Metro Phoenix Transit/Transportation Developments

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by exit2lef

Understood. In other news, Valley Metro has posted a map of what light rail will look like next year when the current single line splits into two intersecting lines:

https://vulcan-production.nyc3.cdn.digit...sion-downtown-hub/val_msys_rail-2025.pdf

There will be a north-south B line that meets the east-west A line in at the Downtown Phoenix hub.

Holy 🞵🞵🞵🞵 we have 3 lines! Look at us! We are big kids now!

[combusean]

Originally Posted by combusean

I'm over this conversation and I'm pretty sure everyone's said what they need to say.

No more of this.

So people see this on this page, too.

[combusean]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Holy 🞵🞵🞵🞵 we have 3 lines! Look at us! We are big kids now!

Ridiculous they didn't turn the A line around at Central station. There's a turnaround track right at McKinley for something like this!

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by combusean

Ridiculous they didn't turn the A line around at Central station. There's a turnaround track right at McKinley for something like this!

Since the A line will eventually go to the State Capitol, that could be only a temporary arrangement. I have heard lots of calls, though, for a C line that would essentially be a subset of the current line, perhaps running between Tempe and Central Station as a connection between the ASU campuses. I have no idea if that's going to happen, though.

Even if there were a Van Buren routing for the A line, there would still be trips involving a transfer in 2025 where one wasn't needed before. Anyone going between Uptown Phoenix and Sky Harbor, for example, will need to change trains. To make that work in a way that ridership losses do not exceed gains from the new stations on South Central, two things would help:

1) Valley Metro needs to increase rail service frequency. A transfer feels a lot more onerous when it involves a wait of 15 or 20 minutes rather than 5 or 10.

2) The city needs to make the Downtown Hub more welcoming towards pedestrians. That means scramble intersections and no more left-on-red.

These improvements go hand-in-hand. If someone sees a train about to depart and doesn't want to wait a long time for another, they're more likely to cross against a signal. We need to reduce the temptation to do that by improving headways and also make the intersections more favorable to people crossing from one platform to another.

[combusean]

Aha. Yeah, I forgot that the A line is slated to go further west.

I do really like the idea of a C line.

Maybe they just need an elevated people mover loop between Central Station, the Hub, and a future regional rail station. One can dream.

[az_daniel]

Originally Posted by exit2lef

1) Valley Metro needs to increase rail service frequency. A transfer feels a lot more onerous when it involves a wait of 15 or 20 minutes rather than 5 or 10.

2) The city needs to make the Downtown Hub more welcoming towards pedestrians. That means scramble intersections and no more left-on-red.

I agree with this. I was thinking about how they will time the transfers, and whether or not trains will have longer stops at hub stations to get back on track and help people transfer. We desperately need to give trains signal priority, too.

A broader criticism from a user quality of life perspective, I want to see the time until the next train on the digital signage at each station. This needs to be very clear at the Hub especially, so riders aren't in the dark when they arrive at their A line or B line hub station.

Hopefully there will be some streetscape improvements that improve the pedestrian experience around the hub block. There will be opportunities for cityscape plaza to be better activated with riders transferring and needing to grab a snack or a coffee, etc. It has always felt underutilized being in the middle of downtown, but now it seems like there is an enormous opportunity for that block to better serve commuters.

It is really cool that we get to talk about lines and transfers. I recently visited the bay area and used a clipper card for everything transit related, it was so easy that i was sold on the copper card and am looking forward to using it. SmartFare is awesome too. Things are definitely getting better around here.

[MiEncanto]

I too hope they figure out how to make the trains faster because presently they are so slow that it's practically unusable if you're going anywhere far.

I think the latest installments will be the death knell for the program. 1, the south central connection is going to be a huge bust. I predict ridership will be nil. The NW connection to the dead mall has been an financial albatross. If the proposed development ever gets done, perhaps ridership will improve but I doubt it. Who wants to spend 30 mins on a train to downtown or 45 mins to Tempe? And the connection to 17th Ave west on Washington will connect exactly... what to downtown? None of these extensions will increase ridership dramatically.

