Valley Metro Bus
| Founded | 1993 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters |
U.S. Bank Center 101 North 1st Avenue, Suite 1100 Phoenix, Arizona, United States |
| Locale | Phoenix, Arizona |
| Service area | Maricopa County |
| Service type | Local, express, shuttle, paratransit |
| Routes | 102 |
| Hubs | 16 |
| Fleet | 1,061 buses |
| Annual ridership | 56,482,963 |
| Fuel type | Diesel, Diesel-electric Hybrid, CNG, LNG |
| Operator | City of Phoenix, RPTA, other various city governments |
| Website | http://www.valleymetro.org/bus/ |
Valley Metro Bus is a transit bus system for public transport in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. Buses are operated by private companies contracted by Valley Metro and the City of Phoenix. Service currently operates throughout the broader Phoenix Metropolitan Area. All buses have wheelchair ramps or lifts, and with the exception of paratransit vehicles all buses have bike racks.
There are over 100 bus routes contracted by Valley Metro, including regular routes, limited stop routes, and community circulators. Bus frequency, hours, and days of operation vary by route. The most heavily used routes have peak service frequency of every 10 minutes and run as late as 3:30am, while less used routes run every 30 minutes off peak, with service ending at midnight.
There are currently 60 local bus routes that form Valley Metro's super-grid bus system. They are numbered roughly according to the address on the Phoenix area's street grid on which they travel. For example:
The community circulator routes are mostly a free service, the exceptions being the Glendale Urban Shuttle (GUS) routes with a 25 cent fare, and the Avondale Zoom with a 50 cent fare. They supplement the standard grid service with routes that connect neighborhoods to nearby business districts. Circulator vehicles are typically minibuses. The naming convention varies by the communities they serve, such as the Scottsdale Neighborhood Trolley, Tempe Orbit Jupiter, and Phoenix SMART.
The LINK routes were limited-stop, streamlined bus connections to transit centers served by Valley Metro Rail. These routes used upgraded bus shelters that have LED "Next Bus" signs and bus rapid transit-styled vehicles with traffic signal priority. They were named after the street they travel on. The two routes were the Main Street LINK and the Arizona Avenue LINK. LINK service was discontinued on October 24, 2016, and was replaced by enhanced local service on Routes 40 and 112.
The six RAPID routes are limited-stop commuter routes in the city of Phoenix that travel from Park and Ride lots in outlying neighborhoods near major freeways to RAPID stops in the downtown business core. These routes are mostly named for the freeway on which they travel, such as RAPID I-10 East (two routes connect newly developed neighborhoods along Baseline Road with downtown via Central Avenue). They are unidirectional, traveling toward downtown in the morning and out of downtown in the afternoons. These routes use NABI 45C-LFW suburban buses with a special paint scheme.
...
Wikipedia