As it prepares to celebrate its first full year of service, METRO Light Rail is providing riders with a guide for the biggest holiday events occurring along the 20-mile line this season.
The 12-page guide includes listings of events like parades and performances that are only a half-mile or one bus connection away from one of the 28 light rail stations.
“We’ve had people call throughout the year, asking about things to do along the line,” said METRO Light Rail spokeswoman Hillary Foose. “We wanted to really provide a guide of all the community events happening during the holidays.”
Available only online, the guide lists events occurring through Jan. 2.
Events near the Tempe campus include the Tempe Festival of the Arts on Dec. 4, 5 and 6, the Tempe Town Lake Turns 10 celebration and the APS Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade on Dec. 12 and the Reindeer 5K Run/Walk on Dec. 13.
Events near the Downtown campus include December performances, like “A Christmas Carol” and Frances Smith Cohen’s “Snow Queen” at the Herberger Theater Center and “A Winnie-the-Pooh Christmas Tail” at Valley Youth Theatre.
For locals, the public transit experience has become an important part of the Valley’s cultural life, Foose said.
A survey completed by Valley Metro in December found 40 percent of riders are traveling for entertainment reasons, like a night out with friends or other special events.
“People have embraced the system and made it part of their lifestyle,” Foose said. “It’s something we certainly hoped for in the planning stages, but we couldn’t have foreseen.”
Last month, METRO reported that October had the highest number of light rail passengers since its opening, with more than 1 million riders.
Oct. 2 had the highest ridership by day, which METRO credited in part to the monthly First Friday art walk in downtown Phoenix.
Dec. 27 will mark the one-year anniversary of public light rail operation.
METRO reported the total ridership from January to October as nearly 9.4 million passengers. Numbers for November have not yet been released.
Foose said she anticipates ridership will level out next year, with the numbers more accurately reflecting day-to-day passengers.
“In the beginning of the year, there was a lot of novelty surrounding the system, and there’s still an element of that now,” she said. “Next year, we should start to see more of a reality of who our ridership really is.”
Those numbers may change significantly, given what Foose called the “novelty” ridership.
True ridership might be reflected in passengers like nursing junior Stephanie Yellowhair, who only uses the light rail to travel between campuses.
“It helps me more with transportation to school than to any cultural stuff,” she said.
Yellowhair said she attends events like First Friday, but prefers to use her own means of transportation.
“It’s Phoenix,” she said. “We’re just used to taking our cars.”
Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.
