I traveled on the Phoenix Light Rail yesterday in order to meet my wife downtown. She had borrowed my car after hers had got a flat. I traveled from Tempe to downtown to pick my car up again. The experience reminded me of the Tangara rail cars from the early 90s in Sydney. Matthew Yglesias found an article that described most users as either students or people going downtown for a ball game.

Unlike systems elsewhere, which are used principally by commuters, the 20 miles of rail in Phoenix running along the central spines of Phoenix and then through Tempe to Mesa are used largely by students shuttling between Arizona State University's downtown and Tempe campuses, and people going to restaurants, bars, ball games, and cultural events downtown.

Only 27% of light rail users are commuting. The average in other cities is closer to 60%. When I was in North Virginia, a large argument against extending the Metro out to the western parts of North Virginia were that it was middle class welfare. To help poorer people commute buses are more useful. Extending light rail pumps up property values near the local stops and is mainly used by the professional class. Traveling on public transport like that is still quite expensive too.

The counter argument is that reducing congestion and pollution is a good reason to add transport like light rail to cities such as Phoenix which do suffer from pollution quite heavily. The light rail runs through major traffic corridors such as the 202 and Central. We will most likely use it next when we head down to a Suns game - contributing to those statistics.