Mass Transit and Business Owners Who Are Scratch Golfers...

Took the car in today to get her serviced, our CFO was supposed to pick me up after I dropped her off and take me to work.....well he was ill today so I decided to take the bus.......for a cool $1.25! This got me to thinking about what is happening now in the Greater Phoenix area.

A vote was put to the people over 1 year ago regarding putting in a light rail system here in Phoenix to the tune of nearly $15 Billion.....yes Billion dollars. What a complete joke. This makes about as much sense as building a state of the art football stadium (at the public's expense) for the world's worst sports organization (Arizona Cardinals) that only less than half of the seats get sold to.......and adding an extra $100 MM in net worth to the owners! Oh yah......we already did that here.

Have you ever been to Phoenix? To get from the southeast valley to get to the northwest part of the valley (Queen Creek to Sun City) will take you a good hour and a half. This new light rail system will take people to/from central Mesa, travel through Tempe and into central Phoenix. This thing is only about 17 miles in length. Do you know how many people work in these areas where this light rail will travel? Not $15 Billion worth. This light rail will benefit some people, but the bulk of the new homes/businesses being built are in the extreme west valley and east valley....not where this light rail will run through. People will find that they will have to drive to get to the light rail, and when they get off, they will need some other form of transportation to get to where they need to go. What if you live in the SE valley and work in the NE valley or vice versa? Oops....light rail don't go that way there neighbor.

What is a better plan? More buses and widen sthe treets/freeways. I have done a considerable amount of bus travel throughout Mexico and you can get just about anywhere you want to go......they have their bus system down pat.....we should do that here. What about the smog? The newer technology is taking care of that part. Put a couple of hundred more buses out there, new bus routes and you can get to just about anywhere in the valley you want to go......not just the central parts of Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix.

Now, about business owners who are scratch golfers..........you've got to love them. I bring this up because the place I dropped my car off at today, the owner is nearly a scratch golfer, he's a 2, but not for long. Any guy who can run a very successful mechanic's shop, treat you very fair, provide excellent customer service and has the time to play golf weekly (like 2x at least) has got it together. Go see Mike Vinson Automotive in Scottsdale next time.