Phoenix News Blog

Bob Bean (right) is among the union protestors at Central Station this morning.

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A dozen or so light-rail operators protested at the Central Station in downtown Phoenix this morning, holding hand-made signs that excoriated both Metro Light Rail and the Boston-based company that manages the line, ACI.

Carrying the colorful poster boards with slogans including "Metro Rail, Thanks for the Unemployment" and "ACI-Metro Rail Lured Us with Lies," the workers handed out leaflets to riders using the stop.

New Times first reported the layoffs on this blog September 28. At that point, Metro Light Rail had ordered ACI to lay off four operators. Bob Bean, president of the union that represents light-rail operators, tells us that the cuts followed almost immediately.

Victor J. Palagano III

Bob Bean (right) is livid about Metro Rail's announced "eliminations."

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Four operators of the Valley's fledgling light-rail system and at least one supervisor will see their positions eliminated by next Friday, documents show.

Two other supervisor positions, which are currently unfilled, will also be eliminated.

The layoffs were ordered by Valley Metro Rail and announced in a letter to ACI, the Boston-based company that manages the light rail line. New Times obtained a copy from the union that represents light rail workers.

You can read the letter, sent by Valley Metro Rail Chief Transportation Officer Ray Abraham,
here. It was apparently hand-delivered to ACI last Thursday.

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It was a sluggish summer for Metro light rail, but ridership is ramping up again thanks to a new semester at Arizona State University. Officials estimate the trains were boarded 882,328 times in August, which was far more than in either June or July.

Traffic on the rail dropped from a high of more than one million estimated boardings in April to the system's low-water mark of 750,551 in July. Officials had expected the heat and lack of tourists and students would mean fewer riders, naturally. A price hike went into effect in July, too, boosting the cost of an all-day pass on the light rail (and buses) from $2.50 to $3.50.

We'd say the uptick in August numbers seem to come in spite of the fare increase, but we don't yet know how many riders actually paid the fare in August. Many of the extra riders could have been freeloaders. We put in a request for the latest fare collection estimates and expect Metro to get back to us soon.

Scroll down for the Metro news releases from August and July:

wikipedia.com

​The piss poor economy is driving people across the Valley to the poorhouse, and apparently, they're taking the light rail to get there.

Despite the struggling economy, Valley Metro ridership is up 15 percent from last year, partly due to the addition of the light rail, but also because people just can't afford to drive.

"Certainly, in the last six months, overall transit ridership has been boosted by the new Metro light rail service," says David Boggs, executive director of Valley Metro. "We now have a complete transit system with bus and rail connections, getting more Valley residents and visitors out of their cars."

www.valleymetro.org (image on left)

​The hundreds of millions of dollars the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa fronted for the federal portion of the Light Rail Transit Project will soon be almost completely repaid, thanks to a $90 million reimbursement from the federal government.

The $587.2 million bill paid by Valley taxpayers went toward a variety of light-rail costs, including 36 new light-rail vehicles, 27 passenger stations, and seven new parking lots. Of the $90 million federal reimbursement, Phoenix will receive $65 million, with $18 million going to Tempe and $7 million to Mesa. Once the $90 million is doled out, the federal government will still owe $97 million to Valley cities for advanced light-rail funds.

 

 

Speaking of light rail, Tempe police plan a one-day crackdown on motorists who play games with light-rail trains.

On Wednesday, July 29, cops will be swarming near light-rail crossings, busting drivers who fail to stop for red lights, make "hazardous u-turns in front of the trains," stop on the tracks or drive past flashing signals and crossing arms.

Recent collisions with trains were caused by drivers disregarding traffic signals, says a Tempe police news release. Local residents also have been calling police to complain about the risky actions of some drivers near trains.

 

The Arizona Disability Advocacy Coalition, which has numerous Valley organizations as members, is giving Metro Light Rail and Valley metro an award for helping the disabled. Valley Metro runs the Valley's buses and oversees the light rail system.

The public transportation agencies were chosen for the group's American Disabilities Act Liberty Progress Award because they involved passengers with disabilities "in the design, development and execution of Valley transit services," Metro announced today.

