About this time of year, Canadian sunbirds fly south to Phoenix. So we will too, and once on the ground will take a ride on Phoenix transit.
Yes, Phoenix has a train – a 32-km (20-mile) light rail line that started service in 2008.
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It goes through some of the densest parts of the region: the university district in Tempe, through downtown, up Central Avenue.
Well, dense by Phoenix standards.
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The problem is that everything in Phoenix is separated: usually by parking lots or empty lots. The waste of land, by our standards, is boggling. At least there is a abundant opportunity for transit-oriented development – but not a lot of evidence that it’s happening. Yet.
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The landscape of this desert city is relentless: the sun, the simplicity, the sense of the temporary. Almost nothing seems built to last. So just to make the point – relentlessly – here, after the break, are 20 images taken from one end of the line and back, on an October afternoon in 2012.
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And yet, the line is considered a success:
Phoenix City Hall’s ambitions to expand light-rail service are no longer confined to building new lines. On Wednesday, the City Council is expected to approve spending $120,000 to find out whether two new stations on the existing 20-mile line would work. …
Calls for new stations also come amid the growing popularity of the light-rail system. On an average weekday, Metro light rail carries close to 50,000 people, a number that had not been projected to be reached until the end of the next decade.
In addition to increasing access, the added stations may drive development. The proposed 16th Street location is attracting interest for an apartment complex, said Phoenix light-rail project manager Albert Santana …
Already, transit experts, including Metro planners and managers, concede that the system’s 28 stations are more than the ideal number. Light-rail systems around the country work best with stations every half-mile to mile. On average, Metro meets that standard, but in downtown and midtown Phoenix, stations are closer and the trip is slow.
Neighborhood activists such as Sean Sweat have called the study a “waste of money” because new stations would make the trip between downtown Phoenix and Tempe “slower than it already is.”
Read more here.
Gordon, thanks for ythe good reporting and I always appreciate your perspective on the urban environment. However, you have selectively picked images – probably intentionally – that illustrate the point about PHX being a TOD wasteland! That fact can’t be understated! However, there are also some really nice developments related to the light rail system, which even a slight turn of the camera – in the case of the PHX Art Museum photo – would reveal. And the new mixed use project at the 3rd and Mill station in Downtown Tempe – it doesn’t get much better than this…walk off the train and into a coffee shop!
Gord – since “Psycho” is again in the news due to the Hitchcock film out now – Helen Mirren is great as Alma, btw – you might find the opening shots of the original film quite interesting in terms of the built form of Phoenix c. 1960, as the camera pans slowly from the then downtown skyline (3-4 storeys, mostly brick) through the hotel window to the bedroom scene with Janet Leigh (yowsa!) and her beau. The technical feat of this continuous and seamless pan from bright sunlight to darkish interior is still quite amazing to film buffs like me.
If that was indeed Phoenix back in the day, it had an urban fabric not unlike most small to medium sized towns of the era. Maybe even sreetcar-oriented (?). Somehow that all got lost in the onrush of motordom and surburban sprawl that characerizes the unfortunate excuse for a city that it is today.
As it is my bounden duty to be sour about light rail in the US and Canada, I would like to point out that Phoenix’s LRT line only has 42,000 weekday boardings as per the latest APTA ridership report. This is in a city with a metro population of over 4 million versus Vancouver’s metro population of 2.5 million. Useful to remember that American transit agencies define success down. Way down.
I also tried to discern the operating cost coverage from the fare revenue from the agency’s budget materials. Hopeless. First, they seem to be creating many of their pdf’s by printing and scanning. Never trust anyone who creates pdf’s by printing and scanning. It is a very bad sign. Second, I couldn’t even download the latest ones properly. And third, the budget does not even seem to break out fare revenue separately.
I also ventured forth into the agency’s annual financial reports. I did find a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada, but the rest is drivel. To wit:
“Of the $52.4 million total fund balance, the Authority has restricted $0.8 million for compensated absences and the remainder is in unassigned fund balance in the General Fund (see Note 5 – page 42). Unassigned fund balance may serve as a useful indicator of a government’s net resources available for spending at the end of the year. Of the $52.4 million fund balance, $52.2 million is reported in the General Fund which includes $47.6 million of Public Transportation Funds.”
[Please google “sarcastic comment” and insert results here.]
This goes on for pages. I defy anyone to derive even the merest semblance of utility from this drek. There are some farebox revenue figures, $23.5 million, but not broken down by mode, and there is also some farebox recovery ratio numbers, 25%, but broken out by municipality and not by mode.
