Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikey711MN
Not to lengthen an internet debate, but I personally never said anything about a 7th St alignment, elevated rail, or along highway ROW.
Putting Stadler DMUs along Cap Metro ROW to the MoKan spur gets you to the Colorado river north of the port without spending a dime. Cross the river and buy some underutilized land south of there gets you virtually a straight shot into the port from the north.
That is by far the cheapest way to get rail to the airport, but I thought I conceded that the demand wasn't there yet. And I also concede that no amount of downtown-airport direct express service would justify a $2B investment.
But the demand doesn't need to get all that high for the numbers to possibly work if you criticize what I actually said. To that end, please try not to be so dismissive if you want to foster some good conversation on Austin transportation.
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The only configuration that would use the Monopolis bridge would be the 7th st corridor. If you are talking about using the freight rail system then that wouldn't involve the Mokan corridor at all which is good because Cap Metro doesn't have rights to it. It would just basically follow the green line and then you would need to acquire new ROW once you are past 183 and head south instead of north and build new track. The problem then is that the Blue line and this new airport line can't share track and infrastructure since once is a commuter line and the other is light rail. There wouldn't be enough room if they want to run transit between the 2 new garages.
You're basically describing this:
TLDR: Not really a serious discussion about using the monopolies bridge or different types of trains serving the airport which probably doesn't even need mass transit and only got it so we could pass Prop A with the voters.