by bryan | Oct 4, 2014 | Light Rail Business, light rail expansion
courtesy of Weldon B. Johnson, The Republic | azcentral.com September 10, 2014 Downtown Mesa merchants are suffering through short-term pain for what could be long-term gain. Main Street in downtown Mesa is torn up as the Valley Metro light-rail line expands to the east. As a result, it’s a little harder to get around, but businesses are making the best of the situation. “It hasn’t hurt our business that much,” said Julian Moraga of Gotham City Comics & Coffee. “Our regular customers have been coming and we’re still getting some new ones.” One of the big keys, Moraga said, is that there is still plenty of available parking behind most of the shops. “They have done a good job of promoting that,” Moraga said. “As long as people know there is parking, they will still come.” There are plenty of signs in the downtown area directing potential shoppers and diners to parking. Signs directing drivers to parking in downtown Mesa during Metro light rail expansion construction along Main Street.(Photo: Weldon B. Johnson/The Republic) Valley Metro has its own efforts to draw shoppers into the area affected by light-rail construction. Shop On, Win On is a Valley Metro promotion in which visitors to downtown Mesa can enter to win prizes, including dinners, gift certificates and a shopping spree. There are two prize drawings remaining, on Monday, Sept. 15, and Tuesday, Sept. 30. To enter, shoppers can post pictures from local businesses on Metro’s Facebook or Twitter pages. They also can enter through raffle boxes at Downtown Rendezvous (20 E. Main St.) and Republica Empanada (204 E. First Ave.). Information:facebook.com/valleymetro. New...
by bryan | Sep 27, 2013 | light rail corridor, light rail expansion
[By Gary Nelson | The Republic | azcentral.com | Tue Aug 6, 2013] Gas station near light rail called a bad fit Six years ago, after numerous public meetings and untold hours of work, Mesa adopted an award-winning plan to guide development along the west end of its light-rail corridor. Accepted by the City Council by December 2007, the West Main Street Plan aims to ensure that construction will be compatible with urban mass transit. The prescription included a long list of uses to be prohibited near future rail stations, including auto-centric businesses, such as gas stations. Now, however, a gas station is being built near the corner of Alma SchoolRoad and Main Street, within shouting distance of a future light-rail station. Mesa resident David Crummey has been peppering City Hall with protests — to no avail, since last September’s approval by the Planning and Zoning Board for the station’s site plan and use permit was all the permission needed. A subsequent meeting of the Design Review Board evoked promises of extra architectural flourishes, but that board couldn’t veto the overall idea. Crummey prepared a slide show outlining his objections to the gas station, which is tied to a Fry’s supermarket. He e-mailed the presentation to members of the City Council and met this month with members of Mesa’s planning staff to plead his case. “Recently, I noticed new construction at the corner of Alma School and Main,” Crummy said in his presentation. “Thinking it was light-rail-related, I investigated. I found that the new construction was a gas station — a land use that I knew was prohibited near light-rail...
by bryan | Sep 27, 2013 | light rail expansion, Mesa City
[By Gary Nelson The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Sep 27, 2013] Amid city challenges, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith’s stature grows The Mesa that Scott Smith views from the expanse of windows in his seventh-floor downtown office is not the same one that existed when he moved in five years ago. The town has been through a lot. City Hall itself was battered by an epic budget crisis that blew some departments to smithereens, cost hundreds of public jobs and yet sparked creative surges that led to new ways of delivering government services. Out on the streets, a tsunami of foreclosures drove some neighborhoods to their knees. Unemployment soared. Bitter debates over immigration poisoned the well of public amity. For a time, it appears, Mesa stopped growing altogether and may even have lost population during the worst economic downturn since President Herbert Hoover. Yet for all that, if the mayor’s windows could offer 360-degree views, they would reveal stunning transformations from one end of the sprawling city to the other. In the southeast, a growing passenger airport surrounded by boundless square miles ripe for development, some of which has begun. In the northwest, a new Chicago Cubs complex and city park to open late this year as one of the top tourist draws in the Valley. In the heart of the city, light-rail construction accompanied by three new housing projects and the arrival of several branch campuses of old-line Eastern and Midwestern liberal-arts colleges. In all parts of town, park projects either planned or ongoing as a result of a citizen-led community brainstorming effort, as well as other new...
