Phoenix
Phoenix is served by the METRO Light Rail system with a 20-mile starter segment connecting Phoenix with the cities of Tempe, and Mesa. A part of the Valley Metro public transit system, the initial segment of the system was completed in December 2008, after construction began in March 2005.
Commuter rail service had been absent in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area since the decommissioning of the Phoenix Street Railway in 1948. In 1989, the ValTrans elevated rail proposal, was turned down by voters in a referendum due to cost and feasibility concerns. Other subsequent initiatives during the 1990s failed over similar reasons.
METRO was created by the Transit 2000 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), which involved a 0.4 percent sales tax and was approved by voters in Phoenix in 2000. Transit 2000 aimed at improving the local bus service and the formation of bus rapid transit and light rail, among other things, which was seen as a more affordable approach. It used the route placing and color designations from the 1989 plan.
Read more about this topic: Light Rail In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word phoenix:
“A phoenix it is
This hearse that must bless
With aromatic gums
That cost great sums,
The way of thurification
To make a fumigation,
Sweet of reflare,
And redolent of air,”
—John Skelton (1460?–1529)
“Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do what’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“And there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and blemish with the elegance of his mind:
I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have their day.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)