Thursday, April 30, 2009

Dark Knight, Bright Day for Downtown Phoenix

On a perfect April night last week, you could see things all starting to come together for downtown Phoenix.

On the surface, it was merely a couple hundred people taking in a free movie in a park. But when put in perspective, the screening of The Dark Knight put on by ASU students for a class project was a huge moment that illustrated how far downtown Phoenix has come.

The movie screen was in the center of a juxtaposition of downtown Phoenix's old and new. The screen sat in front of the newly-restored 1926 A.E. England Building, flanked on its left by the "Her Secret is Patience" sculpture (also referred to by many more colloquially as the "Jellyfish") and on the right by the very bright lights of the new Central Park East high rise. Moviegoers were pleasantly distracted by the light rail trains that both in front and behind them as well as the news zipper scrolling along on the ASU journalism building. And of course, beneath the movie patrons was the brand-new Downtown Phoenix Civic Space, a 2.77-acre gem of a park that just opened.

An even more positive sign was the crowd that came to watch the movie. Not only did the turnout exceed expectations (with minimal publicity, organizers expected 60-75 attendees and then at least 250 showed up), but it was a crazy blend of people: old and young, all races, ASU students, high-rise condo dwellers and homeless people. And as far as I could tell, everyone enjoyed themselves.

I've been critical of ASU in the past. Its administrators descended on downtown and acted like they owned the place-- let's not forget they wanted to tear down the A.E. England Building they're now patting themselves on the back for saving-- and at first its students publicly bashed their new environment instead of trying to go out and change it for the better. However, on this night ASU's students had a very positive effect on downtown with their ingenious, well-run program to activate the new park. This event showed the promise the university's presence can have for downtown.

As the event ended, people were overheard saying what a great event it was, how they couldn't believe it took place downtown, and how they'd be back (WALL-E will run this Saturday at 7:30 p.m.). Hopefully this is the start of a new tradition that can take its place alongside First Fridays and Suns games as a constant in downtown life. But even if it doesn't, it was enough to illustrate to everyone there that there is at last a burgeoning urban center in the giant megalopolis.

Apparently, while no one was looking, downtown Phoenix came to life.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

All quiet


One of the x-factors for downtown is the performance of its two main sports teams, the Diamondbacks and Suns. When the teams are playing well, attendance at their respective events surges and downtown becomes that much more alive. (Granted, the two stadiums do a lousy job of interacting with the rest of downtown, but while the spillover from downtown sporting events could be better, there is no doubt that the streets are more alive and downtown businesses profit. Hopefully the presence of light rail will enhance the sports spillover even further.)

But as of late April 2009, things are pretty quiet on the downtown sports scene. The Suns missed the playoffs for the first time since 2004, costing downtown establishments as much as $200,000 per game in lost revenue, and the Diamondbacks are off to a bad start with their punchless offense.

The prognosis for the two teams seem very different: the aging Suns ought to tear up the team while there is still some trade value in their older players— hanging on to some of the younger guys who hustle on defense as well as offense such as Jared Dudley (above)— while the Diamondbacks have to be patient with a team that’s still very young and wait for the talent that showed itself in 2006 to return.

Here’s hoping that the two teams can turn things around quickly. It’s great for all of Phoenix and especially downtown when the Suns and D-backs are title contenders as they both were just a couple years ago. And I shudder to think how far we’ve fallen if our best hope for a championship in Phoenix is…the Cardinals?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

New Times still doesn't get light rail

Phoenix New Times has a libertarian streak that emerges from time to time in its opposition to light rail (although sadly they don’t seem to apply the same limited government philosophy to new freeway construction). This week the online version of the paper took a shot at the train, suggesting in a misleading headline that “light rail ridership [was] on decline…”

While average daily ridership in March dropped 3% from February’s numbers, there are a couple points to keep in mind. First, the March totals represented the first time average ridership has fallen, so it’s really not fair to suggest that ridership is on the decline, as if to imply some sort of trend. Perhaps this is the start of a trend as the warmer months approach, and perhaps not. We won’t know for sure until future numbers are released by Metro.

Second, and more importantly, the New Times needs to remember the baseline. For years, Metro estimated that 26,000 riders would board the train on an average day during light rail’s first year. By this measure, the train is a huge success: even the March figures (31,000+ per day) are almost 20% above the estimate. Even if ridership falls significantly during the summer, Metro is probably still a sure bet to exceed its own initial ridership estimate for the first year.

Finally, New Times is probably best-advised to avoid predicting ill fates for the light rail; the paper’s credibility in that area is somewhat shot after it ran a story last May giving the train little hope of opening on time. As we now know, light rail opened at the end of December on the exact date it announced years earlier.