 

Light-rail ridership dropped to its lowest level yet in June, averaging less than 30,000 boardings a day. (You can be sure unpaid boardings make up a healthy fraction of that number).

Metro Light Rail and its boosters have plenty of excuses for the dwindling ridership, some of which even make sense. For instance, Arizona State University students made up a significant portion of the onboard crowd during the spring, and now school's out.

 

 

 

As we mentioned in a previous post, ridership for the light-rail system fell in May.

Today, Metro released the official figures:

 

 

PHOENIX -- METRO ridership totaled 928,259 boardings in May 2009. The average weekday ridership was 33,553, average Saturday ridership was 27,176 and average Sunday and holiday ridership was 20,219.

 

People who plan on attending July 4 events in Phoenix or Tempe can buy their light rail passes now, allowing them to avoid long lines at fare boxes to validate tickets.

Buying before the July 1 fare increase (an all-day pass is going to $3.50) will also let riders save a buck.

While the convenience can only be a benefit for Independence Day riders, we're pretty sure the real reason for this promotion has to do tricking passengers into actually paying for their rides.

 

We heard back from Rick Simonetta, CEO for Metro Light Rail, this week in response to our questions about the six-month-old system's ticket-inspection processes.

Or rather, the near-absence of any such processes.

As we reported, Metro says that going by data from its random ticket inspectors, the light-rail system has a "fare evasion rate" of much less than 1 percent. Simonetta had referred to that low rate back in a February newspaper article. Yet Metro officials know with certainty the rate is 50 to 100 times higher, because they're being shorted on fare collections from transit pass-card holders.

We asked Simonetta (pictured below) why Metro officials even mention the "less than 1 percent" figures from inspectors, when they know they're so wrong.

The simple answer: Inspectors report those numbers, and Metro releases them.

"We're not saying they're meaningful," Simonetta quips.

Chatting the other day with Hillary Foose, spokeswoman for Metro Light Rail, we ran into a dead end of confounding numbers. Goes something like this:

The light-rail system has two sets of measurements for freeloaders: The average number of people not properly ticketed, according to ticket inspectors, and the amount of fares that pass-card holders should have paid. A major disparity in those numbers suggests the ticket inspection program isn't up to snuff.

As a May 26 article by light-rail reporter Sean Holstege explains, thousands of Valley employees receive subsidized fares by using transit pass cards handed out at their workplaces. Riders are supposed to tap the cards at a kiosk to register their boarding, which tells the employer how much to pay Metro. But riders haven't been tapping the cards like they should, meaning they're getting free rides.

When we asked Foose for the number of freeloaders based on ticket inspections, we were astonished at how low it was supposed to be.

A bus collided with a light rail train just after 6:30 a.m., sending eight passengers to the hospital "for precautionary reasons," cops says. Some victims complained of neck and back pains. (Cha-ching!)

Phoenix police report this morning that a city bus trying to turn right onto Washington Street from 1st Avenue hit a southbound train. This is at least the second train-on-bus accident we've heard about. Another refresher course for drivers is probably being planned as we write this.

 

There's nothing like a good box-of-feces story to brighten your day.

Metro light-rail spokeswoman Hillary Foose confirmed media reports that a man took a box of poop on a train this morning and threw it on the floor. Unhappy passengers disembarked at the 36th Street and Washington station, and the train was sent directly to the nearby maintenance yard at 40th Street for a good scrubbing.

Thanks to a recent New Times article, Metro is probably more efficient at dealing with such shituations.

This is what you've been waiting for, drinkers:

By July 1, light-rail train service will be extended past 2 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. This means you'll be able to get wicked-drunk at local bars -- without the danger of potentially killing someone with your car.

We can only assume the Metro board has been reading New Times...

Freedom to drink into the wee hours isn't free, though: July 1 also happens to the be the date when the cost of riding light rail goes up. System-wide, the new hours will set Metro back about $255,000 a year. But the late trains have the potential to increase ridership; the consequences of the shift will be evaluated in six months.

