Traveling by Metro Light Rail in Phoenix

The Metro Light Rail is the newest public transportation in Phoenix, it just opened in 2009, and I was able to use it instead of getting a rental car for my business trip. You take a shuttle bus from the airport to the Metro stop, and then you buy a ticket. The 3 day pass was $7.50 for unlimited use, or you can get 1 day pass for $2.50. The machine gave change in $1 coins! It was the first time in a long while that I even saw a $1 coin, I got rid of them as soon as I could.

Nobody ever checked the tickets for all the 4 days of traveling on it, so it's the honor system, and there are no gates or other things either. When I arrived on a Sunday, the metro was FULLY PACKED! amazing, because local people were trying it out! But the rest of the week it was not so bad.

Due to the newness I suppose, I saw within the first day, 2 people falling! One big guy fell when he left the train on the platform, and another lady fell in the train car when it started moving and she wasn't holding onto anything. So that was kind of interesting. I never saw anybody fall in New York!

I suppose rental car companies are not too happy about it, since most people who travel on business to conventions downtown don't need a car any more! I think the trains can come more frequently than it did, it seemed a long wait at times (20 minutes).