Cities studying streetcar extension
Tempe and Mesa are slated to join forces with Valley Metro to study the extension of the streetcar along Rio Salado Parkway and Dobson Road, a move that Mesa officials contend is critical to meet an overwhelming transit need in the western part of that city.
The trolley-like system has seen a boom in popularity since it opened in Tempe last year. The ridership figures quadrupled between May and November, for example, and city staffers say it’s a particularly important transportation option during event periods when certain streets are shut down.
If Tempe’s City Council greenlights the partnership on Friday, Mesa will spend $800,000 and Tempe will cover the remaining $1.2 million for the study. Valley Metro consultants would do the actual work.
Tempe Senior Transportation Planner Sam Stevenson emphasized that it’s a very “preliminary” effort, however, so residents shouldn’t expect to see construction anytime soon. The study will simply focus on public outreach and identifying things such as what routes could work best or whether a future extension is even possible.
“We’re going to look at (whether) high capacity transit works better in the middle of the street versus in the curb lane. Are there major utility conflicts that we need to consider as we move this project forward? Where could the stops go? Things like that,” he said. “So, it’s really a very preliminary step.”
The potential streetcar expansion could run east from its existing Marina Heights stop along Rio Salado Parkway, to Tempe Marketplace, Sloan Park and Mesa Riverview.
The initial concept of the route then has it going south on Dobson Road to Main Street, where it would serve Valley Metro’s light rail line.
Mesa officials believe the streetcar would be an economic boon by improving connectivity throughout the East Valley, which can make it easier for workers and customers to access local businesses.
But while the study can be funded relatively easily, big questions loom about whether the cities will have enough money to tackle the project itself.
Tempe’s street car cost nearly $270 million. The vast majority of that came from Proposition 400 — a regionwide sales tax that has funded transit and transportation projects since 2006 — plus federal “matching” cash that’s usually made available only when cities have their own money to contribute.
But the regional sales tax is set to expire in 2026 and state lawmakers have yet to craft a viable extension for voters to approve. If that funding dies, so too does the East Valley’s prospect of getting federal dollars and expanding the streetcar anytime soon.
“The project still is hinging on that funding that’s expected to come through Prop. 400’s (extension),” Stevenson told The Arizona Republic. “The availability of that local match to that federal funding is critical. It really is.”
Mesa’s need for more transit options became clear when the city launched a free neighborhood circulator called the
Fiesta Buzz in October 2022. It was part of a study that began in 2020 and was aimed at gauging Mesa’s transit needs and building ridership.
The Fiesta Buzz is a short bus that carries up to 45 passengers and runs along the proposed streetcar route and throughout District 3 — connecting Mesa Riverview, the Asian District and Fiesta District — with stops at Mekong Plaza, Sloan Park and Mesa Community College.
Mesa’s Transit Services Director Jodi Sorrell said it takes up to three years to definitively say whether a route is successful, but the Fiesta Buzz has already made obvious the demand. Within just four months, it matched the ridership of Mesa’s well-established downtown circulator, which has been in service for 15 years.
Vice Mayor Francisco Heredia, who represents the area, believes that the streetcar would boost economic activity in areas such as Riverview Mesa. He added that apart from adding public transit options to his district, connecting Riverview Mesa to other parts of the city would give the area “a placemaking opportunity.”
Mesa watched from next door as Tempe’s streetcar experiment seemingly proved that East Valley residents want that type of transit option. Tempe’s system is the second to be introduced in Arizona and the first in the Phoenix metro area.
The trolley runs along a 3-mile track and picks up passengers at each of its 14 stops at least every 20 minutes. Each of the cars can hold about 125 people who can ride for free until this coming spring, after which fares will be $1.
Residents used the new transit option roughly 382,000 times from May to January, according to data from Valley Metro. That shakes out to more than 42,000 rides each month. And its popularity ballooned month-over-month throughout 2022, starting with 17,000 rides its first month and hitting a peak of more than 70,000 by November.
But those ridership figures still fell short of pre-COVID-19 expectations. At its current rate, Tempe’s streetcar could reach just over 500,000 total riders during its first full year in service, not the 800,000 to 1 million annual riders predicted by a city spokesperson in 2018.
“We believe streetcar is successful . ... We’re still kind of on a soft launch because the pandemic kind of threw some things into a tailspin,” Stevenson said, citing material shortages that delayed one of the system’s cars. “We can run service more frequently and serve people even more effectively (once we have the sixth car online.)”
Tucson’s Sun Link is the only other municipal streetcar system in Arizona, connecting that city’s downtown area to the University of Arizona campus. It went live in 2014 and currently averages about 106,428 riders each month, a figure more in line with Tempe’s expectations for its own system.
Experiments in the East Valley and Tucson suggest that a new streetcar extension could prove to be a popular transit option for Mesa residents and a good fit for the region. Whether there will be enough money to do it is a far murkier issue.
City leaders are eyeing the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Congress passed in 2021. That could provide Arizona with $6 billion, including $884.3 million set aside for transportation systems.
The proposed extension study is a strategy to securing that funding.
Both Heredia and Stevenson said having a fleshed-out plan will give the project a leg up when it’s time to go after the all-important federal dollars. It’s not clear how long the study will take, but the cities are set to launch it before any official funding processes begin in an effort to get a head start.
“It could potentially help the project be more competitive for federal funding,” said Stevenson, who added that federal programs often give cities two years to complete a slew of tasks before they get funding.