Scroll down for the full release from Metro Light Rail on the service change:

 

The ol' SUV was in the shop yesterday in Mesa, giving us a chance to use light rail for more than just an experimental commute or novelty ride. In fact, we put the Valley's urban transportation to the test with a mix of trains, Valley Metro's DASH bus and a taxi.

The trip started when we asked the shuttle van service at Darner Jeep in Mesa to drop us off at the light-rail station at Sycamore. We'd ridden the line to the end before, but on this day we noticed this station bustles. Next to a park-and-ride lot and plenty of apartment complexes, the platform welcomes more people with each turn of the streetlight.

In the picture above, you can see a train driver who took a moment to bust the chops of a teen with a full spread of fast-food laid out before him -- a light-rail no-no.

Following a brief decline in ridership, people boarded the Valley's light-rail trains more than a million times in April.

Metro Light Rail doesn't know precisely how many folks get on its trains, but estimates that last month saw 1,044, 135 boardings. That works out to a daily ridership of 34,805 -- much better than in March, (though still no need for professional people-packers).

Light rail trains will not be allowed to run past Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday because of President Obama's commencement speech. Metro Light Rail says shuttle buses will serve as a "bridge" around the service gap.

On top of that, thousands of people are expected to use the light rail system on Wednesday to see Obama, slated to begin speaking at 7 p.m., or the Arizona Diamondbacks, which has a game against Cincinatti starting at 6:40 p.m.

Metro put out the following tips tonight to help light rail users:

 

Fare collection for Metro light rail, like the system's ridership, is trending in the wrong direction.

The system brought in an estimated $547,294 in March, says Metro Light Rail. That's slightly higher than the $528,000 it collected in February (more days in the month, remember), but still much lower than in January, its first full month of operation.

Since opening, the system has been plagued by technical glitches at the fare boxes that resulted in an estimated $235,000 loss in fares in February. The problems weren't fixed in March, obviously. However, bad equipment might not be the only thing causing the decline.

Average daily boardings of the Valley's light-rail system dropped in March -- a bad sign with the heat of summer and a substantial fare hike still weeks away.

Stats just released by Metro Light Rail estimate that 972,962 riders boarded the system in March. That's an average daily boarding of 31,386 -- fewer people than in February.

Average weekday and average Saturday ridership fell, too. The only positive news -- if you could call it that -- was in the Sunday and holiday ridership, which saw a tiny uptick in boarders.

As in recent months, farebox totals were not released along with these statistics -- New Times has requested them from Metro spokeswoman Hillary Foose.

In the meantime, we have to give Foose at least a little grief for the overly optimistic news release below. Suddenly, it seems, the monthly total is important. (Of course, by that measure, February was worse than January).

Declaring that "special events are drivers of ridership," Metro Light Rail CEO Rick Simonetta today announced extended hours for the April 3 and 4 Tempe Music Festival.

Instead of the last train leaving at 11 p.m., as usual, east- or westbound riders can depart from the 3rd Street and Mill Avenue platform in Tempe up to 12:30 a.m. on the festival nights.

Kid Rock and Three Doors Down headline the festival.

If you go, keep your eyes peeled for Cindy McCain, who was reportedly caught on camera at the 2006 festival kissing an old friend:

 

 

National Enquirer

For more info on the light rail situation, scroll down for Metro's news release:

 

 

As we've noted, the number of riders on the new Metro light rail system can be seen as either a train half-empty or half-full. There's no debate, however, on the idea that ridership should keep increasing.

But now, Valley Metro has cast doubt on light rail's ability to hit its goals with a stiff fare increase.

With the pall of summer's heat still a couple of months of away (we pray), the board that oversees public transportation in the Phoenix metro area has decided to raise the cost of an all-day pass from $2.50 to $3.50 -- starting July 1. One-way rides are going from $1.25 to $1.75. And if you buy an all-day pass on a bus, (they work on buses or the train), you'll have to shell out $5.25.

Light rail ridership went up slightly in February, driven by an apparent increase in the number of commuters using the 20-mile system.

The estimated daily average of boardings in February was 32,430, higher than January's estimate of 29,415. Helping the system out was about 5,000 extra riders each weekday, according to a Metro news release (see below for text).

