During the previous decade Arizona experienced a dramatic increase in the number of people receiving health insurance coverage through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). If criteria for AHCCCS eligibility don’t change, it is unlikely that this trend will be reversed in the coming decade. More positive trends include increased child immunization rates and decreased smoking rates.

Believing that voters might support transit if they felt like an integral part of the transit proposal decision-making process, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce's Valleywide Transit Task Force set out in early 1995 to initiate a bottom-up process which would enable people to say, "here's what we want." The Task Force agreed that the first step in the process was to initiate a new dialogue. the Morrison Institute for Public Policy was asked to write a briefing paper, which would re-invigorate the transit debate. The resulting report, "Transit in the Valley: Where Do We Go From Here?" painted a bleak picture of the Valley's existing transit system and challenged many long-held conventional wisdoms. The dialogue had begun. The report was then presented to the citizens of 17 Valley cities and towns for their consideration in 16 public meetings sponsored by cities and their local Chambers of Commerce. In community forums conducted between October 1996 and February 1997, more than 500 Valley residents discussed the Valley's transit future. This document summarizes the questionnaire responses by 501 people who attended the forums.

In the Valley, developing viable long-term transit from where we are currently will be very difficult if key
components continue to remain unaligned. Thus, before getting to the primary purpose of this report, it is important to first establish the players and basic considerations relevant to the effectiveness of a transit system.

Few would dispute that the Phoenix metropolitan area is severely lacking in terms of mass-transit compared to other similarly sized and configured cities. The Valley’s fleet of roughly 400 buses is about one-third of the service found in San Diego, Atlanta, and Seattle. In addition, most of Phoenix’ peer regions either already have, or are planning rail systems. Of the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., only six -- Phoenix included -- do not currently have or are not planning to add rail to their transit system.