A Week of Public Transit
This past week I had to go to training for Microsoft’s Systems Center Configuration Manager. The training location was at Central Ave and Thomas, right next to a Valley Metro light rail stop. I decided that I will use the bus and light rail system to get to the training center. This took a load off of having to deal with traffic and navigating downtown Phoenix. Having a park and ride center near my house also made this an easy choice. Valley Metro had an express bus route that ran from that park and ride non-stop to downtown Phoenix. From there, I would get off the bus near the Central Station at Van Buren and Central Avenue, cross the street and hop onto a light rail train to ride it up Central Avenue. The whole trip took roughly 45 minutes in the morning and a little longer in the afternoon.
The experience was something that I would not mind doing everyday to get to work. I got to see how the light rail works, and got a good impression on using public transportation in order to commute to and from work. The light rail basically just require you to have a pass to ride but they do not make you go through any turn stalls. Instead it is more of an honor system. However, they do perform random checks. Three times this week I witnessed Phoenix police coming onto the train to perform one of these random checks. Just today in fact, a police officer stepped into the car I was in, waited for the doors to close and the train to start moving and said, “Ticket check.” After this week’s experience I would not hesitate to use the buses and light rail to get to downtown Phoenix in the future.