I know I'm in the minority back here but I feel compelled to provide some balance to the discussion. I wish it worked better. I wish usage was growing. I wish I felt safe enough to bring my kids on it.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by az_daniel

A broader criticism from a user quality of life perspective, I want to see the time until the next train on the digital signage at each station. This needs to be very clear at the Hub especially, so riders aren't in the dark when they arrive at their A line or B line hub station.

Agree with this. The app finally has relatively usable real-time information about the train locations and times. I don't see any reason why they could not prominently display this at the stations.

Originally Posted by MiEncanto

I too hope they figure out how to make the trains faster because presently they are so slow that it's practically unusable if you're going anywhere far.

I think the latest installments will be the death knell for the program. 1, the south central connection is going to be a huge bust. I predict ridership will be nil. The NW connection to the dead mall has been an financial albatross. If the proposed development ever gets done, perhaps ridership will improve but I doubt it. Who wants to spend 30 mins on a train to downtown or 45 mins to Tempe? And the connection to 17th Ave west on Washington will connect exactly... what to downtown? None of these extensions will increase ridership dramatically.

I know I'm in the minority back here but I feel compelled to provide some balance to the discussion. I wish it worked better. I wish usage was growing. I wish I felt safe enough to bring my kids on it.

There has definitely always been a tension with the right use case for light rail. I ride it fairly frequently between Mesa Dr. in Mesa and downtown Tempe. That to me is about the longest ride I'd want to regularly take. Mesa to downtown Phoenix is doable but hard to justify if you have a car. Our freeways and parking are just too efficient.

And honestly most city metros aren't really intended to be used for regular ~20-mile one-way trips. But our metro and our system aren't really equipped for the shorter trips that higher volume systems accomodate.

With that said I think segmenting the system into lines is a step in the right direction. I'm not sure you should expect to regularly go from the NW terminus to Tempe, other than maybe the occasional trip to the airport for which you can plan ahead. Light rail should probably be expected to be used for shorter trips.

Finally, I'll say that ridership is growing in a sense, though not in another sense. It has increased every year since 2021. But it still has not returned to pre-COVID levels. Getting closer though. The more serious hit is to bus ridership, which is still like ~65% of pre-COVID levels.

https://www.valleymetro.org/about/agency/transit-performance/ridership-reports

[exit2lef]

Yes, the current station signs are silly. They display current time and an obscure station ID number for the antiquated NextRide system based on SMS messaging. It would seem easy to convert them so that they display the current time and the arrival time of the next train.

[MiEncanto]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

Agree with this. The app finally has relatively usable real-time information about the train locations and times. I don't see any reason why they could not prominently display this at the stations.



There has definitely always been a tension with the right use case for light rail. I ride it fairly frequently between Mesa Dr. in Mesa and downtown Tempe. That to me is about the longest ride I'd want to regularly take. Mesa to downtown Phoenix is doable but hard to justify if you have a car. Our freeways and parking are just too efficient.

And honestly most city metros aren't really intended to be used for regular ~20-mile one-way trips. But our metro and our system aren't really equipped for the shorter trips that higher volume systems accomodate.

With that said I think segmenting the system into lines is a step in the right direction. I'm not sure you should expect to regularly go from the NW terminus to Tempe, other than maybe the occasional trip to the airport for which you can plan ahead. Light rail should probably be expected to be used for shorter trips.

Finally, I'll say that ridership is growing in a sense, though not in another sense. It has increased every year since 2021. But it still has not returned to pre-COVID levels. Getting closer though. The more serious hit is to bus ridership, which is still like ~65% of pre-COVID levels.

https://www.valleymetro.org/about/agency/transit-performance/ridership-reports

It seems like rail numbers are increasing at the same time as Streetcar is growing in popularity. I wonder how much of the growth is from Streetcar since it's reported together (at least in the link you provided). I downloaded the 2024 data chart and it appears weekly boardings were 2500 in 2024 while LR was almost 30k.

