Phoenix council spikes Capitol light rail line. Alternative route might start work in 2031

Caving to pressure from Republican state lawmakers, the Phoenix City Council decided to shelve plans to expand the light rail system to the Arizona Capitol and the West Valley along Interstate 10, despite already sinking tens of millions of dollars into those projects.

After a marathon 10-hour meeting, the council instead voted 7-2 to expedite a separate planned light rail route that will bring service west along Indian School Road to the Desert Sky Transit Center in Maryvale.

Phoenix voters in 2015 approved the Capitol extension, also called CAPEX, and the I-10 route as part of a larger transportation plan, but opposition from Republican lawmakers threatened to derail the projects.

That opposition was front and center in recent weeks after GOP state lawmakers sent letters to the Council in December, indicating they could use several levers at their disposal to cancel the project.

A 2023 law banned light rail within 50 yards of the Capitol and gave a legislative committee currently controlled by Republicans some authority to approve contracts to put light rail stations elsewhere in the area around the Capitol.

Republican opposition spooked several members of Phoenix City Council who backed away from supporting the project at a subcommittee meeting in December.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration tried to assuage those fears. In a letter to the council, the governor’s budget director told council members the city and state wouldn’t need to sign any contracts subject to the committee’s review in order to build the proposed light rail lines.

The letter also indicated Hobbs would veto any Republican attempts to pass new legislation designed to derail the extensions.

The vote

In the end, those assurances were not enough, as key council members and city staff disagreed with the governor’s interpretation of the law.

“For many years, I've worked to make the capital extension a reality,” Mayor Kate Gallego said. “When stakeholder meetings went off the rails, my team and I stepped in to address concerns and find solutions. But every time we clear one hurdle, another pops up.”

Only Councilwomen Laura Pastor and Anna Hernandez, who represents parts of Maryvale and other communities affected by the vote, backed the plans to continue with the CAPEX and Interstate 10 lines.

“Voters approved this project. Taxpayers have already paid into it. This was promised to the community, and as a council, we have a responsibility to honor that promise,” Hernandez said.

But the council majority argued that the Indian School line was the safer choice, betting on the possibility that removing the Capitol extension will convince Republican lawmakers to abandon their efforts, which include a bill that would ban the state from helping to pay for any light rail expansion.

“This is not about removing projects. It's about sequencing them responsibly,” said Councilwoman Betty Guardado, who represents parts of Maryvale and championed the Indian School line. “The Capital extension project continues to face significant external challenges, including opposition expressed by members of the state Legislature and unresolved state land acquisitions issues in an election year.”

But Hernandez argued the council was giving the community a false choice, because all three lines – CAPEX, Interstate 10 and Indian School – were already planned to be built out under the city’s existing transportation plan.

Before the vote, the city expected the CAPEX line to open as early as 2029, followed by Interstate 10 in 2034.

The West Valley route along Indian School Road was scheduled to open in 2041, but the council vote moved that expected completion to 2037.

“If we stay in project development, we will create up to 16 years of construction jobs, followed by two light rail lines serving Maryvale and an estimated 40 years of housing and retail development that will follow this infrastructure,” Hernandez said.

But, she said under the council’s new plan, “Maryvale would have one line as early as 2037 if the stars align.”

Both Gallego and Guardado defended their vote, arguing the CAPEX line became a political pariah that repeatedly hit roadblocks and threatened the opportunity to bring light rail to the West Valley, a community with high public transportation usage that already saw a planned westward light rail extension killed by the council in 2019.

“It is a political decision, and it is a political difference about which project is more politically feasible. But we are passionate about this city, and we want to do well for it,” Gallego said.

What’s next

The cancelled CAPEX project was much further along in development than the Indian School line, which the city has already spent around $20 to $25 million on during the planning stage, according to city staff.

“I would say this is probably less than a 5% design plan, if that,” said Markus Coleman, the city’s light rail administrator. “We still have considerable amount of work that would need to be done in order to advance that.”

Phoenix plans to begin community information sessions and other early work on the Indian School route this year and could begin design work by 2029, with construction set to kick off at some point in 2031.

City staff indicated the plan could conflict with a separate project that is already underway to address safety issues along Indian School in the West Valley, dubbed ReVISIONing Indian School.

“So the impact would really depend on the timing of the light rail on Indian School, and so I don't think we know exactly what the impacts are today,” said Briiana Velez, Phoenix’s Street Transportation Department director.

There are also open questions about how Phoenix will pay for the new route.

Coleman said all of the city’s light rail expansion plans will rely heavily on federal funds that have yet to be awarded to supplement hundreds of millions in Phoenix taxpayer dollars approved by voters in 2015.

The city faced an April deadline to finalize its grant application to the Federal Transit Administration for over $1 billion in grants that would have been used to fund the CAPEX and I-10 extensions, which were projected to cost over $3 billion, according to city estimates.

It is unclear when the city will be prepared to apply for new federal grants to fund the Indian School line, and the city did not provide an estimated cost for the project.