Divisive opinions could mean continued policy debates over the South Central Light Rail Extension, even as Phoenix City Council hears recently gathered public input.
The fate of South Central Light Rail Extension will be discussed at this Wednesday’s special council session, where the Public Transit Department will share the results of the city’s six public meetings gathering opinions on the project. The council could take action on the lane configuration for the project moving forward.
However, some community organizations are still asking for more public input, this time in the form of a ballot measure: The Building a Better Phoenix Political Action Committee filed a petition to bring the extension back to voters last Friday.
The PAC has already gathered over 3,000 signatures from people against the light rail extension, according to Mel Martin, the PAC’s chairman. They will need over 20,000 signatures within six months to meet requirements for the ballot.
Martin owns seven buildings in Phoenix, between Baseline and Broadway Road.
“Overall, the goal is to stop the light rail from coming,” Martin said. “I don’t think we need it and it’ll ruin small businesses on South Central.”
The South Central Light Rail Extension would connect the Valley Metro Light Rail to central Phoenix from Baseline Road, thus reducing the available lanes of traffic from four lanes to two all the way to Baseline.
Martin and supporters of the Building a Better Phoenix PAC do not wish to shut down the light rail completely, but instead wish for the road to remain four lanes versus two.
“We just wanted four lanes, two on each side. On 19th Avenue, they added a lane (when the light rail was put in), but in South Phoenix, they want to put one lane in each direction,” he said. “Businesses just won’t survive. They could survive if they put four lanes in and it’d take a while for construction, but at least there’d be light at the end of the tunnel.”
“We’ve seen lots of support for both sides,” Martin said of the citizens and business owners of South Phoenix.
Not all citizens agree with the Building a Better Phoenix PAC’s stance, however. Urban Phoenix Project PAC chairperson Sean Sweat believes that extending the light rail would be beneficial to the city of Phoenix.
“We need to focus on the long-term benefits of improving,” Sweat said in a phone interview on Thursday. “This city can’t sustain itself fiscally if we continue to only develop in a way that traps people in cars. We have got to invest in transportation choices that allowed people to move around the city, even if they don’t have the ability or desire to drive.”
As for the Building a Better Phoenix PAC as a whole, Sweat believes that it is an “anti-transit organization being led by a wealthy landowner, with self-serving motivations. I don’t think they should be given any attention.”
If the South Central Light Rail Extension continues as currently planned, the construction will be done early in 2019.
Contact the reporter at erfontan@asu.edu.
