WWBIYB, to south Phoenix

Considering the divisions within Phoenix City Council, it is significant that light rail to south Phoenix passed this week by 8-to-1. The five-mile route would mostly be along Central to Baseline Road.

For newcomers to this blog, WBIYB is shorthand for "We Built It, You Bastards." It is my response to the thugs, trolls and hysteriacs that opposed light rail in Phoenix. We built it, the world didn't come to an end, and it is a great success. Light rail is the most hopeful achievement so far for Phoenix to have a quality future.

Now light rail connects to the Sky Train at Sky Harbor. New lines are moving ahead, deeper into Mesa, extensions north and west, and now to south Phoenix. We Will Built It, You Bastards.

Here's an important adjustment that's needed: Run the new line over to Third Avenue and south to Lincoln and then back to First Avenue/Central. That way it can connect with future commuter trains and Phoenix-Tucson rail passenger service that should use a restored Union Station as their hub. It won't cost much more and the benefit will be exponential.

We Will Build It, You Bastards. But the time line is too long — up to a decade. And with Republican austerity ruling in D.C., one hopes the essential federal money will be available. God knows, we subsidize roads and freeways way too much, with enormous damage to the environment. Phoenix should fast-track this.

South Phoenix has always gotten the shit end of the stick from the city's elites. There's a reason that the City Hall crown gives the finger to that part of town. Cluster toxic industries there and pave over the Japanese flower gardens.

Light-rail would be the best way to provide transit to job centers for the working poor. And plenty of new residents with higher incomes have been added over the past 15 years.

Meanwhile, the northwest extension is scheduled to open in 2016. Unfortunately, it misses opportunities. Apparently the line will stop at 19th Avenue and Dunlap. Imagine if it went into the Metrocenter mall? Both would benefit. But I guess this is similar to when the then-owners of the Christown Spectrum (Chris-Town Mall) refused to allow a light-rail station attached to the building.

Contrast: An easy trip in any season, vs. walking across blazing parking lagoons. Gah! Note to anti-LRT crowd: "Those people" drive. The D.C. Metro stops at Pentagon City Fashion Center. The transit node is an asset to the mall.

Planning for Phase 2 of the route is underway, which will take it all the way to Metrocenter. Here we find some wind at the project's back. The state Transportation Department is more amenable to light rail (a source of construction jobs just like road-building). Councilwoman Thelda Williams is pushing for Phase 2 to reach the mall proper and the owners are encouraging.

This also shows the benefits of fighting to include transit in Prop. 400. The northwest extension is 100-percent locally funded (Phoenix Transit 2000 and the county-wide Prop. 400 tax), which is different from any other line abuilding.

Light-rail is a wonderful way to travel (WBIYB). But the metro area and the state also need "heavy-rail" trains for longer distances, i.e. conventional passenger trains. More about that in a future post.

Finally, Phoenix has yet to focus on its economic bleeding from the core. Light rail could be a great asset. But not of all the action is out on the fringes. And, no, I don't think many people will take LRT to work at the new State Farm office in Tempe, a good three-quarters of a mile walk from the station. Transit has to be close, convenient, frequent, clean and safe.

TAKING NOTE: The Census Bureau reported on income and poverty for counties in 2012. Median household income in Arizona was $47,796 vs. a national average of $51,371.

Looking at peer Western states: Colorado, $56,880; Oregon, $49,090, and Washington, $57,474.

No, living costs are not less for most things. It is a low-wage economy held back by "pro-business" conservative ideology.

Arizona saw 18.7 percent of its households below the poverty line (15.9 percent nationally). Horrifically, 30.5 percent of Arizona children under five live in poverty. In 2007, that number was 22.4 percent.

Maricopa County's median household income was $51,442 last year vs. $54,733 in 2007.

Comparing it to some peer counties: Seattle's King County, $68,944; Portland's Multnomah County, $51,580, and the Denver metro counties ranging from $50,455 to $67,401.

About 88 percent of U.S. counties did worse in 2012 than in 2007, and, as we know, the typical American household is making less than it did in 1989.

 

Comments

[Drifter]

Arizona is a low -wage economy kept down by deeply entrenched right -wing ideology.

[ptb]

The reason that 1st Avenue was chosen for the northern segment was purely for engineering reasons. It is the only underpass suitable for crossing the existing rail lines. In the name of expediency, I say let's just get this project moving forward as proposed.

And on a totally tangential note, I'm glad that I just googled WBIYB (not because I forgot what it stood for, but simply wondered what might come up).

[Sean D. Sweat]

I love the idea but I don't think the logistics are going to work out effectively for LRT to connect to Union Station. We will likely need to build a different facility to serve as the hub between LRT and the Phx-Tuc rail, since it's unrealistic to make people use a 3rd mode between LRT and heavy rail.

