For years Valley Metro has had two types of buses.

The normal bus routes which currently cost $1.75 for one trip or $5.25 for an all-day pass. (If you buy the all-day pass in advance it only costs $3.50). These buses are slower than krap, and they stop at just about every damn street corner and they go everywhere.

The express or RAPID bus routes which currently cost $2.75 for one trip or $7.25 for an all-day pass. (If you buy the all-day pass in advance it only costs $5.50). These buses generally take people between two specific locations like between Paradise Valley Mall and the Arizona State Capital, they only make a few stops and for a bus they are rather quick. It seems like these buses are a welfare program for government employees and frequently go to locations that are government work centers like the State Capital and the Phoenix City Hall.

With the event of light rail pork it seems like Valley Metro has invented a new type of rapid or express bus route to encourage people to use the light rail pork. These new rapid or express light rail pork buses don’t charge a premium price like the other express or RAPID bus routes charge.

Valley Metro calls them

LINK bus service

The first one goes from Power Road and Baseline in east Mesa to the light rail station in Mesa.

The newest one goes from near Germann Road and Arizona Avenue (Country Club) in Chandler to the light rail station in Mesa.

Initially I thought these were express buses and they charged express prices. But I was wrong. They ARE express buses, but they charge the normal bus fare.

The reason I dislike light rail is because it is super expensive to provide the light rail service compared to the cost of bus service. I think the light rail costs on a per passenger cost are at least several times what it costs to provide the same service on a bus. So if the government is going to provide “public transportation” I would prefer that it be all bus service without any light rail, simply because light rail is so expensive.

Now I suspect the same thing is true for these “LINK bus service” routes. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they are much more expensive to operate on a per passenger basis than normal bus service. So with that in mind I would prefer they cancel all the “LINK bus service” routes and force people to take normal buses.

My question for the lawyers is could these new “LINK bus service” bus routes be violation the law? And could we use that as a way to either cause them to be canceled, or force them to charge the higher price that the express or RAPID bus routes charge?

Of course there is one more problem with these “LINK bus service” routes in that I think Valley Metro is using them to generate more light rail traffic. And when they generate more light rail traffic they will of course try to use that to justify taking more of our tax dollars and building more super expensive light rail.