased causing Tempe to reevaluate the transit system to make it more efficient in order to reduce costs. The changes were based in part on public comments received from residents this fall, and were approved by the Tempe City Council Dec. 10.

To view the modified routes, visit www.tempe.gov/tim. Another round of public meetings will occur in February and March to get input on additional route changes that may occur in July 2010. For information on Tempe’s transit program call 480-858-2350.

How To Get Involved

Proposed Bus, Orbit and METRO Light Rail Service Changes for July 2010 will be discussed at public meetings in February and March. See the following video from the Tempe Transportation Commission for more detailed information. The scheduled meetings can be found here:

Final ride for Metro CEO Rick Simonetta is a post from: Rail Life

Metro light rail outgoing CEO Rick Simonetta was honored this past week with a “farewell” ride and reception at the Phoenix Art Museum.  The shindig was made possible by a lot of “transportation geeks” pulling out all the stops to thank Rick for his hard work on our light rail system. Simonetta was honored by his peers and city leadership for his six years of service and expertise, opening up the Valley’s first light rail system on time and on budget. Without a doubt, the early success of this system has changed the tone for light rail ( and transportation in general) in Arizona.

Local and national groups  HDR consultants, COMTO transportation officials, WTS along with Friends of Transit and the Arizona Transit Association teamed up to host the last ride and farewell reception. 

On Wednesday, a train left the Sycamore/Main station in Mesa a little after 4:10 p.m. with Simonetta and Mesa city leadership and staff on board.  The train then traveled  west to pick up leaders in both Tempe and Phoenix. The group all disembarked at the Central/McDowell station and proceeded to the reception site at the Phoenix Art Museum. I bet you have never seen so many suits on the light rail!

Our itinerary was as follows:

* Train departs at 4:10 p.m. from the Sycamore/Main station.

* Picks up Tempe leadership at 4:23 p.m. from the Veterans Way/College station.

* Picks up Phoenix leadership at 4:50 p.m. from the Washington/Central station.

* Group disembarks at the Central/McDowell station at 4:55 p.m.

* VIP reception from 5 – 6 p.m. -  Full reception from 6 – 8 p.m.

 Who was there? Mayors, Vice Mayors and Council members of METRO member cities along with people from COMTO were onboard to participate and speak at the reception.

Dorsha Hale with HDR was instrumental in putting together this really cool “farewell video” for Simonetta and allowed me and my “video guru” friend, Tyler Hurst to help put it together.

Thanks so much to Rick and to METRO light rail for giving me some fun stuff to write about! :-)

Metro Light Rail Adopt A Station Program is a post from: Rail Life

This morning, Metro announced details of the new “Adopt A Station” program that is available to business owners along the light rail line. I had a chance to speak with Marty McNeil from Metro and was given the following bullet points for Metro’s Adopt A Station program.

1: Open to business adjacent to the station

2: go to www.MetroLightRail.org and download the application

3: Program available to one business at a time for one year. First come, first served!

4: There is a fee of $100.00 ( covers signage)

5: There is a training and education process. Businesses will look after stations, report grafiti, report maintenance issues, help with trash etc.

6: At the end of the year, if another person, sponsorship will rotate so that others can participate.

I’ll update some more information about the program a little later… For now, take a look at this video of Tom Simpolt explaining the Metro Adopt A Station program. Tom mentions that the program is available to businesses, neighborhoods, church groups, community groups etc. “This is a way for light rail to reach out to the community.”

Metro CEO talks light rail is a post from: Rail Life

According to Metro CEO Rick Simonetta, it sounds like they are pleased with the early success of our light rail system. Makes sense for them to be pleased as Rick recently pointed out some interesting details about the still new light rail system. The following video was shot at a recent Mesa City Council meeting where Mr. Simonetta spoke about our new system before turning the meeting over to Wulf Grote to make a recommendation to Mesa for extending light rail further East along Main Street. (Sorry, you will probably need to crank your speakers to hear) In the video it was mentioned, and it has been widely reported, that the early forecasts for Metro’s ridership was 26k per day. We now hear that January numbers came in at approximately 30k light rail riders per day, February numbers showed approx 35k riders per day and March numbers look to be exceeding the 35k level. March numbers should be available soon.

If the March numbers do in fact exceed previous numbers, one wonders how many months the pace can be kept before a leveling off or a decline. Large events in March such as the Arizona Aloha Festival which brought an estimated 150,000 to Tempe Beach Park and the Tempe Festival of the Arts which brought three days worth of large crowds to the Mill Avenue District should help with keeping or exceeding the pace of ridership growth. I often wonder if the “experts” looked at how many recreational users would take advantage of this system as it sometimes appears “commuters” and students are a large focus. These “wildcards” must be making a significant impact, in my opinion.