That being said, Union Station could still see rejuvenation as a stop on the newly revisioned GARP -- now being proposed as a loop around downtown.

[ptb]

Another important note, this time about Metrocenter: I don't believe we will be regarding it so much as a "shopping mall" by the time the light rail gets there. It will be a large, redeveloped mixed-use property with plenty of additional multifamily housing added by Carlyle in the near future. See here for further info about the developer: http://www.carlyle-usa.com/portfolio.html

[AzRebel]

Why would a person take a train to Tucson at sixty mph when they can travel by car at ninety mph and arrive at their destination with their hair standing on end , clothes soaked in sweat and a ruined pair of underwear?

The train thing sounds pretty boring...........and safe.

[Donna Gratehouse]

But AZRebel, that stretch on I-10 from Phoenix to Tucson is such a scenic dr...

Oh, right.

[Petro]

Everyone I see commuting, even on the WBIYB, have their noses buried in their smartphones and tablets, so I don't think that monotonous scenery is an issue.

And for the rest of us, it's a drift into meditation...

[AzReb]

Thanks Petro, you reminded me.

Ninety MPH, on their cell phone, drinking coffee, steering with their knees.

Now that's the way to travel to Tucson.

[Phx Planner]

I like the union station idea. Remember there is a west extension planned too. While I'm usually opposed to turning streets into ped malls, there is an opportunity to transform 4th ave into a connection between an LRT station at 4th and Wash/Jeff to connect to Union Station

[cal Lash]

Reb, I left U a note on petro's blog.

How about we just ban all motor vehicles between 7st and 7 avenue and Jefferson and Roosevelt. And figure out a way to move everyone (the non walkers) that comes to downtown or the Phoenix canyon of nada.

A passenger rail from Phoenix to Tucson would not be complete without starting in Nogales. (At the Wall)

Petro, Meditation? Have you asked anyone under 30 to give you a definition of that word. Reb gave U the current definition. (Ninety MPH, on their cell phone, drinking coffee, steering with their knees.)Those drivers are in a third zone somewhere and mostly unaware of the rest of the universe.

And just so U all will feel safe this weekend.
http://empire.is/

[AzReb]

I thought I was used to seeing the display of "incredible wealth" in Paradise Valley. I used to hang out with the largest land owner in Paradise Valley. He was worth $50 million (back in the 70's). He said he liked me because I paid for my own drinks. I didn't sponge off him like the rest of his family and friends.

My company recently moved to a location in DC Ranch.

At lunch, I've been driving around, just to get a feel of the new "hood".

I came across a house under construction, 30,000 square feet. THEY ERECTED A TOWER CRANE TO BUILD THE PLACE.

It's a second home!!!

Do I dare to guess what the first home looks like????

[cal Lash]

Reb, it's the Barons and city states, they are back. Strap on your bow, its the Hunger Games.
Every day i see the walking dead, they have no imagination and no understanding about the planet earth . They are gargantuan consumers. They will be the fodder of the coming zombie hordes.

[Petro]

Few people realize the true nature of meditation. Words are inefficient in such matters, but...

Meditation is a diffuse and all-encompassing attention to stimuli from within and without. One could say that one has arrived in the state when the sources of the stimuli merge to the point that normally-subconscious states bubble up with the same force of reality as the tree that may be in your field of view. In this state you are able to (rather paradoxically, as attention remains diffuse, or "open") easily trace back the origins of threads of thought, however normally repressed. The process happens by itself, freeing you to remain in that state until, well, you're not.

It is counterproductive to even mention the benefits of this, as reward-seeking kills meditation dead in its tracks.

/pedantry

[cal Lash]

Petro, I rest my case.

[cal Lash]

And speaking of south of Washington Avenue:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20131212arizona-border-patrol-deadly-force-investigation.html

[soleri]

Petro, I think the simpler explanation would be less restrictive. Meditation is paying attention. Full stop.

Now, depending on your motivation, you might be penetrating your own psychological reality, or you might simply be lost in a funhouse, your own needless to say. The self-centered dream almost all of us live in creates suffering (the first of the Four Nobel Truths). Unfortunately, we are not motivated to question this situation - the source of our misery. Instead, HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE!!! Your thoughts will scream the particulars in lurid detail but it's up to you to be still enough to hear your own child's voice beneath the waves.

Pascal said all of man's trouble stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone. That's why we meditate. It's less to do with altered states than simply wanting to end your own suffering.

[cal Lash]

Soleri, did Camus address this in the Myth of Sisyphus?

