From: "Friends of Transit NEWS" To: "Friends of Transit NEWS" Subject: Keep light-rail plan on track Date: Sunday, December 02, 2001 12:49 AM Keep light-rail plan on track money must be found for rider-friendly features Arizona Republic Editorial Dec. 01, 2001 Transportation projects have a way of jumping the budget tracks. So it's good news that transit officials in greater Phoenix are working to hold the line on the light-rail system. Especially in these recessionary times. Especially when local wish lists pushed the estimated cost of the 20.3-mile route to $1 billion, a big step up from the planned $879 million. Over the next few months, Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa will reconcile their vision of a light-rail system with the dollars available to build it. Ed Zuercher, Phoenix's new public transit director, compares the project to building your dream house. With a budget of, say, $150,000 you know roughly what you can buy. Once you start pricing out the details, though, you may have to go with Formica countertops instead of granite, or three bedrooms instead of four. Light rail is getting a similar reality check. But we should be wary of any changes that make it less pleasant and less convenient. The trains won't work if nobody wants to ride them. There's talk, for instance, of reducing the shaded area of stations to 50 percent of the space, instead of 60 percent. In Arizona, shade is a necessity, not a luxury. Cutting the scope of a project this large and this important requires caution and common sense. Two principles should guide the decisions: . The pruning should focus on parts of the rail system that can be reinstated most easily and quickly if money becomes available later on. It makes sense to reduce the length of station platforms, as transit officials propose, because they can be expanded later. But it would be counterproductive, as Zuercher points out, to delay ordering vehicles, because the lead time for getting them is three years. . The customer-friendly features, on which the success of the system hinges, should be preserved as much as possible. Those include aesthetics. Shrinking the money for public art may be necessary, but eliminating it would be a mistake. As the three cities weigh such questions as whether to consolidate park-and-ride lots or eliminate stations, it's important to hold the line on the budget. But it's penny wise and pound foolish to create a transit system that people don't want to use. http://www.arizonarepublic.com/opinions/articles/1201sat1-01.html