Phoenix 'peer' cities guide Prop.104 light-rail expansion

• Phoenix has the newest light-rail line of peer cities determined by Valley Metro
• Light-rail expansion in places like Denver and Dallas have formed robust systems
• Taxpayers chose to fund — and continue to fund — the systems

Navigate San Diego without a car and a $2.50 trolley ride will take you from downtown to a Chargers game, Old Town or the U.S.-Mexico border.

A few more dollars in Dallas buys a day pass for 90 miles of rail with stations in eight cities. A ticket in Houston gets you to the Museum District while a Sacramento line runs to the California State Capitol.

Robust light-rail systems in these car-dependent cities all started with a vision and a vote — and have since required more of each. Taxpayers took a chance funding infrastructure sold by region leaders as a way to redefine transit in sprawling metro areas and have for years supported systems that still are expanding.

How does Phoenix compare? Scroll down to see our infographic.

In Phoenix, light rail is still in its youth. It’s the newest system among those in peer cities that launched as starter lines but have grown in size, scope and service. These peer cities offer insight into the challenges and potential benefits of adding more tracks here.

The Valley’s 20.3 miles of rail opened through Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa in 2008 and still operate along a single corridor. It’s one of the shortest and most limited systems of comparable cities, including Dallas, Denver, Houston, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and San Diego.

Valley Metro looks to these cities to see how they approach their systems, and to compare key measures of transit performance.

Proposition 104 could be Phoenix’s catalyst for the type of expansion seen elsewhere. The city transportation plan going to voters this month would commit billions of dollars to triple the miles in the system through an extended and increased sales tax.

Potential new routes would take riders beyond the city center, as has happened in peer metro areas. Some would connect along congested corridors while others would reach educational destinations. Several are planned as a revitalization tool for struggling neighborhoods.

Light rail is the most controversial part of the $31.5 billion, 35-year proposal that also includes bus and street improvements. Proponents promote expanding light rail to stimulate the economy and spur urban development while opponents say an already expensive system will only become less efficient.

Disputes over light rail aren’t unique to Phoenix, said Kyle Shelton, a transportation historian and postdoctoral fellow at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research in Houston. And like in Phoenix, most fights come down to politicians and advocates who champion visions of transformation and skeptics who ask what it will cost.

Where light-rail expansion wins, long-term projects don’t always go as planned. Cars still reign supreme in many cities that have invested in transit for decades.

But for growing metro areas, the system can anchor an idea of what the city could become, Shelton said.

“The highway-only approach is just outdated,” he said. “That’s not the world that anyone wants.”

Residents in many of Phoenix’s peer cities supported long-term visions for their light-rail systems years before voters here first approved the infrastructure.

Building light rail is a trend among “Sun Belt” cities in the West looking for transit options less expensive than the heavy rail seen in older metro areas, Shelton said. Early adopters focused on moving suburbanites into the city, he said, but in the past few decades planners have broadened the focus to entire metro regions.

Among comparable cities, San Diego was first, opening its regional light-rail line in 1981 — nearly three decades before the Valley. The shift to a regional transit agency from a solo-city enterprise several years prior sparked a system that now has stations in 10 cities.

The original 15.9-mile line runs from downtown San Diego south to the international border. Three lines reach business and tourist destinations as well as suburban communities.

Sacramento was the next to open, in 1987. Denver, Dallas and Salt Lake City soon followed in the 1990s. Light rail was promoted by leaders in all places as a way to prepare the metro areas for growth.

Downtowns are now connected to outlying areas, with many of the new lines spidering from the central city.

Houston’s light-rail starter line that opened in 2004 is the most similar to the Phoenix system. For about a decade, a heavily-traveled single line ran through downtown and major employment and entertainment destinations. Two new lines that opened in May now run through neighborhoods primed for revitalization.

