Mesa Legend - News - Light rail on schedule; construction disrupts traffic

Light rail on schedule; construction disrupts traffic
Kimberly Meurer
Mesa Legend
The first phase of the Light Rail Transit Project will run through Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa, and provide a choice of alternative transportation for Valley residents.
Light rail is scheduled to be completed by December 2008.

“The idea is to provide people with options,” said Steven Bass, a geography professor and leader of the Green Group, an environmental club at Mesa Community College. “We have now reached a point where freeways are backed up and they can’t be widened faster than the population growth.”

Light rail will be powered by electricity from overhead wires and run on a track in the middle of the street.

The tracks will begin at 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road through 13.34 miles of Phoenix, 5.5 miles of Tempe and end at Main Street.

According to Maurice Light, the transportation planner for the city of Mesa, the project will improve residents’ access to Arizona State University’s Main and Downtown campuses, Gateway Community College, East Valley Institute of Technology and the downtown area of Phoenix.

“The rail is likely to be popular,” Bass said.

But he sees areas such as MCC, Fiesta Mall and Banner Desert Hospital as important areas that won’t be accessed. Mesa will have to continue to be reliant on busses for public transportation.

Many students at MCC feel the light rail should go to the Southern and Dobson campus because it is a large institution and site that is visited frequently by Valley residents.

If something as big as a Light Rail is going to be constructed, why is it not going to MCC, said Derek Tucker, an MCC student.

According to Light Rail, expansion is part of conversation.

Proposition 400, extending the half-cent county transportation tax passed in 1985 for 20 additional years in order to improve freeways and public transit, was passed in 2004 by nearly 58 percent of the votes, according to the Maricopa County recorder’s office.

Transit improvements under proposition 400 will include the initial rail service as well as extensions in the future.

Mesa’s contribution to the Light Rail Transit Project will be about $22.5 million to the total of $1.4 billion, Light said. Any local contributions from the cities are matched by a federal grant.

MCC Student Theron Bartlett predicts the light rail will initially have a negative impact on businesses.

“The rail’s fine with me as long as it stays away from where I live. Anything near the construction will go bankrupt, and think about the cars and traffic congestion,” Bartlett said.

Light Rail says investment will stir up interest in real estate and business as well as increase tax revenue for Mesa. He said this will allow the city to fund citywide services.

A portion of the starter segment will be used for testing of the operation of the light rail vehicles and track. Tests required by law will be conducted in late 2007.
“People will have a way to go, either rail or bus,” said Marty Macurak, the communications manager for Valley Metro. “It will be perfectly in sync.”

Valley Metro plans to synchronize the schedules of the busses and the light rail so that people may travel to a location the light rail does not go to with ease, Macurak said.

The light rail vehicles will be able to carry 150 passengers and will have a length of 90 feet. These vehicles can be joined together to make a three-car train with the capacity of 450 passengers.

Light Rail will travel at the same speed limits posted for street traffic and will have accommodations for handicapped travelers as well as bicyclists.

A handicapped person may wheel into a light rail vehicle just as easily as easy as other passengers walk on board due to the way the entrances are so close to the ground, Macurack said.

Bass said he is looking forward to the park-and-ride locations that will be at of the light rail stations. Similar to current park-and-ride lots near Valley communities, Phoenix workers may park their vehicles in a parking lot and use the light rail to travel into the city.

There will still be commuters who would rather travel in their own car because they have control over their own comfort, Bass said.

Valley Metro estimates 26,000 people will use the light rail each day during the first year and the amount will increase to about 50,000 people each day by 2020.