The crowds on Saturdays were about the same, but holiday and Sunday ridership saw a few thousand less riders.

Some readers took us to task for pointing out in a previous post that January's ridership figures were still far below capacity. True, no light rail system in the country saw its light rail trains packed in the first few months. However, the initial ridership numbers speak volumes about the short-term need and popularity of light rail. As in, this thing is a $1.4 billion luxury for now, but may come in handy in the future.

The electric bill for the Metro light rail system is slightly different than yours, naturally.

For one thing, it's not just one bill -- it's about 125 separate bills. There are bills for each station, bills for the juice in the overhead lines that make the 90-foot-long, 50-ton rail cars move around, bills for the lights in the park-and-ride lots and bills for the system's operations center.

Metro officials say they're still sorting through all those bills and still don't know exactly what light rail's electricity costs were in January (much less February), but it's estimated to be about $237,500. New Times met last week with light rail spokeswoman Hillary Foose and the system's finance guy, John McCormack, following our February 19 blog post on the new system's first report on ridership.

The $1.4 billion light rail system began began rolling on December 27, 2008 and carried about 912,000 people in January, according to Metro's best guess.

Here's the breakdown of power cost estimates:

Sure, one way to look at it is that light-rail ridership "is off to a positive start," as a Valley Metro news release opines. Or, as the Arizona Republic put it this morning in a headline, "Rail ridership tops expectations."

That's the glass-half-full version of the story.

In fact, the "average weekday ridership" of nearly 31,000 people is about 60 percent of what the trains could carry.

True, it took people in other parts of the country a few years to warm up to their light-rail systems, but light rail seems nowhere near as popular as, say, the Loop 101 when it first opened up through Scottsdale. (The figures aren't handy, but it seems like that freeway blew through 60 percent capacity on the first day).

Another thing: Fare information is notably absent from Valley Metro's news release.

  Okay, it's not the 2:30 or 3 a.m. some of you were hoping for, but the light-rail trains will run overtime out of downtown Phoenix this weekend due to the 2009 NBA All-Star Game.

You can catch the trains from downtown as late as 1 a.m. tonight (yes, we know that's technically tomorrow, but you know what we mean), and Saturday and Sunday nights. And don't forget -- the park and ride lots will be free. (If you read yesterday's post about the DUI task force, the train option looks more attractive).

After Sunday, though, the trains will be back to their normal operating hours, in which trains make their last full trips starting at 11 p.m. -- barely enough time to finish a long happy hour.

A few citations have already been handed out to freeloaders trying to ride the light rail without paying the fare, says Valley Metro spokesman Hillary Foose. She expects to provide the number to media outlets next week.

"The number of people who have been fare-evading has been extremely minimal, and so have the number of citations," Foose tells New Times.

As previously reported in this blog, getting busted on a light rail train without a ticket can cost you $50 or more (though you'd be hard-pressed to merit the $500 fine reported as the penalty by some scare-mongerers in the news media).

We had had never seen anyone checking fare passes on several light-rail rides, and we pondered openly with other passengers about whether such checking ever really occurred.

Contrary to speculation in several media outlets, including ABC-15 News (KNXV) and the Arizona Republic, the driver of a bus that hit a light rail train yesterday did not have a green light, police said.

The Orbit bus driver received a citation today for running a red light at Lemon and Terrace streets in Tempe, writes Tempe police spokeswoman in a  news release. That seems to jibe with an account by a student quoted in the Arizona State University Web Devil, who alleged the driver was making a call at the time of the accident.

That's bad news for the driver, but good news for motorists who wondered -- after reading media reports of this collision -- whether to trust green lights near the light rail trains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four light rail cars will sport more color and flash after they're wrapped with ads promoting the NBA's upcoming 2009 All-Star game.

Look for media coverage of the trains on Monday, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon introduces the first ad-covered car at the Metro Operations and Maintenance facility at 2:30 p.m. and rides it into downtown.

The trains will remain wrapped till the All-Star Game, which is scheduled for February 15.