The Valley’s current route is especially focused on serving educational institutions and large-scale events, Valley Metro spokeswoman Susan Tierney said. The line connects two Arizona State University campuses, several downtowns and major sporting and entertainment complexes.

New routes would incorporate elements seen in peer city expansions, though the Prop. 104 plan does not include routes in the larger metro area outside of Phoenix. Few would connect to downtown, instead extending from other areas along the line to reach a larger swath of the city.

The focus is on sustainable and responsible growth, MovePHX co-chair and City Councilwoman Kate Gallego said at a recent presentation. Corridors also were selected to attract the new jobs and development seen along the current light-rail line.

“We’d like to bring that prosperity and benefit throughout the city,” she said.

As in Phoenix, taxpayers in peer metro areas are asked to support their light-rail systems with dedicated funding.

Many pay more than residents here for all types of transit — about 57 cents on a $100 purchase in Phoenix, including a city tax and a portion of a county tax.

The revenue helped fund a $1.4 billion light-rail starter line across three cities. Nearly two-thirds of those miles are in Phoenix, with extensions underway in central Mesa and along 19th Avenue.

San Diego County voters first approved a half-penny sales tax for transportation in 1988 and renewed it for 40 years in 2004. The creation of Houston’s regional agency came with a 1 percent sales tax for transit in 1978 that has been paid ever since.

In the Denver area, residents approved the Regional Transportation District FasTracks plan in 2004 to expand transit, including 122 miles of new light and commuter rail to add to the existing system. Voters raised the transit sales tax to 1 percent, with the 0.4 percent increase going to the program. Projects are now scheduled through 2044.

Campaigns in cities like San Diego and Denver mirrored the fight in Phoenix, with opposition groups outfunded by big businesses and organizations supporting the tax. Transit leaders in both cities point to having promoted transportation options for a wide variety of people as a factor in winning the elections.

The Dallas area has invested about $5.2 billion to open 90 miles of rail since the 1990s and now has the nation’s largest system, according to Dallas Area Rapid Transit. Thirteen member cities have for decades each paid a 1 percent sales tax for regional transit.

In 2000, voters there approved a measure to allow the agency to issue more than $2.9 billion in long-term debt to expedite light-rail construction — a cap that has since been increased. System miles have doubled since 2009.

Gaining support for expanding light rail is easier once a starter line is on the ground, said Morgan Lyons, spokesman for the Dallas agency. The key for leaders in cities like Phoenix is to have a plan and stick to it, he said.

“We really didn’t look back,” Lyons said.

Valley Metro uses Phoenix’s peer cities to compare light-rail performance indicators such as cost and boardings.

So far, the Valley’s light-rail system performs better than many in comparable areas, according to some indicators of productivity.

Overall, the line logged 14.3 million passenger trips in the 2012 fiscal year, according to the National Transit Database. The total is below the peer average of 20.5 million trips for mostly larger systems.

But the Valley’s light rail ranked second among peer cities in boardings per mile, meaning the route is well traveled. It was beat only by Houston’s red line — one of the nation’s busiest — running through that city’s tourist and employment destinations, according to the 2012 National Transit Database.

The average subsidy per boarding — the difference between what the system costs to operate and how much is raised through fares — in Phoenix in 2012 also was lower than comparable cities, at $1.11 per trip. The San Diego system had the smallest subsidy at $0.86, while Dallas’ reached $4.28.

Frequent special events near trolley stations and a bus system that feeds into the light-rail lines has helped San Diego build its ridership, said Rob Schupp, spokesman for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. The popularity of the original line running to the border is the backbone of the trolley system, he said.

“These are people that really depend on our system to get them to and from work,” Schupp said.

New Phoenix lines aim to increase the number of student riders by connecting to Grand Canyon University and ASU’s West campus. City leaders expect jobs and companies to relocate along new corridors.

But additional lines don’t always improve ridership statistics.