It was also mentioned in the video that the public has been very responsive to the system as a whole, with Mesa having the smallest amount of track and the busiest park-and-ride lot (at Sycamore and Main). Economic development has followed the development of the light rail line where there is a tremendous amount of “pent-up demand” for transit-oriented development. In fact, Mayor Smith mentioned development along the light rail line to the tune of approximately $7 Billion, which is obviously higher than the measly $6 Billion reported last summer.

The meeting was very interesting and it will be fun to watch the progress and expansion plans for our state’s transportation needs.

Metro parking and Pass updates is a post from: Rail Life

East valley park and ride lots continue to handle to bulk of the parking demand for light rail riders. It is estimated that 12% of ridership is coming from the Sycamore and Main street station and that many overall trips are considered "high turnover" trips. High turnover in that, you might be hard pressed to find a spot at the McClintock and Apache park and ride lot at 8:30 am only to return a few hours later to find plenty of space. This info was given to me during a conversation with a Metro employee this past week, more "official" numbers should be out soon.

As the ridership grows over time, it will be interesting to see how hard it becomes to find a space in the lots. Currently, it doesn't appear to be much of an issue as the lots were designed to year 2030 ridership projections which means there should be plenty of available parking at most times with this new system. As an example, Metro's Howard Steere mentioned this past week that the 19th Avenue and Montebello lot is averaging approximately 200 people parking with capacity at approximately 800. These numbers are slightly ahead of the projected use for this time in the systems life which might indicate that the valley is embracing light rail more than originally thought. I believe "official" ridership numbers will be released on a monthly basis.

One of the parking lots that appears to have high demand is the lot at Dorsey and Apache. Part of the demand must be from ASU students because of it's proximity to campus. Some confusion arises from the fact that this lot is listed at 190 spaces but most people don't realize it is actually split into two separate lots. The first is right on Apache, the second is about a block north on Dorsey, before you get to Lemon and is out of view from the main station because of buildings that are in the area. Metro apparently has plans to add additional signage to help notify people of this "second" lot in the area. Our light rail map might be helpful in getting a better idea of the location. Just zoom in on the area to take a look at the approximate locations.

With the popularity of the system and ridership numbers strong, there is still concern over fare enforcement. I mentioned the fare collection and "card tapping" issues recently and have since found the following video that was made for ASU students to become more familiar with the fact that a pass must be tapped prior to each boarding. Each ASU student gets a "free" U-Pass card by simply taking a valid Sun Card to any ASU campus permit sales office. University employees can purchase the U-Pass at a discounted rate of $260 annually for a local transit pass and $390 annually for an express pass. The pass is good from July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009 but must also be tapped before boarding the bus or light rail. With the addition of new hand held devices to check passes, fines may become prevalent if cardholders don't start doing a better job of correctly using them. I believe fines can range from $50 – $500.00. (ouch!)

Light rail cars wrapped and ready for 2009 NBA All Star Game is a post from: Rail Life

The 2009 NBA All Star game will be here in just over a week. In fact, many of the festivities begin next Friday! I have heard officials from the Suns and from the city of Phoenix and from Metro ask people to ride the light rail to get to the game as it will greatly help with parking and congestion issues. In fact, just today we reported that Metro will be extending the hours of operation for the big event(s).

Our friends at Bluemedia were the ones responsible for “wrapping” four light rail cars with the NBA logos and pictures of All Star players such as Amare’ and Kobe. I met with my friend Brandon at Bluemedia today and took a tour of their facility to get a feel for what it took to pull this off. Wow! What a cool place. You have all seen cars or trucks that have been wrapped but, think about it… How in the world do you wrap a light rail car? Each car was approximately 1800 square feet of material. I was told that the crews began the install process on a Friday morning and were completed by Sunday evening. I have a few pictures taken at Bluemedia of the state of the art printer that was used along with the finished product and some random shots of their facility. It is a very cool place, indeed. Heck, we might even see some Rail Life cars cruisin’ around soon. :-)

I have permission to enclose a video of the wrapped cars but you can also see a video of the actual wrapping of the light rail cars on their blog along with a whole bunch of cool information.

Could this be the start of more advertising for the light rail cars? That is yet to be seen. It just might make $ense but, that’s not our call.

I hope you enjoy the 2009 NBA All Star Game and that you take advantage of all the cool stuff that will be downtown leading up to the big game. Don’t forget that there are several light rail stops downtown. Our light rail map can be helpful as well as some “helpful hints” for heading to a game.