Photos by Courtney Pedroza
The second Downtown Devil Discussions panel of the semester focused on the future of the light rail. The discussion bred some heated discussion and disagreements among the three panelists and between the panelists and the audience members.
Albert Santana, the light rail project administrator for the city of Phoenix; Becky Fenger, the media spokesperson for the Scottsdale Citizens Transportation Study Committee and Shannon Scutari, the director of Sustainable Communities Collaborative, were the discussion’s three panelists. Fenger is in opposition to the light rail and cited many statistic, economic and environmental reasons against its construction.
The discussion began with the panelists introducing themselves and their involvement in public transit. Santana gave a brief history of public transportation in Phoenix, highlighting how the introduction of the light rail drastically changed transportation and life downtown.
“The game changer, in my opinion, was the light rail,” Santana said. “There was a lot of skepticism of would people actually ride it. Year one, there were 26,000 riders per day. Now in 2013 there are 47,000 riders per day.”
Santana said the south extension of the light rail will bring approximately 15,000 additional riders and the west extension will bring approximately 35,000.
Santana then gave the floor to Fenger, who cited environmental reasons as the driving force behind her opposition to the light rail, and said she first began actively opposing the light rail when it came to her attention that it would increase pollution and congestion at the expense of the taxpayers.
Fenger went on to argue that taxpayers voiced their disapproval of building a light rail, but that the city of Tempe deliberately approved the funding anyway. She said the cost of the light rail outweighed the its services.
“You could have the slickest buses with every possible electronic device there is, with topless waitresses serving lobster on these buses and for less of the amount that you spend on the light rail,” Fenger said.
Scutari explained that she used a more holistic approach to transportation, especially in cities like Tempe, which is landlocked.
“If you really want to work to help impact people’s lives and how decisions are made … you need to work in transportation,” Scutari said.
All three panelists agreed that the Phoenix metro area is a diverse community with many needs. However, their ideas on how to cater to all of the community’s needs differed.
“It’s important (to remember) when it comes to things like this that we all have needs, and we need to have a sense of community and if you’re going to do that, transportation is at the core of that and you need to give people multiple options,” Santana said. “You can only make a freeway or road so wide. It will still bottleneck. We have to be able to provide multiple options.”
Scutari said citizens opinions’ towards the light rail have changed over the past 10 years. Even in “car-centric” Arizona, people vote for and speak out in favor of the light rail extensions being built faster and more transportation options being offered.
“We have, I think, such an opportunity with the connectivity,” Scutari said. “The transit — it’s a network. And it’s not going to serve all of the needs, and we knew that and that’s why the voters wanted a comprehensive plan. We did polling before we went to the voters in 2004 … the polling was off the charts, people are saying they want choices.”
Contact the reporter at pkunthar@asu.edu
