But Amtrak doesn’t even come through Phoenix
Amtrak announced it will launch a $250,000 advertising campaign aimed at the GLBT community. Other players in the travel and tourism industry like airlines and hotels already market to the gay community and this summer Amtrak will get on board (get it!) and do the same.
But for the gay community in Phoenix it doesn’t matter how much money Amtrak pours into advertising because Phoenix has no Amtrak service. If you live in the 5th largest city in the United States you cannot board an Amtrak train and you haven’t been able to since 1996.
Amtrak stops in Maricopa, a “city” 40 miles south of Phoenix in a different county and literally in the middle of nowhere. No amount of advertising is going to make me drive to Maricopa to take the Amtrak, especially when Sky Harbor Airport is centrally located in Phoenix and easily accessible by the light rail.
But if Amtrak stopped in downtown Phoenix, I’d use it all the time. I’d rather take a train than be made to feel like a criminal when I’m at the airport, where I’m x-rayed and scanned and felt up and yelled at. Also, I’m apparently on a “no fly list” since my name is John Anderson. Because if I was a terrorist who looked like Osama bin Laden, I’d use the alias John Anderson. Point being, it’s a pain in the ass for me when I go to the airport.
What’s it going to take to get Amtrak into Phoenix again? The light rail is a huge success in Phoenix and proves the pent up demand for multi-modal forms of transportation. The large and affluent gay community in Phoenix would appreciate Amtrak as well.