[cal Lash]

Donna greathouse, I believe the drive from is not boring. I find the blue desert quite beautiful only interrupted by ugly man made erected objects and screaming 18 wheelers and drivers not paying attention.\ to the road.

[soleri]

Cal, Camus and Buddha were both philosophers of dissatisfaction. That said, I think their approaches were radically different even if they both arrived at the same destination - surrender.

[cal Lash]

Surrender?
Or suicide or go for it?
I think the folks braving the elements answer that question (read immigrants)

A good read "Moving Millions" by Jeffery Kaye

[cal Lash]

I have moved the next coffee session to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_de_Flore

http://www.camuscoffee.com/

or would U prefer something in Algiers.

[Petro]

I can't disagree with anything you've observed there, soleri, except to note that any goal-seeking, be they "altered states" or ending suffering, need be set aside for attention to be paid.

[soleri]

Petro, feel a bit weird about hijacking this comment thread with this subject. Apologies to all.

I can't imagine why anyone would undertake the arduous journey to the interior unless one had a goal in mind. Indeed, the process and the goal are intertwined: that which you are seeking is causing you to seek.

Buddha himself was explicit on this point about meditation as the solution to the torment of desire. All wisdom traditions, including Christian quietism, lead by the personal example of the enlightened. The journey at the outset has a very specific goal: to cut through the identification of the self with the mind's thoughts. If all goes well, the mind is tamed, the self dissolves, which means there is no longer anyone to set goals. But nirvana cannot be the starting point for obvious reasons.

[cal Lash]

Hijacking is good for Jon, he writes mystery's.

[Petro]

Thanks for engaging, soleri! It is a delightful subject for me when it is taken seriously.

Forgive me if my selective quotes are orphaned from their context.

If all goes well, the mind is tamed, the self dissolves, which means there is no longer anyone to set goals.

I am putting your last point first as a device to illustrate the simultaneity of the exercise in "attaining" this "nirvana" (that you so recklessly are willing to name - oh, of course there have been many before you, myself included, the rebuke is a universal one.)

As Yoda said, "There is no try. Do or not do." Pop-culture can be fun, and especially when it cartoonizes wisdom. But Yoda was right. And probably we're saying the same thing at some level, but I'd just pointed out that a person needs to shed oneself from goal-seeking (which you rightfully characterized as the dissolution of the self,) and so there is a bit of a mental trick in approaching this end without making it a goal.

I've had a few beers and a whiskey. I hope this hasn't suffered from that. :)

[Rogue Columnist]

Hijacking is fine.

[Petro]

Hijacking is fine.

Now that's a bold statement.

LOL

[AzReb]

This wasn't a hijacking.

It was an exiting the Light rail and getting on the Twilight Rail.

Know what makes meditating up in the forest so great?

There ain't no people!!

You people are deep. I mean Olympic diving pool deep. Many of us are just kiddie pool deep.

I like that "Do or not do" thing. Yoda is really smart.

[cal Lash]

AzReb, your deepness suffers from the overwhelming LDS cloud that blankets Showlow and the surrounding forest.
Try Organ Pipe where folks with imagination live. Smoke the pipe find the spirit of Timothy O'Leary

[cal Lash]

Petro, a few beers and whiskey, a poor excuse when you could have tossed a few LSD tab's and found nirvana in the clouds. Yoda is a hologram of your imagination. He knows only what Hollywood gave him.
Jon: South Phoenix is not on the rise. It is being over taken by white folks and their gated communities. Blacks and Hispanics will soon find themselves moving on to other places. And the white folks will not use the rail. May god rain saguaros on the valley of the sun.

[soleri]

Cal, that was the thing. Most of us hippies did drop acid, which was the gateway drug to spiritualism. Some became deeply interested in another way of being (e.g., the Beatles), traveled to India and committed themselves to a guru. Others crashed, Icarus-like, against the rocks of harsh reality. I know exactly what Petro is talking about for that reason. I was there. And I know first-hand just how difficult that journey was. 99% of us never got there.

Still, a hike to the edge of sanity is better than never knowing there was an edge. Leary understood that, as did Richard Alpert (my history prof at UofA knew him from grad school at Stanford and called him Rammed Ass). Aldous Huxley, wisely, took LSD on his deathbed since there wouldn't be the spoiler at the end: returning.

It used to occur me that my generation of spoiled American youth was the final iteration of German romanticism. We were delirious with discovery but the blue light we saw at the center of the universe was a mirage. We returned home exhausted and humbled. We knew there was more and it haunts us to this day.

[cal Lash]

Well at 73 I missed out on any "illegal" drug use. But have seen the Blue Light while on a mountain of primal scream.

