First Ride on the Light Rail

Back in earnest now from my trip to -4 degree Flagstaff, I decided that today would be "Light Rail Day" for me.

Light rail is the big news now in Phoenix - all kinds of articles in the paper and lots of chatter about it from all of the local blogs I read. It's clearly created quite a stir.

I didn't want to miss out, so I jumped on at about 11AM or so this morning. Here are my observations:

• There were hordes of people on there today, two days after the official grand opening. In itself, this is a good thing.
• Probably about 10% of the people on Light Rail today were people I'd consider those who were actually using it for transit purposes, rather than just checking it out for the novelty of it. I'd consider myself in that 10%, since I'm a downtown denizen and because my seizure condition is preventing me from driving. (So you know where I'm coming from.)
• The biggest group coming from downtown north were businesspeople. It was around the lunch hour, so I'm not sure if they were on their way to lunch or just amusing themselves with a quick jaunt. These were not the typical bus riders - these were all well-dressed professionals, most who were on there when I got on, and most all of them got off at Central & Camelback.
• The next largest group I observed over the course of the trip there and back were families with children, all of whom were very excited about seeing the train. It was quite a lot of fun to be on their with them.
• Interestingly, the third largest contingent I met were retirees, most of whom seemed to be from Mesa, based on who I talked to. Many of them had parked in Mesa and took the train in to Phoenix, and some even got off the train to have lunch downtown. This group wanted to ride the whole way, as if it were some kind of amusement ride, and about half seemed to have mixed feelings about it. These retirees I heard talking about it were very well-informed about the light rail in general - where it goes, how much it costs to ride, the politics behind constructing it, the reasons why light rail is constructed in cities (what it is and isn't supposed to accomplish). These are people who are paying attention to urban design and what it means.
  
• Probably the best thing about being on the train was seeing how much people actually talked to each other. Greater Phoenix has a growing reputation as an unfriendly city - part of it is the heat, but my hypothesis is that the unfriendliness and disconnect has to do with the sprawl and poor urban planning. Light rail, whatever its flaws and problems, is a force for community. People were having conversations, interacting with each other- total strangers were able to find moments of connection. This is what we need for our city.
• Many, although not all of the stops, were labeled with both the street intersection and the name of the neighborhood they serve: Melrose District, Cultural District, Christown, Arts District, etc. I thought this was a nice touch, although not without controversy, I'm sure, as every organization wants the stop named after them. (As does one of the organizations I work for . . . If anyone cares Trinity Triangle works better than Cathedral Square, btw, but I'm happy to tell people to get off at the 'Arts District' stop. That makes us pretty cool, right?).
• I saw officers from the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration at at least two of the stops. There were also plenty of Valley Metro employees and lots of police around as well.
  

There were problems with riding today - there were massive crowds, especially at Christown Mall, where I went. Most of the people were simply riding all the way to the end of the line, starting from wherever they happened to hop on. Big Brother was there, of course, constantly on the loudpseaker, encouraging people to deboard at intermediate stops and "explore", then hop on the next train. Finally, a voice came on and asked everyone to get off at the downtown stop to make room for others.

Speaking of Big Brother, I tried to take my first ride last night up to Charlie's, a country-western gay bar near 7th Avenue and Camelback. I looked on the website and saw that the trains run until at least 11PM (you can and should do better, than this). So, I walked to the stop at Central and Roosevelt, which took 10 minutes. I didn't see any northbound trains go by, and I remembered that they were supposed to go every 20 minutes. So, I got to the stop, and waited for another 20 minutes. I thought, "Why is the train so late." After waiting another 10 minutes, I was getting a little irritated (and cold), when suddenly a loudspeaker computer-generated voice said, "Thank you for riding Light Rail! We will resume operation tomorrow at 4:40AM. Have a good evening."

And then, it said it again. And again, and again, and again.

I was a little puzzled, but after about the fourth time, I realized the message was saying that there weren't any more trains for the night and that I should just get up and leave. Curious that those messages to the whole platform stopped when I started to get up . . .

It was more than a little irritating to be sitting there waiting for a train that should have come, but when I called today, I was told by the Valley Metro representative that the weekend was the Grand Opening celebration and not the official start of trains running on a regular schedule. Fair enough- I'll try it again some other time.

I myself still have mixed feelings about light rail. I voted in favor of it when it was intially on the ballot many years ago. (That was before I was a Libertarian). My political principles say that I absolutely should not support light rail, but I absolutely will not be lumped in with these ridiculous right-wing people in our state governments who de-fund every public or social program they can find and instead spend their time making sure people can bring their guns into bars.

Local hard-right people who are disenchanted Republicans (and members of the national Libertarian Party) need to not go along with this piecemeal attack of bits and pieces of big government. Our state legislature proves that it's just pandering when it de-funds public services and programs its (usually wealthy and sometimes retired enclave-dweller) constituency doesn't approve of.

Where are these legislators when it comes to rolling back laws that take away our social freedoms? Or, what radical free-market solutions (private jitney services, eliminating the bus monopoly, ending favorable treatment for certain cab companies, etc) are they providing to offset the elimination of funding for mass transit? They don't do this, because they don't care. They instead perpetuate the stigma that public transit (which, in their minds, can only equal buses) is for poor people, who they don't represent anyway. They're happy, though, to pour in all kinds of money into freeways in the middle of the desert, which help line the pockets of all in the real-estate lobby and contribute to the terrible problems of traffic and sprawl we have here in this city. They allocate huge amounts of money to freeway projects, and then have the nerve to criticize light rail advocates for wanting to lay down "inflexible" track instead of flexible and changable bus service.

As many of you know, I am not a person who advocates for solutions that help put band-aids on problems; I don't support programs that poke another finger into the dike. I am an advocate for a complete reprogramming of our entire social and economic system into one of liberty in finance and choices.

If you are not going to join me in this, understand that dealing with the reality of what our country and society is now means that we must put resources - time and money - into public works like light rail, commuter rail, buses, green technologies, and ending the exploitation of people into a class of serfs (as one friend of mine puts it) through intentionally oppressive immigration policies. Shame on all of you for both your lack of principles and your lack of foresight.

... and get on the light rail and experience some genuine community.