I actually think the streetcar is a smart tool that has a pretty obvious use case. With that said, I don't support a downtown circulator because our roads are already pretty carved up with LR. Instead, I'd favor a electric trolley system that moved about according to rider demand on normal lanes. I'd love an app that let you 'flag' the trolley and then open the door. You could potentially make it semi-autonomous too.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by combusean

Aha. Yeah, I forgot that the A line is slated to go further west.

I do really like the idea of a C line.

Maybe they just need an elevated people mover loop between Central Station, the Hub, and a future regional rail station. One can dream.

C Line is for I-10 West to Desert Sky Mall. I’m sure you will find out soon enough about it.

B Line is for Baseline station via Downtown Phoenix and then to Metrocenter station.

A Line is for Gilbert Rd station in Gilbert and turnaround back to Central Station in downtown Phoenix.

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by N830MH

C Line is for I-10 West to Desert Sky Mall. I’m sure you will find out soon enough about it.

B Line is for Baseline station via Downtown Phoenix and then to Metrocenter station.

A Line is for Gilbert Rd station in Gilbert and turnaround back to Central Station in downtown Phoenix.

Are you sure about that? I would see that route as just a westward extension of the A Line. For me a C Line would be the scenario I already mentioned or a completely different line heading west on Indian School.

[AZSunHiker]

I actually think the streetcar is a smart tool that has a pretty obvious use case. With that said, I don't support a downtown circulator because our roads are already pretty carved up with LR. Instead, I'd favor a electric trolley system that moved about according to rider demand on normal lanes. I'd love an app that let you 'flag' the trolley and then open the door. You could potentially make it semi-autonomous too.

The City could contract with Zoox.

[exit2lef]

I used to work with one of the senior executives at Zoox. Based on that experience, I'd be wary of the company and its vehicles. Of course, I'm always wary of speculative techno-utopian schemes that try to do better than proven technologies that were abandoned too early.

[az_daniel]

Originally Posted by MiEncanto

I actually think the streetcar is a smart tool that has a pretty obvious use case. With that said, I don't support a downtown circulator because our roads are already pretty carved up with LR. Instead, I'd favor a electric trolley system that moved about according to rider demand on normal lanes. I'd love an app that let you 'flag' the trolley and then open the door. You could potentially make it semi-autonomous too.

genuinely, unless it is fare free, what would be the benefit of this over an on demand system like Waymo - which we already have?

[MiEncanto]

Originally Posted by az_daniel

genuinely, unless it is fare free, what would be the benefit of this over an on demand system like Waymo - which we already have?

A medium to large trolley could move bodies. So when a show or game ends, the trolleys could efficiently move people from area of downtown to another. It could run on normal routes and deviate based on customer input. This combined with some large garages at the edges of downtown would be nice. And compared to most mass transit, these would be relatively cheap.

And no, you can't make it free or it becomes the DASH.

Waymo and Zoox are nice ideas for taxies but they are moving 2-4 people tops at a time.

[combusean]

Zoox used their interview time with me to pick my brain and then ghosted me after which is basically only what shady companies do. F them.

[PyroD]

If I’m being honest, what you’ve described just sounds a lot like a bus

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by PyroD

If I’m being honest, what you’ve described just sounds a lot like a bus

Yes, a trolley is not really a trolley unless it runs on tracks and is powered by electricity from overhead wires. Scottsdale calls its neighborhood circulators "trolleys," but they're really just buses decorated in a way that looks sort of like vintage trolleys.

[az_daniel]

Anything that utilizes traffic lanes would be subjected to the same post-event gridlock as anyone else in a vehicle. If you're talking about moving people between downtown locations, I don't see why you couldn't theoretically run a much more frequent downtown "streetcar" on the light rail tracks in between light rail trains and have it use the McKinley st and 11th st turnaround to circulate. bumb up frequency on event nights and weekends as needed. Maybe its not realistic but it's plausible at least, lol.