Where were you on December 27, 2009? For Phoenix urbanites the date has gone down in history as the day Tempe, Phoenix and Mesa celebrated the Grand Opening of METRO Light Rail.

Safety PSA

I’m proud of our agency’s work to help launch this milestone in Arizona’s history.

More than 200,000 people flooded to one of the 28 new stations along the 20-mile system to ride the sleek new trains, marking it the biggest light rail opening in US history. Nearly 4 years in the making, construction started back in February 2005, and became one of the largest public works projects in Arizona.

Some crowd members waited up to 2 ½ hours at some stations to board the trains on December 27, and many believed it well worth their time! With its first successful month of operation behind it, early reports show METRO are meeting and slightly exceeding their projected ridership of 26,000 boardings per day.

Park&Co produced a series of videos for public education purposes in the run-up to Light Rail’s Grand Opening, including a :30 PSA (featured below) using illustrations from local artist Jason Hill and animation from Studio 522, and a longer play Safety Video (also below) which has been shown in driver education schools and high schools across the valley.

Safety Video