Our friend Edward Jensen has been a transit advocate for a long time. He is passionate about his city, about the light rail system and about making positive change in the PHX.
It was cool to see Ed in the paper today, pushing for more / better light rail descriptions for transit riders.
In the past, we’ve heard people talk about the station names, but we’ve also heard the argument that METRO could do a better job in letting people know about where they are, where they are going and what is nearby.
Ed, and others, would like METRO’s onboard announcements to include nearby points of interest to tie each station more closely with the area’s landmarks.
Edward Jensen at the Central and Encanto Station
Changing station names and adding information to the platforms would probably take a lot of money and effort, and METRO is always quick to point out budget restraints, so I don’t see that happening any time soon. Changing the audible announcements on the train is a possibility and is something METRO is considering. Once their team is trained to use the “complex” system used for reprogramming announcements, we may begin hearing some of the useful information that was once given but was shelved when people complained of TMI. Creating a balance of too many announcements vs. not enough appears to be the task at hand with our light rail operators.
If you have an opinion about the lack of announcements or if you think the current system is working just fine, you can let METRO light rail know what you think. If I were you, I’d follow Edward Jensen on Twitter, too. The dude always has the scoop on what’s happening along the line.
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