If there are going to be free frontage roads, then this is a moot point. The capacity is unchanged. Stop blowing this out of proportion, guys!

if you have actually driven on the frontage roads on some parts of sh 45 and sh 130 they are not entirely free. you would be driving and all of a sudden the frontage road directs you on to the tollway where you are FORCED to pay 75 cents for something that should be free in the first place

Most people live in that area probably won't use the highway itself very much. If anything they'll just use the access roads anyway. Whenever we jump on I-35 in South Austin for something along the interstate, we rarely get on main lanes unless we're going far and have to get there quick. It makes more sense to just stay on the access road if you don't have far to go anyway since entering and exiting the highway tends to slow down traffic and disrupt the flow.

I know what you mean. There's this portion of SH 45 in East Round Rock where the frontage road ends and isn't there for half a mile, then starts back up again, so you have to get on the toll road. And the odd thing is that now they're putting in the road to connect those two portions now. :???:

And there are some sections of SH 130 where the frontage road will end at an intersection with another road, and the road that continues on is just an on-ramp. But the signs aren't entirely straightforward; they tell you that the road goes to SH 130 Toll, but they don't explicitly say that the frontage road ends.

The ultimate design has frontage roads along the entire length. In the interim condition, very few, if any, through movements were determined to exist at locations where those FR's weren't put in, hence the lack of FR's.

As these were greenfield roads, the "existing free capacity" before was 0, hence there is no obligation to provide FR's there for access. Only when traffic warrants it.

Which leads me to...

This was a late change order as the City of Pflugerville desired the afore-mentioned extension of the FR's in conjunction with a new interchange at Heatherwilde.

Didn't Pflugerville pay for that extension?

Also, didn't Pflugerville request that frontage roads be added to at least their portion of 130 when it wasn't in the original plan?

Interesting news from the Austin Business Journal's online edition this morning:

http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin...l?surround=lfn

Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 10:56 AM CDT

Expanded rail system election proposed for next year

Austin could have another rail system to augment the planned 2008 commuter rail.
Austin Mayor Will Wynn will call for a November 2008 election to build a downtown and Central Austin rail system, says Matt Watson, executive assistant to Wynn.

The proposed passenger rail system would likely connect downtown Austin, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the University of Texas and state complexes and the Triangle and Mueller developments, Watson says.
While there's not an estimated price tag for the project yet, Watson says Wynn will propose the creation of a intra-jurisdictional task force that will look at financing questions and possible partnerships to pay for the proposed project. Although general obligation bonds have been proposed as one possible financing method, Wynn has said he would like to carry the project forward without any new taxes or general obligation bonds, Watson says.

That could open the door for public-private partnerships, he adds.
A 2006 Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority proposal for a downtown streetcar was estimated to cost close to $230 million, but Wynn's proposal would be more comprehensive, including an airport route.

----------------------

Exactly what type of rail system are they referring to, particularly through Central Austin? Streetcars? Light Rail???

EDIT: I see a separate thread was already opened for this news. I guess we'll have to wait on clarification to answer my questions above...

Wynn calls for 2008 rail election
Second phase would include a line to airport and North Austin.
Click-2-Listen
By Ben Wear

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Thursday, October 25, 2007

Austin Mayor Will Wynn today will call for a November 2008 election to build a Central Austin passenger rail system connecting the airport, downtown and the University of Texas, along with the Triangle and Mueller developments in near North Austin.

Unlike the current commuter rail project, which Capital Metro is building with its own, diminishing resources, Wynn will propose creating a task force of several jurisdictions to work out plans for the city and other governmental entities — and possibly developers and private companies — to pay for the project. This could include, Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken says, selling bonds to be paid back with general city tax revenue as well as profits from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.


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What's this?
Wynn said he would hope to avoid using general obligation debt, which would require a property tax increase.

"I'm going to try to build the case that now folks, we have to begin the next and obvious phase of our desperately needed comprehensive transportation system," Wynn said. "It should be our goal to do it with no new taxes."

Wynn said he hopes that the task force could conclude its business within six months, allowing the beginning of a rail election campaign by the summer.

Selling bonds would require permission of City of Austin voters (or Travis County voters, if commissioners decided to throw in some borrowed money as well), and Capital Metro under state law cannot build and operate additional lines without voter approval. This could mean simultaneous elections by the two sets of mostly the same voters, McCracken said, one to borrow the money and the other to allow the project.

No one knows what this would cost at this point. Capital Metro in 2006 proposed spending about $230 million to build a streetcar line from downtown to Mueller; the agency has revised that cost downward to $210.4 million. But what the mayor is discussing would be much more extensive, including a spur to the Triangle and a several mile run out to the airport that would have to include crossings of Interstate 35, Texas 71 and U.S. 183.

McCracken, in fact, has another extension in mind, this one to Zilker Park.

The technology — streetcars, electric-powered light rail or perhaps the same diesel cars that will run on the commuter rail line — is also a major unknown at this point. That task force Wynn envisions might address that as well as specific routes for the lines.

Capital Metro, under the mayor's scenario, would cover the operating costs for this second phase of rail. The agency has said in the past couple of years, however, that under its current financial projections it will go into the red in about four years, so it is not clear how the agency could cover the additional hit for rail.

Wynn will make his announcement at a noon meeting of the Downtown Austin Alliance, an advocate of building rail in downtown. Wynn has talked of having 25,000 downtown residents, about four times the current population there, a scenario that could create traffic and parking problems.

The airport's role in this plan carries a number of complications. McCracken said the airport, which struggled financially in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, is now profitable again. The city had even explored the idea of harvesting a windfall by signing a long-term lease with the private sector to run the airport. That showed, McCracken said, that the airport has an intrinsic value of $500 million to $1 billion, money that could be tapped for rail.