For the masochists among you:
http://www.valleymetro.org/valleymetro/annual_financial_report
http://www.valleymetro.org/valleymetro/operating_and_capital_budget
This leads to another salient question: why is public financial reporting generally so awful? The Valley Metro reports focus on the assets and liabilities of the agency. Valuing assets for balance sheet purposes in for-profit corporations is difficult enough as it is, but it is next to useless for public bodies. Public bodies do have some certain liabilities, but really the only asset of significance is the ability of the economy to generate tax revenue. Giving an asset value to various bits of infrastructure and even to things like a transportation demand management program is hopeless. A proper financial analysis for them is to evaluate the money in versus the benefit out. The Valley Metro reports also harp on the particular accounts that money moved around in. I’m sure that is important to them, but no one else cares. What is important to actual people is how much things like the light rail program costs to build and to operate on a yearly basis, and what the net benefit (or deficit) of the program is. I have tried to find equivalent information about Skytrain from Translink, and although Translink’s reports are less awful, I could not.
Regarding TOD – if the line opened in 2008 – that would have been about the time of the stock market crash – and the US economy hasn’t really recovered fully – so it should’t be surprising that no one is building massive TOD condo complexes along the line.
This seems to be a big problem with surface LRT and buses. The stops are inexpensive so too many are built slowing travel, increasing costs, reducing ridership and decreasing revenue. This is especially problematic for rail as it accelerates and stops more slowly than rubber tired buses.
It ends up not being rapid transit any more.
The marginal stops end up getting few riders and compete with nearby stops for riders. A better option would be to improve pedestrian connections, add pedestrian signals and improve the pedestrian environment to decrease walking time and distances to the existing stations. Improved bike connections as well.
People like to walk if the environment is pleasant and safe. For rapid transit like SkyTrain and Calgary’s LRT, people are walking an average of 1km to get to some of the stations.
Another desert city, Palm Springs in CA state, with only 110,000 souls, maybe 200,000 in the 6 desert communities together, has more going on in its central area. Walkability doesn’t just happen. Some planning may be required.
Wanting stops and stations to be expensive, so there will be fewer of them, says something about transit planning in North America.
It is the planning that needs to be improved, we don’t need hugely expensive technology to force reasonable stop spacing. Maybe what this line really needs is decent local bus service on the same route?
I’m thoroughly surprised at ridership exceeding 50000, considering the C. Line ALRT gets 100,000 a day and is packed, 50,000 is exceptional for a LRT, amazing for one that goes in Pheonix, the heart of suburbia. But then again, it is 32 km (C, Line is , but we can only compare Pheonix and its density to maybe,,, Surrey…? Pheonix, really, even in densest downtown, a wasteland of heat, concrete, and dry air with parking lots everywhere, other than disability, there is almost no reason for one to use transit, Yet Transit prevails again.
This post is nothing more than creative cherry-picking of photos selected to denigrate Phoenix. I could just as easily post an equal number of photos showing new apartment buildings under construction, lively festivals and civic events, and unique local businesses — all within walking distance of Phoenix’s highly successful light rail line.
For those who think these photos denigrate Phoenix, take a good look at the city on google earth to get the big picture and the detail. It shows, quite clearly, the astounding waste of land that Gord mentions.
Even better, I live in Phoenix and I see every day how utterly one-sided this post is.
Just agreeing with Guest. Opened in 2008 is too early to say anything about its impacts on development.
There is undoubtedly a lot of waste of land in Phoenix. And it is a city with a downtown that is slowly being completely rebuilt. Which has slowed considerably since the housing crash and subsequent crash in Phoenix’s construction market. Phoenix was one of the hardest hit cities in American by this crash. It is also a city with a split downtown, and with a lot of density in the college district, away from downtown. And the city is grossly spread out.
However, that doesn’t mean that these shots are not cherry picked. The one of the Phoenix Art museum especially. I am in that neighborhood every week. Tilt the camera a bit and actually show the art museum instead of zooming in on the sign, maybe? I also know there is a huge church which backs right up against the museum on its other side.
One of those photos is a high school. A high school with 2400 students attending, which has been there since the 50s. One is Arizona State University. Yeah, there is a parking lot at a university. Shocking and unheard of, I’m sure. One is a freeway interchange from over the lake. Are you complaining that there is no building over the lake?
The one showing the Jefferson St. sign is very deceptive. That section of the rail is one of the most needed in the city. If I’m not mistaken, the building in front of you is the Phoenix Convention Center? No? If not, if you turn the camera in the opposite direction you would see the baseball stadium where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, which is literally on the other side of the street. Are you implying there is no need of a rail system which borders a baseball stadium, basketball arena, convention center, concert arena, science museum, Symphony Hall and the city/state government buildings? Because those are all in the area within about 10 blocks from this photo.
I have been performing with the Symphony for 8 years and I regularly attend baseball games. This rail system has made traffic in that downtown area unbelievably better. The rail line is packed the days of games and concerts. Unfortunately, I live on the west side of town, and the rail system runs east from downtown. I would absolutely be taking it if it ran within even 5 miles of my apartment. I sincerely hope they expand the line to the west side within a few years.
I don’t think the argument was ever that light rail wasn’t needed. It’s a ridership success, that is obvious. The argument is purely that the built form is lagging. A stadium, for instance, is hardly an example of perfect built form even if it is useful to have transit there when games are happening, but what about the rest of the time? A parking lot next to a stadium is still a waste of land, even if the station gets use on game nights.