(The Associated Press distributed the following article on August 26.)
PHOENIX — When Robert Avina moved here from Minneapolis three years ago, he didn’t have a car and didn’t plan to get one. Within two weeks, he changed his mind.
“This city is based on having a car,” he said. “Public transportation isn’t a viable option. It’s Third World. It’s terrible.”
But for the first time since moving here, he found himself taking the bus along with thousands of others this month after a pipeline rupture caused a severe gasoline shortage in Phoenix.
The crisis exposed just how meager the mass-transit system is in this metropolitan area of about 3 million people.
“Fact is, public transit is a quality-of-life issue,” said Eric Anderson, transportation director for the Maricopa Association of Governments, which is developing a transportation blueprint for the Phoenix area. “I think the gas crisis pointed this out. Without a decent bus system, people didn’t really have an alternative.”
This Sun Belt city underwent a population boom over the past few decades. Like many other cities in the West that became major metropolitan areas after the rise of the automobile, Phoenix is built for driving.
It has 150 miles of freeways slashing across the ever-sprawling metropolitan area, and it is nearly impossible to get around without a car. There are no subways and no commuter trains.
Avina said his 30-minute commute now takes three hours on the bus, leaving him grumpy and sweaty when he arrives at his job as a street cleaner. “Riding the bus can really bring you down,” he said.
Anderson said was clear to officials back in the 1980s that a regional mass transit funding system was necessary, but several things stalled it.
One proposal called for a rail system at a time when residents did not have adequate bus service. Voters turned down the plan because they thought it was too ambitious and they wanted improved bus service instead.
Today, 92 percent of the Phoenix metropolitan area’s employed residents drive to their jobs, according to a survey by the Maricopa Association of Governments. Only about 2 percent use public transportation.
That number changed shortly after a pipeline from El Paso, Texas, that carries one-third of Phoenix’s gasoline shut down Aug. 8. It did not reopen until Sunday, two weeks later, but not before prices soared and gas stations ran dry.
Marie Chapple, spokeswoman for the city’s public transit department, said partial figures released Tuesday showed that bus ridership increased within the city limits during some of the worst parts of the gas crunch last week.
Boardings, the number of times someone got on a bus, reached an average of about 142,000 daily from Aug. 18 to Aug. 20, up from a weekday average of 125,000 the week before. Comprehensive numbers for the rest of the metro area were not immediately available.
“We had to put out extra buses to pick up the overflow” on the most crowded routes, Chapple said.
Veteran bus rider Sabrina Talbo said the number of people jumping aboard doubled after the pumps ran dry.
On average, the entire Phoenix area has about 170,000 bus boardings per weekday, Chapple said.
In Los Angeles, which has a population of 3.7 million within the city limits alone, there are about 1.1 million weekday boardings.
And in Philadelphia, where the population within the city limits is about 1.5 million, there are about 860,000 bus boardings per weekday. Philadelphia also has 13 rail lines and two subways with a combined ridership of 100,000, and six trolley routes.
Transportation officials here are working to get Phoenix up to speed with other cities.
The area’s transportation blueprint for the next 20 years is in the works. The plan features everything from a double-deck freeway through Phoenix to new commuter rail lines serving Phoenix, Glendale, Tempe and Mesa. But $16 billion is needed to make the plans a reality.
Avina does not think the gas shortage will make people rethink their driving habits or persuade them to vote for more taxes.
“People are going to slip back into their old ways,” he said. “One week after everything is back to normal, people will be driving.