How I helped support late-night-light-rail service
Posted on 01. Aug, 2009 by Tony Arranaga in Featured, News
Light rail fans from all over the Valley turned out for Night Rail, an event to help promote late night train service in the Phoenix area. Check out my previous post on the subject here, a story reported online here by the local paper, and find out what you missed at one of the Night Rail event locations here.
I couldn’t make the early event so instead I stayed central and went to dinner with my friend and former coworker. We went to a packed GB where the crew was slingin’ tacos and mixin’ Madres inside the Clarendon Hotel.
During dinner I found out my friend Steve was a METRO light rail newbie. What better way to raise awareness for late night trains than to act as personal tour guide for a new passenger.
“I feel like I’m in a major city,” Steve said looking around at all the signage and every detail on the platform while we waited for our northbound train to the Night Rail event at Maize’s Restaurant.
Steve has something in common with a Light Rail Blogger commenter on a previous post who mentioned he was unaware train service ends at 2 a.m. on the weekends. Steve can now walk away from the night and informed and experienced passenger.
I think Steve liked what he was seeing…
“Just standing here on the platform, and I’m fired up,” said Steve. “Im very excited to see where this is going to go and what I’m going to see.”
I felt like Friday night was mission accomplished: I taught one person how to use our new light rail system, not to mention all the people using the reach of social media. In my eyes, this meant Night Rail was a success.
3 Responses to “How I helped support late-night-light-rail service”
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Steve
01. Aug, 2009
Great article Tony!
Adron
01. Aug, 2009
I’m really stoked by what you guys are doing down in the PHX area to get people to take notice of the late running trains and such. I do wish we could push a little more late night service here in PDX. Most people that stay out late generally are just out on bikes and such, which is awesome, but it would be nice to jump a bus or train after 2am.
Awesome work! I’m really looking forward to wondering about when I get down there in October!
Ben Bethel
02. Aug, 2009
Great article – and thanks for the mention of The Clarendon!
I actually think it’d be interesting to reduce frequency by 2 minutes and add a train every 30 minutes from 11p-4am – to truly have 24 hour service, it would definitely kick it up a notch.
Tony – contact me regarding my central corridor circulator – there’s some exciting things about to happen to central phoenix transportation that not many people know about!