UN-Covering Mesa: Light Rail Milestone

This blog doesn't attempt to cover Mesa - it's a dedicated initiative to discover the progress on The Regeneration of The New Urban Downtown Mesa.

To be clear, your blogger is not "an old root". 
He's a Latter Day transplant, somewhat like the pioneer Mormons who arrived here laying claim to the territory in the 19th Century in the original "One-Square Mile". 
Mesa today in the 21st Century is a multi-generational community evolving to become a Micropolitan area whose future will include mass public transportation.
Three articles on the extension of Valley Metro's Lightrail have already been posted here.  You can read them following this new entry. 
MesaZona blog connects with and features all different and local media that report news and information on the New Urban Downtown Mesa... here's a 1:16 minute video done by Mesa's one and only television station Channel 11 that was uploaded to You Tube on Wednesday March 25, 2015.
Channel 11's crew was on-location at the same time as your MesaZona guy on Monday from 1:00-2:00 for the Valley Metro Celebration for progress on the Central Mesa Light Rail Extension Project.
This video follows through on the theme of Old Roots New Growth - or Regeneration - as was done here in three different entries, and has live interviews with the Steve Banta, president of Valley Metro, together with Vice Mayor Dennis Kavanaugh, and Mesa Mayor John Giles who states  "The economic salvation of downtown Mesa is riding on this train" 
SAY WHAT?. . . the light rail trains are good people-movers for sure, with the Mesa Arts Center likely the biggest and best downtown attraction to bring people downtown for a few hours and then they leave

Pay attention since this video goes quickly ... and you might want to turn down your volume at the start.
                                              
Here is again a connection to other media, helping to put the focus on the benefits of mass public transit for two generations: so-called Millennials and Empty-Nest Baby Boomers.
Excerpts are here. Please take the time the read the whole Washington Post reporting

• Transit-centric millennials, who were born between 1980 and the early 2000s, are causing angst in traditionally car-dominant suburbs. Suburbs nationwide have long lured companies — and the high-skilled workers they seek to attract — with good schools, relatively low crime and spacious corporate campuses surrounded by vast parking lots near major highways.

• A realization is growing among those communities’ business and civic leaders that the traditional suburban brand needs an overhaul.... 

• the latest sign that mass transit, once viewed as a prescription for traffic congestion, is now considered a must-have economic development tool to attract millennials — the country’s largest living generation — along with their employers, and the taxes that both contribute to local governments. Adding to the demand is the country’s second-largest demographic group: empty-nest baby boomers seeking to downsize in the suburbs and drive less as they grow older.

• The growing millennial and boomer preference for working and living in more walkable, urban settings is also transforming the traditional suburban office park.

Article link to Washington Post
March 29 at 9:13 PM
Suburbs Rethink Transit