METRO ridership reaches its high in April PHOENIX — METRO light rail has achieved record ridership in April with the most riders in one month, in one day and the highest average weekday ridership since the system’s opening in December 2008. METRO served 1,208,924 total riders in April 2010, resulting in an average weekday ridership […]
Rail Life “Flickr Pic” of the week – Pump It Up, Dude
As I walked along Central Avenue this week, I took this shot of the new Gold’s Gym at CityScape and thought it turned out kind of cool. I have to wonder if the opening of this new gym will bring some muscle heads from any of the walkable neighborhoods along the line or if it […]
More Sweeps – Less Transportation Service
Valley Metro Holds Public Hearings on Proposed Changes Bus Service Impacted by Loss of Lottery Funds Phoenix, AZ (April 29, 2010) The impacts from the loss of State Lottery funds and ongoing sales tax revenue decreases could be felt as early as July 26, 2010. As of February, the State legislature swept funds that had […]
Continuing the cost cut chatter…
Maybe a bit of irony is included when the Republic posted an article last week, on April 15th, about the looming possibility of service cuts to downtown Phoenix bus services. It sounds like the free ( DASH ) Downtown Area Shuttle will lose its “downtown loop” will get the ax this Summer. While the savings […]
The Business of Light Rail – A PIRG Study
Today, the Arizona PIRG released a comprehensive study of economic and other benefits that light rail has provided local businesses along the 20 mile light rail line in Arizona. The study, called The Business of Light Rail shows a very interesting insight to development and ridership along the Phoenix light rail line. 14 business owners […]
Metro light rail ridership numbers – March 2010
In March, METRO had highest light rail ridership since opening with 1,161,733 boardings with the first week averaging 40,000+ EACH day. One interesting thing to note is the fact that ridership from Jan-Mar 2010 was over 10% greater than Jan-Mar of 09. In fact, March of 2010 was 19% higher than March of 2009. Back […]
Station Domination – It’s Here
The topic of advertising on the light rail and the lack thereof, has been discussed since before the line ever opened. Many people remember the initial discussions of leaving the trains and stations free from all advertising. In early 2009, we saw the first “test run” of light rail cars being wrapped for the NBA […]
With Light Rail, Misconceptions Abound
Whenever you have large public projects, information can get cloudy. For METRO Light Rail, there has long been a challenge of providing service AND information. Over the past few years, I have been to a LOT of public meetings at the Metro offices, city council chambers, schools, our Chamber of Commerce, etc. and I have […]
Light Rail Delays Can Be Good
We get caught up in our own little worlds and sometimes forget to check things before making assumptions. I learned this lesson the hard way recently. ( probably not for the first time ) As I was heading from Tempe to the Phoenix Public Market with friends the other day, the train stopped at the […]
Can Night Rail Survive Cuts?
The squeaky wheel… You know the ones, they get out and make themselves heard. It was a bunch of squeaky wheels that introduced the Night Rail concept last year and it “could” be the ones to help save late night light rail ridership now. There was a lot of great stuff coming out of the […]