The Dallas-area system, for example, recorded 27.7 million passenger trips in the 2012 fiscal year — less than twice the number of Phoenix’s boardings, despite having more than four times as many light-rail miles.

Downtown Dallas remains the busiest corridor of a system that also reaches numerous surrounding cities, Lyons said. Plenty of trains are full during rush hour, he said, but building ridership in low-density areas remains a challenge.

“We’re still learning it,” Lyons said. “Phoenix is very similar in that regard.”

Transit leaders, though, say the long-term investments in light rail are more than transactional — they’re transformational.

In Dallas, a system designed to prepare the metro area for rapid growth has also netted economic gains and neighborhood revitalization, Lyons said.

A 2014 University of North Texas study cited $5.3 billion in private investment in transit-oriented development built, under construction or planned near DART light-rail stations since 1996.

Areas of town that once were unattractive for development are being rejuvenated, Lyons said. Results range from attracting basic services like grocery stores to the construction of massive mixed-use developments and the adaptive reuse of old buildings.

Valley Metro promotes a similar experience in Phoenix, recently citing about $6 billion in all private projects along the line since construction began a decade ago. That figure includes non-transit-oriented development.

Houston also has seen significant redevelopment downtown, said Clint Harbert with the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. The Sacramento Regional Transit District is anticipating completion of a new downtown stadium for the Sacramento Kings basketball team near the light-rail line.

Like in Phoenix, light rail is one of several initiatives used to shape development of cities.

The San Diego Association of Governments, for example, offers grant funding for “Smart Growth” projects that increase transit use and walkability. Public agencies aim to increase transit-oriented development near the trolley lines.

In Houston, the city is investing in downtown parks as well as adding bike paths along bayous. The regional transit agency is also launching a new bus network this week to improve the connections between bus and rail, Harbert said.

“That’s really what drives the ridership,” he said.

But continued investments don’t mean the projects are always popular.

Some argue that light rail in these cities is unnecessary to increase transit use or spur development. At worst, they say, the projects can do harm to existing infrastructure.

Federal funding rewards proposals for “wildly expensive systems,” but leaves cities to subsidize the operations for years, said Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and opponent of the Phoenix plan. Bus systems in cities with rail have suffered, he said, and rail projects don’t always deliver as planned.

In peer cities, realities have changed in the years — or decades — between when a proposal is approved and projects reach the ground. Agencies cited similar difficulties as Phoenix in completing plans on time during recessions in the past decade.

In Houston, plans for one light-rail line were suspended and another was changed into a bus rapid corridor, Shelton said, since a master plan was approved in the early 2000s. The Denver-area FasTracks program faces cost overruns, with its website now saying a finite budget is “a challenge to identify.”

And Salt Lake County is considering an increased sales tax specifically for bus service, after routes took a hit with the construction of light rail, according to one official with the council.

A portion of a 0.25 percent transportation tax increase to be considered by county voters in November would go to extended hours, frequency and other improvements, said Bart Barker, senior policy adviser to Salt Lake County Council Chairman Richard Snelgrove.

“The whole bus system now feeds the train system,” he said.

For many cities, it’s too early to know the full effect of their light-rail systems on the metro area.

Some are in the midst of decades-long master plans. Others are still seeing the changes.

Houston is only now seeing booming development along a downtown line that opened more than a decade ago, Shelton said. New lines running through underserved neighborhoods will continue to raise discussions about what revitalization means and who is affected.

“Those are questions Houston will still be grappling with for the next few years,” Shelton said.

After several decades, maintaining a system requires not only providing dependable service but re-envisioning who its users can be, Schupp said.

San Diego recently invested $660 million to upgrade its original infrastructure. But the region is also planning an extension that might attract more choice riders — or people who don’t depend on transit to travel.

It’s a slow paradigm shift for cities like Phoenix and San Diego that developed around the car, Schupp said.

“I’ve seen us grow up,” he said. “We’re just now at the cusp of where transit is important to people.”