All Star Game comes to Phoenix: Take the Light Rail

by | Jul 14, 2010 | light rail corridor, News & Information

ANAHEIM, Calif. – In a dark tunnel deep in the innards of Angel Stadium, Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall passed a fellow baseball official a few hours before Tuesday’s All-Star Game. “So,” the official asked, “are you guys ready?” The Diamondbacks are on the clock. One year before the All-Star Game comes to Phoenix for the first time, a contingent of roughly 50 local officials, including a group of about 30 Diamondbacks employees, canvassed Anaheim the past several days. They toured the annual All-Star FanFest, a sprawling event that is a baseball fan’s fantasyland. They got a behind-the-scenes tour of the ballpark. And they shadowed their Anaheim counterparts to get a first-hand look at the event and to better anticipate the differences between a Southern California All-Star Game and one in the desert. The big difference: the heat. Some were griping about the weather in Anaheim on Tuesday, when temperatures climbed into the upper 80s – a far cry from Phoenix’s mid-July average high of 107. “We know they’re going to say it was hot,” Hall said about next year’s game. “How can we get fans to say, ‘Even though it was hot, it was a great All-Star Game’?” Read more:...

How is Business along the Light Rail?

by | Jul 14, 2010 | light rail corridor

                                At the eastern end of the light-rail line in Mesa, Omar Torres and Howard Gaebel sell hot dogs, snacks and drinks to passersby in the summer heat. Their business, a hot-dog stand called Metro Dog, owes its existence to the light-rail system. Torres and Gaebel brag that they sell their products to hundreds of customers a day, most are getting on and off the train. Metro Dog is an example of the positive impact the system had on local businesses, something its advocates at Valley Metro have talked up since the beginning of construction in 2005. Read more:...

Light Rail Construction still goes on…

by | Jul 10, 2010 | light rail corridor, light rail expansion, News & Information

Just when we heard for months and months how low the Phoenix city coffers are, there is still plenty of money to buy up and demolish homes, prepare utility relocation, all to prepare 19th Ave for the 3-mile light rail extension. The work will be completed between Butler Drive and Townley Avenue. The project is supposed to last 6 months, and will prepare the frontage roads for ongoing construction work. And in August, you will begin to see the installation of a Phoenix Arts Commission-funded gabion wall. It is scheduled in the Washington Park area north of Bethany Home Road. What is that, you ask? (so did I!). It is a wall that is made of stacked steel cages filled with fractured granite and will be 8 feet tall by 3 feet wide. You can be the first in your neighborhood to have one! Keep an eye out for it. -information courtesy of AZ...