Transit in the City

Hello everyone! As we move through this week's readings, and the required documentary on transportation, it seems that news events are conspiring to provide us a great deal of real world challenges to implementing and running a transit system.

As you watch this week's documentary, Blueprint America: The Next American System - The Road to the Future, I think it's an excellent exercise to consider where our community is on the continuum of municipalities that are described. Most people would say that we're very far removed from places like New York and Portland (both in distance and landscape, but also in our views on public transportation). Both cities have extensive infrastructure for public transportation, and have made a concerted effort to invest in their transit systems.

But how do we compare to a city like Denver, that isn't such a distant neighbor? Consider issues addressed of land use, urban sprawl, and the sort of "car-focused" policy development that cities adopted in the 1950s. Phoenix, in particular, went from having an actual trolley system between 1887 and 1948 to jumping completely on the automobile band wagon, promoting buses and individual car use through an expansion of street infrastructure. To get an idea of what Phoenix was like in those early days, check out the Phoenix Trolley Museum, which carries you through the early days of Phoenix transit to the latest success with light rail.

What is similar in each case, both for those cities covered in the documentary and the cities in the Valley, including Phoenix, are the vital role that municipalities play in providing public transportation. In fact, the majority of what we understand as the Valley Metro transit system did not exist l several municipalities went through the process of presenting their voters with sales tax proposals to fund public transit. In Phoenix, that proposal was Transit 2000, a 4/10ths of a cent sales tax intended to provide expanded local bus service; improved Dial-a-Ride service for people with disabilities; and a new kind of commuter service called RAPID, which used a streamlined system of highway-centered routes and park-and-rides to provide service. Of course now Phoenix, like many other cities, is facing the challenge of implementing transit service in a austere financial environment. Service cuts and efficiencies have been necessary as sales tax revenues continue to decline, and just what the Phoenix transit system will look like in the future is hard to say.

What you can be sure about is that transit service will continue to play an important role in the city's development, and the support of its residents.