PHOENIX — In balloting concluding today, voters will determine the future of the Phoenix light rail system.
Proposition 105 would prohibit the city from spending money to further build or otherwise improve its current 38-station, 28.2-mile light rail system, and divert a 0.7% transportation sales tax approved by voters in 2015 from rail to other city infrastructure. It would also prohibit “any other fixed rail transit system,” blocking any prospect for a future commuter rail system. Trains News Wire took an in-depth look at the initiative earlier this month [See “Phoenix votes to decide city’s light rail legacy,” Aug. 5, 2019.]
Early voting on this and one other local initiative, regarding pensions and the city’s budget, began July 31. Voting concludes today at 7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time).
If you read the history of the issue you will discover that the driving force behind this ballot initiative is a group of businessmen who don’t want the street their businesses are on to be reduced from four lanes to two lanes, in order to make room for the light rail.
So for that special interest they are willing the sacrifice, for the entire city, the ability to build light rail anywhere in the area.
However, the ballot initiative appears to have been soundly defeated.
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Find your own damn rat bastard crooked politician.
When they put the light snail in the center of Camelback Rd – a major arterial in the Phx area – it killed off most of the small business owners who lost access from both sides of the road. The same thing will happen to small business along S Central Ave – the main route into lower income South Phoenix – when they shrink the road down from four to two lanes.
Putting a trolley smack in the middle of a major street is circa 1900 thinking.
Could you imagine this on highway and airport expansion?
I commented on this earlier. What this week’s article doesn’t state, but was stated in the August 5th article, is that this would amend the City Charter. This is an issue for year – to – year budgeting, not for the City Charter which is there forever. So if I lived in Phoenix I’d vote “NO”, regardless of the merits or the lack of merits of the specoific rail extension. Evven if I were 100% anti-rail I’d still vote “NO”. It’s not the purpose of the City Charter to legislate a specific issue.
JUSTIN- A repulsive post about a dearly deceased industrialist and philanthropist, the late and respected David Koch. Shame on Bill Maher and shame on you.
Agreed. This represents over-reach by those wishing never to lay anything but pavement.
Koch brother died. Instead of flowers just leave your car engines running – Bill Maher