Nick Bastian's Blog

Tempe Arizona is an amazing city that has a lot of really great outdoor activities. For outdoor enthusiasts, most activities are available year round. For instance, the average high temperature in January is 68 degrees while the average low temperature is 40 degrees. Yep, it is beautiful here!. 

The Tempe Town Lake area is a great asset to our community featuring boat rentals, kayaking, walking trails, grassy areas, a splash pad for kids and is a great place to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July! The lake has also played host to music festivals, the Way Out West Oktoberfest, the Arizona Ironman competition, the PF Chang's Rock n Roll Marathon, Arts Festivals, parades and the famous Insight Fiesta Bowl Block Party where you can spend New Year's Eve with 100,000 of your closest friends!

If hiking is your thing, enjoy Tempe's A-Mountain or the beautiful trails of Papago Park. Papago is a 296 acre park featuring softball fields, a lagoon, hiking and biking trails, natural desert areas, an archaeological site, and picnic verandas. While there, you might as well visit the Phoenix Zoo which is right next door and has been voted as "One of the Nations top 5 zoo's for Kids!"

The upcoming "Western Canal Project" begins this year and will add even more pedestrian trails to our awesome city. According to the City's web site, "The project will extend for six miles connecting parks, schools, and other destinations in Tempe. The project includes a path with lighting, landscaping and public art." A link to the map is here...
The path will link to Kiwanis Park, Stroud Park, Redden Park, Ken McDonald Golf Course, the Tempe YMCA and end near Arizona Mills Mall and the I-10 Freeway. This stretch of South Tempe offers MANY different activities. For instance, there is the Kiwanis park and activity center where you have a wave pool, a lake (for fishing), basketball, tennis, soccer fields, covered Ramada's for great gatherings and tons of grassy areas to play, relax or people watch! This really is an amazing park with tons of wonderful options. Along this trail is one of two public golf courses in Tempe. The Ken McDonald Golf Course(or "Kenny Mac" as many of us South Tempe residents affectionately refer to it as) is a fun place to enjoy a round of golf at very reasonable prices.

Arizona is THE place for baseball's Cactus league spring training. Baseball, hot dogs, refreshing beverages and sunny skies -there's nothing better than Spring Training games in Arizona. With the temperatures averaging between 75 and 49 you will find lots of people flocking to the local baseball stadiums.  Between February and March you will find 9 teams calling Arizona home. Tempe Diablo Stadium is the spring home to the Los Angeles Angeles. 

To Live, work and play, our great city is hard to beat! Tempe is very centrally located with easy access to our freeway systems and to the airport. Here, you will find some amazing housing opportunities, a great arts community, wonderful restaurants, great schools, lot's of different jobs, enthusiastic sports fans and a wonderful lifestyle in an amazingly convenient location that is close to many of the things our great state has to offer.

If you have any questions about the community of Tempe Arizona, please feel free to visit our web site at www.nickbastian.com or feel free to call us at 602-803-6425 or toll free at 1-888-343-6425.

Recently, I was allowed to take a tour of the Operations and Maintenance Facility for the upcoming Light Rail system in Phoenix and I got to actually ride in one of the cars! I also met with the Project Manager for the maintenance facility and was able to discuss some of the technology, our opinions on future ridership, demographics, expansion etc.

During my meetings and research of the new rail line, here are some "facts" as I remember them, as I was told or as I have read.


1. Arizona Light Rail cars will be among the most technologically advanced in the world.

2. 16 cameras on each train. ie: security, monitors etc.

3. Cars are 90 feet long, 12 feet high, 8.5 feet wide.

4. No-step boarding. This is really cool. Un-like most other systems where the "working parts" are underneath the train, these trains have a lot of the parts on the roof! This allows for a street height entrance/exit that is controlled by air pressure regulating the height.

5. Seats are Kevlar and will be able to withstand much of the low life's attempts at vandalism.

6. GPS units monitor where the trains are at any given time.

7. There are four wheelchair positions and four bike racks on each car.

8. Three vehicles can be linked together. (usually for special events etc.)

9.Seats that are in the front and rear, located above the "wheels," do not face forward. Instead, they face the inside of the car. This helps the above mentioned "low life's" think twice before attempting to take someones belongings on their way out. ie: If a person is facing "forward" with their back to the doors, they might not notice someone attempting to take their bag on the way off of the train. (interesting concept)

10.The light rail cars are assembled in "pieces" so they won't be down for maintenance. ie: a part goes out, it goes in to the facility where the piece OR an entire section of car is removed, a new one is slapped on and they will be on their way. They are saying we will have very little "down time." I thought this was really cool to see..


These Light Rail trains, at first glance, did not seem any different to me than any I had seen before. After looking closer and talking to some of the people that work with and on the trains, I was pretty impressed. Of course, right after I was so impressed, a story came out about finding breaks in the line.. We will have to stay tuned to see how this one plays out. I'm pretty sure all will be good by December when the trains are scheduled to begin carrying passengers.