Valley Metro
The Valley Metro Regional Public Transportation Authority, more popularly known as Valley Metro, is the unified public brand of the regional transit system for the Phoenix metropolitan area. Within the system, it is divided between Valley Metro Bus, which runs all bus operations, Valley Metro Rail, which is responsible for light rail and streetcar operations in the Valley. In 2022, the combined bus and rail system had a ridership of 33,944,600, or about 106,600 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
| Valley Metro | |
|---|---|
| Overview | |
| Locale | Phoenix metropolitan area |
| Transit type | Bus Paratransit Microtransit Transit bus Vanpool Light rail Streetcar |
| Number of lines | Light rail: 1 Streetcar: 1 Express/RAPID bus: 6 Bus: 102 |
| Number of stations | 32 (light rail) 14 (streetcar) |
| Daily ridership | 106,600 (weekdays, Q3 2023) |
| Annual ridership | 33,944,600 (2022) |
| Headquarters | 101 North 1st Avenue Phoenix, Arizona |
| Website | valleymetro |
| Operation | |
| Began operation | 1993 |
| Operator(s) | |
Valley Metro is a membership organization. Most services are separately funded and operated by individual cities and suburbs in the greater Phoenix region. These cities have agreed to participate in Valley Metro as a unifying brand name to streamline service and reduce confusion among riders. Each city appoints a representative to the RPTA board of directors, and a chairman, vice chairman, and treasurer are voted on amongst the board members for a one-year term.
The two largest operators of bus service are the city of Phoenix and the Regional Public Transportation Authority (operating multi-city routes and services primarily in Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, and Tempe). Circulator service in Glendale is operated by the city of Glendale directly, the Scottsdale Trolley circulators are contracted by the city of Scottsdale, and intra-city paratransit service in the cities of Glendale and Peoria are operated by the respective cities directly.
The RPTA operates a customer service, marketing and long-range transit planning operation from headquarters in downtown Phoenix which is shared among all Valley Metro member cities. A few routes which operate within several member cities have their funding and operations shared between those cities. Some RPTA funding is used to augment service provided by the member cities (this is expected to increase over the next several years due to a 2004 voter approval of an extension to the original 1985 sales tax for transit funding). The city of Phoenix alone operates 73 percent of all Valley Metro routes (several of which also serve suburban cities).