Have you heard the one about the passenger rail service between Tucson and Phoenix?

Yeah. I know. This is a great idea that remains LOL funny for at least two reasons.

Arizona – a state in love with its asphalt – is unlikely to fund a passenger line between its two urban centers.

Once you got to Phoenix or Tucson by rail, you’d have to rely on public transit to get around the sprawling urban landscapes – and schlepping kid paraphernalia on a bus is not practical.

Enter All Aboard Arizona.

Anthony Trifiletti, executive director of the passenger-train advocacy group, offers solutions for both problems.

One is plausible. The other still sounds like a punch line.

This may solve the funding problem

First the plausible – yet still improbable – one.

All Aboard Arizona is trying to get a high-end privately funded group interested in footing the multibillion-dollar project.

How high end? Think Richard Branson and Virgin Airlines.

All Aboard Arizona is courting a company called Brightline that is being rebranded by Branson.

According to news on the Virgin.com website:

“Brightline, America’s first new major private intercity passenger railroad in over a century, has announced a new strategic partnership and trademark licensing agreement with the Virgin Group. Brightline will . . . transition to Virgin Trains USA branding in 2019.”

Brightline operates a passenger rail line in Florida and will be expanding to connect Southern California and Las Vegas, according to a story in The Arizona Daily Star.

There'd be no need for state money

Trifiletti told me that All Aboard Arizona approached Brightline about the Interstate 10 corridor. He’s expecting representatives of the train line to make a “side trip” to Arizona this spring while they are checking out the California-Vegas route.

If Virgin Trains USA can be convinced Arizona is worth its time and money, private funding would pay for the Tucson-Phoenix line, including the price Union Pacific would charge to use its rails.

“The state has nothing to do with this,” says Trifiletti. “No government money.”

OK. That would overcome one very big hurdle.

It could happen.

But here's the other problem

But what about the impracticality of being dropped off at a train station in either Phoenix or Tucson without a car? These are sprawling communities with multiple destinations and without efficient mass transit systems.

I thought I had a great solution: include ferry cars on the train so people could load their automobiles before taking a seat in the train’s lounge car for the journey. Upon arrival, people retrieve their cars and go about their business.

Trifiletti dismissed this idea without a pause. “No,” he said. “There is no need for such a thing.”

So how do you get around? “You’ll take public transportation.”

That is a punchline. I really did laugh.

Must travelers rely on Uber and Lyft?

But apparently it was just my lack of understanding.

“People here in the west don’t understand how easy it is to get around,” he said.

Tell us more about ourselves. Please.

This patronizing approach doesn’t inspire much confidence in All Aboard Arizona’s ability to negotiate with big-league players who might have the billions to invest in Arizona.

I'm a long-time westerner. I love the idea of a Tucson-Phoenix passenger train. But I've used mass transit in both cities. It's not good enough.

On three of my last four trips from Tucson to the Phoenix, local mass transit would not have taken me where I needed to go.

“Uber and Lyft,” said Trifiletti. “They are game changers.”

Maybe.

Don't dismiss this idea

But if you are going to think innovation, you really shouldn’t dismiss the idea of letting people take their cars along for a train ride.

This is especially appealing to people who lug around baby carriers, car seats and all the other things associated with parenting young kids.

Amtrak has an auto train from the Washington, D.C., area to just outside Orlando, Fla. Vehicles are parked in a covered train car while people go sit in comfortable seats or cabins.

I imagine those take-along cars are half-full of kid stuff on the way south and packed with Disney merchandise when headed north. You know, stuff you don’t want to schlep around in a Lyft.

Amtrak’s website calls it “the best way to drive I-95 without even driving.”

If the same slogan would sell on I-10, the perennial idea of a passenger train between Arizona’s biggest urban areas might seem less like a joke.

It might even sound like a money-maker to some big-time investor who likes challenging convention.

Reach Valdez at linda.valdez@arizonarepublic.com.

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