A recent news story (here) announced that Stephen Banta will be named chief executive of Metro Light Rail.  He comes to Phoenix via Portland, OR where he ran their TriMet system.  He comes to the Valley at a good time.  Metro is in a transition period where the light rail is moving from being the “new, cool toy” to something that needs to become more viable for the Phoenix Metro Area.  Hopefully he can breathe some new life into Metro and bring the much needed improvements to the system (hello, I’d love to know how long it is before the next train arrives, especially when it’s summer and it’s 114 outside!).

When I was in Portland recently, one of the coolest features of their light rail system was the intigration with Google Maps that was present when searching for directions.  Watching the mobile app on my iPhone, I could see exactly when a train left the station I wanted  to board at and how long I had to wait for the next one to arrive.  It was amazing.  The MAX seems to be a pretty reliable source of transportation given the few experiences I had while in Portland.