The Light Rail

Last night was only the second time I’ve used the light rail. The first time I was a little distracted by this event to really pay attention to the actual trains.

Hopefully someday the rail will extend further into the rest of Mesa but right now it’s barely at the west end. I went to the park and ride at the first Mesa station. The entire front lot closest to the station was closed. Empty and closed. Dunno why. So I’m already crabby about having to walk clear across an empty parking lot to get to the train because I know I’ll be walking back alone much later that night.

The ticket buying process was confusing and difficult. Kiosks you can walk right past and take your chances getting caught, because the rail cops only check every 5th train or so to see if people even have tickets. The kiosks have a bunch of steps to buying your ticket, wouldn’t take cash, have 4 different and not-well-labeled slots to put things in or take things out of and the whole “activation” process is frakked.

In Atlanta and Vegas (the other places I’ve recently ridden city rails) you buy tickets and then go through a counter. In Atlanta you have to buy the initial plastic card and load it up like a debit card and it deducts your fare as you go through the gates/counters. Vegas had paper cards similar to ours but you still had to go through a counter to prove you’d paid. Here, the stations are open-air and you can just walk right on. No security at the stations and no counter or gating system at all. I watched people who’ve never used it walk right past the ATM looking kiosks and not understand how to pay.

I sat in the middle of the train where the bike racks are and watched as some dweeb struggled to hang up his bike next to one already jammed in instead of right across the aisle where the rack was empty. Yeah, you’re supposed to hang up your bike by the front tire. I will never be taking my non-existent bike on the train. He hadn’t noticed the machines and ended up asking other passengers how to pay for his ride.

The train sure seems loud and clunky for being electric. Clean, but then again the whole system has only been operating for a month. And the announcement woman sounds like her recording was cut off mid-sentence. “Exit to left, dumbass.” Fortunately the station in downtown Tempe was only a block away from my meetup.

The ride back was about the same. Loud and clicky. I exited the train and walked past the still-empty front parking lot to the back one where my and only three other cars were. I seriously didn’t like that part. That station isn’t in the best part of Mesa to begin with and there weren’t a lot of people around.

And no bathrooms. Not that I would have used one at the end-of-the-line station there late at night.

There needs to be more obvious signage on how to pay for your ride. When the train is sitting there and you’re in a hurry and there are people in line behind you, you don’t need a machine you can’t easily figure out. There are too many steps. I’m sure if I lived in Tempe or Phoenix, I’d pop on and off the light rail whenever it was convenient to my destination and I’d be really annoyed if I had to go through that ticketing process all the time. I prefer cash and I couldn’t use it. It seems stupid and pointless to use a credit/debit card to buy a one-day pass, and the diagram as to how to enter your card wasn’t like any one I’d ever seen before and couldn’t decipher. I ended up shoving my card in every which way until it worked. Get a standard diagram, rail people.

There needs to be more security. I’m pretty sure once most riders figure out they’re seldom checked, they ain’t paying anymore. If I rode it all the time, I’d probably blow off paying myself. I never saw anyone who looked like security. And that’s weird especially since the first time I rode it they were aware there would be a large group of pantsless people riding. You’d think they’d have security around to make sure that went okay. I didn’t see any either time.

I’ll probably use it again. I don’t like trying to find parking in downtown Tempe so it’s better for that. Except the trains stop running at midnight so if I want to stay out later than that forget it. And it goes right through downtown Phoenix too so next time I’m on jury duty or need the civic center or something I’ll think about the rail. Unfortunately the nearest stop to the VA hospital is just far enough there’s no way I could walk that, especially in summer in AZ. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.