by bryan | Oct 4, 2012 | light rail expansion
Courtesy of AZCentral.com Nothing is in concrete yet, but Mesa is beginning to get a clearer picture of the possible timing and costs for what seems an ever-more-likely extension of light rail to Gilbert Road. About 50 people got up to speed on the project during a meeting Tuesday night at Mesa Church of Christ, just a block south of where the future tracks would transform the intersection of Main Street and Stapley Drive. Work already has begun on 3.1 miles of new track from the Sycamore Street station to just west of Horne Street; service on that leg is expected to begin in late 2015. The extension to Gilbert Road would be another 1.7 miles. Howard Steere, community relations manager for Metro light rail, said the agency would like to begin building the next extension the minute it wraps up work on the first. “We’re going to work hard to make that happen,” he said, “but that’s a very aggressive schedule to try to accomplish.” Much depends on funding. Jodi Sorrell, Mesa’s acting transit director, said the City Council is expected to begin looking at the money issue late this year. “It could be kind of complicated,” Sorrell said. Marc Soronson, project manager for the Gilbert Road extension, said light rail is currently costing $60 million to $80 million a mile. The Gilbert Road extension will be on the low end of that range, he said, if planners decide to restrict vehicular traffic to one lane in each direction. If Main Street must be widened to accommodate not only the tracks but four lanes of traffic, Soronson said...
by bryan | Oct 4, 2012 | light rail expansion
Courtesy of Metro Light Rail PHOENIX, AZ — Construction of light rail is back on the move in Phoenix, AZ with the re-launch of the Northwest extension along 19th Avenue from the current end-of-line north 3.2 miles to Dunlap Avenue. The project has received approval to accelerate the completion year from 2023 to 2016. Final design is underway; construction will begin in early 2013. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton says many in the city have been looking forward to the project beginning again, “Speaking on behalf of the residents and passengers, I know there is much anticipation to add light rail service to the highly-used bus service along this route. This project is an investment in the community I believe in and will prove to be a great benefit with its completion.” The Northwest extension was initially set to open this year; however, in 2009, the economic downturn and decline in local sales tax revenue forced the project on hold. With its postponement, the project was pushed out to a 2023 completion year. The positive strides in the economy, expected boost from the building of this extension and local willpower have helped to advance it by seven years. This project is one of six high-capacity/light rail extensions being planned for or in active construction in the metro Phoenix region. It will extend rail service farther north into Phoenix, capturing new riders, serving high-density neighborhoods and getting closer to the Interstate 17 freeway and its employment centers. “It’s an exciting time as we further expand into Phoenix, providing our customers with greater access to transit and choice in how they travel,”...
by bryan | May 30, 2012 | light rail expansion
courtesy of Sean Holstege The Republic | azcentral.com Valley Metro is set to break ground today on the first light-rail expansion, a 3.1-mile stretch into downtown Mesa that city leaders hope will bring a sorely needed economic boost. The $200 million extension is expected to attract thousands more East Valley riders daily and potentially nurture new development along the line. Mesa’s hopes reflect a broader optimism among Valley transit planners. After delaying and scaling back projects during the recession, they see new signs of life for efforts to build out the system. “I’m encouraged right now. We were concerned because of the economy, and we had to slow down the program. But now, we may have three active projects under construction within a year,” said Wulf Grote, Metro planning director. The other two are a Tempe streetcar line and a northwest Phoenix light-rail extension. Two years ago, regional planners scaled back and postponed light-rail and freeway projects because the main source of funding, a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax approved by voters in 2004, was bringing in far less revenue than anticipated. Two light-rail lines in northeast and northwest Phoenix were deferred indefinitely. Now, with the economy picking up, the Maricopa Association of Governments last week moved up the starting date for the northwest extension. The Mesa project is ahead of schedule by months and could be open in a little more than three years. By 2016, it’s possible that the light-rail system will extend from 19th and Dunlap avenues in northwest Phoenix to downtown Mesa, a distance of 26 miles. It also would have a connection to the Sky Train people-mover...
