Posted Feb 18, 2022, 8:37 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2015
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https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...streetcar.html
Quote:
Some long-awaited Valley transit projects are nearing fruition, as testing has begun on the Tempe Streetcar passenger service while Valley Metro awaits the delivery of the final car.
“Construction on the streetcar has been finished for a few months,” Scott Smith, CEO of Valley Metro, the region's transit authority, said. “The manufacturer of the cars is based in Pennsylvania, but even with a U.S. supplier, there are still supply chain issues. The pandemic wreaked havoc on the plant and delayed the delivery of the cars.”
The fifth car out of six total was delivered in the past couple of weeks, so only one car remains to be delivered. Smith said Valley Metro is in the process of “burn in” for the cars that have been delivered, running them on the tracks and giving the operators practice. The process goes for about three months and Smith said Valley Metro expects to begin service late this spring.
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Quote:
Light rail extension
By the time downtown Phoenix will be hosting Super Bowl festivities this time next year, most of the “rough cut” construction of the downtown light rail hub and portion of the South Central extension in downtown will be completed, Smith said.
The project is about 40% completed now, and once it hits 50%, most of the utility work will be finished, with the next steps being laying down track, which will be less disruptive to the downtown area, Smith said. The South Central extension, which runs south on Central Avenue to Baseline Road, is on schedule to be completed in 2024.
The Northwest extension of the light rail, which will end at the former Metrocenter Mall, is about 34% complete, but Smith said most of the very complex portions of the construction on that section were front-loaded.
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Valley Metro has several projects in various stages of planning.
The organization is working on preliminary design of an east and west extension that would bring light rail west on Jefferson Street to 19th Avenue, loop around the State Capitol and then head east on Jefferson Street. Smith said a timeline for that extension is likely around 2026. The extension is not necessarily dependent on an extension of Prop 400, but Smith said local funding has not yet been established, though Valley Metro could possibly get a larger share of the project funded by federal money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Grants from the federal government are all competitive and require a local match, Smith said, so identifying local funding sources is key to securing federal money.
A longer-term plan for light rail includes a western extension along Interstate 10, which could possibly lead to Desert Sky Mall. That extension is a much larger scale project than the Capitol extension, but Smith said it could be accelerated by money from the Infrastructure Bill.
The height of the Covid-19 pandemic caused ridership on Valley Metro to drop about 60%, and while it has increased since then, ridership is still down about 45%, Smith said.
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The street cars are being tested on the actual street car tracks now, including in traffic, so they seem to be close.
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