Valley Metro (Phoenix) - History

History

The main Phoenix article contains background information regarding transportation in the city in general, and historical information about public transport is found in the article for Phoenix, Arizona, public transport.

The RPTA was formed in 1985 as the result of Phoenix-area voters approving a one-half percent sales tax increase for expansion of the local freeway system, and for expansion of mass transit. The RPTA was then chartered under the laws of the state of Arizona. At the time, almost all transit service in the Phoenix area was operated by Phoenix Transit System, with a few other bus services such as in Mesa (Mesa Sunrunner) and Scottsdale (Scottsdale Connection) having started around 1990. Valley Metro, as an integrated regional transit service, did not begin operations under its own brand identity until 1993, when the RPTA board of directors chose that name, the logo and color scheme as described below. At this time, Phoenix Transit System and Mesa Sunrunner were rebranded as Valley Metro, and several new routes operating under the RPTA were started.

Prior to the formation of the RPTA, the bus route structure of Phoenix Transit System was quite different, both in terms of numbering and routes. Previously, the bus system was based on a "hub-and-spoke" structure with most routes starting from downtown Phoenix. These routes were split in half by Central Avenue, which most routes used to access downtown Phoenix. For example, the western half of Van Buren Street was served by route 3W, and the eastern half of Van Buren Street was served by route 3E. Most bus routes inherited a seemingly arbitrary, but chronologically assigned, system from their Phoenix Street Railway heritage (for example, route 0-Central was originally numbered route 5). Express routes were numbered in the 80s and 90s (for example: route 510 serving Scottsdale was originally numbered route 90, which is today assigned to route 90-Dunlap/Cave Creek).

In the mid-1980s, the route structure was changed to form the basis for the system operating today. Most routes were restructured so that they would stay on a single street rather than be based out of the downtown terminal. Routes that operated on multiple streets were also split (for example, route 22-Camelback Crosstown covers parts of today's route 50 and route 72). The route numbering system was simplified so that bus routes were numbered according to the block number of the street that they operated on. For example, route 50-Camelback is numbered because it runs mostly on Camelback Road, which is in the 5000 block. Because of the establishment of route numbers in the 80s and 90s, the express routes were renumbered to the 500-series, where they remain today. The second digit of the 500-series express routes denotes the region of the metropolitan area where the bus is traveling to (for example, the 510 series go to Scottsdale, the 530 series go to Mesa, and the 570 series go to the Northwest Valley). The evolution to a full "supergrid" structure continues today as route branches are either replaced with circulators or separated into new routes.