Wasnt informant Leary's drug supplier the CIA?
From wikipedia,"Returning from Mexico to Harvard in 1960, Leary and his associates, notably Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass)"
And who else was with Huxley in that upside down bathtub (39 Hudson) toking weed while traveling on on California Highway One?
Now so as not to get a DUI one can toke up while traveling by RAIL.

[Petro]

That was a moving observation, soleri.

[Petro]

Dammit, cal, as your adviser I advise that you eat a mushroom or cactus of dubious repute. At 73, you deserve a turn on the carousel and I am appalled at the thought that you'll never know what's down that rabbit hole and I hereby nominate - nay, mandate - this for your bucket list.

If you're feeling lightweight, a tab of Ecstasy (MDMA), will do just fine.

See you Saturday (no, I won't be "holding.")

[cal Lash]

hol da dor hold da dor
Ahh shit man dey got's a fire door pole.

(fire door battering ram for steel doors and narc bared doors) I almost caved in a 30 foot wall with one of these back in 72 on a wood house at about 2500 East Adams. The first Black Crip to come to Arizona was in the house with about ten white speeders.
Asked him why he was in from LA. Waymon was a very honest guy. He said "The Crips were going to start supply barrel whites to the locals."
I arrested him two weeks later inside the pool hall at 16th street and McDowell. with a pocket full of Barrel whites.

Petro I'll put your suggestions on my list but its way down the list from my desire to hike the desert as much as possible before I join Uncle ED.

[[email protected]]

As I drove down Galvin Parkway last night,the zoo parking lot was filled and overflow parking was about 1/2 mile away at the old Phoenix Muni lot.I couldn't believe they weren't' busing people to the zoo instead of making people(inc. many small children)cross two lights to walk to Zoo Lights.Until people start getting used to remote parking and busing to their destination,I'm afraid we will be stuck in cars on streets and freeways.All it would have taken was a small charge to park and ride to the zoo.What a waste of a chance to teach 1,000s to take advantage of mass transit.

[Drifter]

Petro 's life experience apparently doesn' t include friends who died of drug overdose or dealing with thousands of mentally disabled human beings whose life challenges are made so much more difficult by drug use. Another sheltered middle class white Americano named Petro.

[Homeless]

Cal, the pool hall on 16th and McDowell sounds a lot like a pool hall establishment near 34th ave on Indian School. The California gangsters arrested in Arizona during that time period wouldn' t believe that Arizona would send them to prison for a decade for behavior in LA that rarely resulted in more than a night in county. Surprise surprise.

[Petro]

Haha, Drifter called me "sheltered."

[soleri]

Drifter, I'm not really sure Petro deserves your contempt more than I do. I copped to drug use back in the day and did see the wreckage you luridly describe. Most of that was heroin, the deaths from which could have easily been prevented with legalization. But, you might say, we could never legalize heroin! People would enjoy themselves too much and stop working, etc. To which I would say, risk it.

I think the acid test (a nice phrase for this discussion) necessarily involves the harm that people can do to others when high. Crystal meth, for example, shouldn't be legal. Marijuana, by contrast, is mostly benign, and reefer madness aside, the US is moving inexorably to virtual legalization.

Living in Portland, I see many damaged souls on the street whose neural circuitry was more likely scrambled from chronic abuse of legal substances, say alcohol, but also chemical fumes like paint thinner, etc. Yet our concern for and curiosity about their lives is very limited. The puritan ideal of chastity and sobriety always seems to pop up when we talk about the autonomy of individual consciousness. I'm not saying we should all do drugs. As much a tourist as I've been in those precincts, I have no interest in hard drugs, and even marijuana bores me. But it would be more honest to acknowledge how hysterical ideals don't lead to solutions. Indeed, they make the problem worse. All those heroin overdoses we lament in the name of Just Say No could easily have been prevented by Just Open Your Eyes. Discontent should not carry a death sentence.

[cal Lash]

Drifter, another reason why drugs should be under the auspices of the FDA not the DEA.
"dealing with thousands of mentally disabled human beings whose life challenges are made so much more difficult by drug use."
I worked the State Hospital and law enforcement and after 73 years on this planet i believe criminalizing drug use is a total failure. Actually in my opinion there is more abuse of "legal" drugs than illegal drugs. How about prosecuting that little old lady with ten scripts for the same legal drugs in her purse.
And if you knew Petro better you would probably know sheltered is not applicable. Come to coffee Saturday

[headless hucy]

A high that enables one to practice scales on the guitar with peak efficiency is 1/2 doobie, two 16 oz Buds, and two 200 mg caffeine pills.

Add one toke and half a Budweiser every half hr.