That would require, however, permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to use airport revenues for investments off the site. McCracken said the hope, as well, is that the project could get federal transit funding. Those grants have become increasingly harder to land in recent years.

"The City of Austin is going to have to significantly juice up its federal lobbying effort," McCracken said. "It's going to be complicated."

McCracken said that one approach being floated has the line coming in from the airport along Riverside Drive. He said the thinking is that there is enough available right of way, even as Riverside runs past the Travis Heights neighborhood, to have the train line outside the current curb line and thus not remove lanes for cars.

Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, a long-time opponent of passenger rail plans in Central Texas, scoffed at the plan. With money for road construction becoming tight, local policy leaders recently approved five more toll roads.

"It would be the most ridiculous use of money that I can think of," Daugherty said. "If you really know what the ridership was on the Dillo, which is a free means of transportation, that should tell you something about how people feel about public transit being their mode of transportation.

"How many more statistics does somebody need to have in front of them to realize that it is not the way that choice riders elect to get around?"

Wynn said, however, that a metropolitan area due to have about 1 million more people in a generation cannot depend only on roads.

"We kid ourselves if you look at the future with twice as many people that we can get there with a single transportation product," Wynn said.

bwear@statesman.com, 445-3698

I hope someone knows the answer. I bet you do M1EK. How long are the commuter rail trains, from bumper to bumper?

Doesn't really matter how long they are (although they're not very); what matters is their turning radius, which is quite wide (they cannot run in the street, without condemning big chunks of corners whereever they need to turn). They're not going to be the technology used for this new line of Wynn's.

So, do you not know how long they will be? It's not a big deal, but I still want to know. I just can't find the train specifications online.

http://www.stadlerrail.com/file/pdf/CapMetro%20e.pdf

http://www.capmetro.org/news/news_detail.asp?id=1918

http://www.masstransitmag.com/web/on...-Austin/1$4635

Capital Metropolitan Transportation in Austin Texas ordered six GTW articulated rail cars. The transit agency is planning its new 32-mile Austin-to-Leander urban commuter rail service to begin in January 2008. Stadler will deliver the first vehicle in fall 2007 and the sixth rail car in spring 2008. Each vehicle will be self-propelled by two diesel electric engines and will be able to start and stop faster than traditional commuter rail vehicles. The rail cars have a capacity of 200 passengers, 108 seated and 92 standing, as well as spaces for passengers with wheelchairs (fully ADA compliant) and bicycles. The rail car communications system includes visual and acoustic passenger information, a video recording system and a wireless LAN infrastructure.

Technical features
•Bright, friendly interior with large window areas
•Stepless entrance with wide doors
•Passenger compartment with low floorsection > 75%
•Air-conditioned passenger and driver compartments
•Air-suspended power and trailer bogies
•Ergonomically designed driver’s cab
•Traction equipment housed in a separate power car with an 800 mm aisle for passengers, effectively insulating the passengercompartments from noise and vibration sources
•Redundant traction chain consisting of two units, each with adiesel engine, asynchronous generator, IGBT power converter and asynchronous drive motor
•Glass fibre reinforced front section with automatic coupling
•Carbody endcarin extruded aluminium superstructure
•Carbodypower car in steel superstructure
•SELECTRON vehicle control with vehicle bus, train bus anddiagnostic computer
•Multiple-unit control for up to three vehicles
Vehicle data

Customer Capital Metropolitan Transportation
Authority Austin, Texas, USA
Lines operated Austin-to-Leander
Gauge 1‘435 mm(56.5“)
Axle arrangement 2‘Bo 2‘
Number of vehicles 6
Service start-up 2008
Seating capacity 96
Fold up seats 12
Standing capacity 92
Floor height
Low floor 600 mm (23.6“)
High floor 1‘000 mm(39.4“)
Door width 1‘300 mm (51.2“)
Longitudinal strength 1‘500kN
Overall length 40’890 mm(134-1.8“)
Vehicle width 2’950 mm(9-8“)
Tare weight 72 t
Bogie wheelbase 2‘100 mm (82.7“)
Powered wheel diameter (new) 860 mm(33.9“)
Trailer wheel diameter (new) 750 mm(29.5“)
Maximum power at wheel 470 kW
Starting tractive power 80kN
Max.acceleration at gross weight 0.9 m/s2
Maximum speed 120 km/h

Thanks.

Connecting ABIA with downtown via train will give austin a HUGE leg up on convention business. Linking downtown to UT and Triangle with a train will see lots of ridership if done decently.

I really hope this comes to fruition.

1/4 mile 'rule'
 

From New Urban News:

People are willing to walk farther than is commonly believed, at least to reach rail transit, researchers at San Joseph University say in a new report.

“Conventional wisdom among planners has been that pedestrians in the United States will only walk a quarter to a third of a mile for any reason, including to access transit. The results of our study suggest quite differently, at least for walk trips to access rail transit. The median trip distance was 0.47 miles, showing that fully half the people surveyed walked at least a half-mile to access the train station. The study results therefore show that the conventional wisdom underestimates actual pedestrian behavior, at least for the conditions we studied.”

How Far, By Which Route, and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference by Weinstein, Asha ; Bekkouche, Vanessa Louise; Irvin, Katja ; Schlossberg, Marc A Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-2050

http://pubsindex.trb.org/document/vi...sp?lbid=802012

Of course if you have ever hear me bitch before, I completely agree with this. I've lived in NYC, London, ORD, IHA, and a few other places. And have always lost a few pounds walking to the station.

The VTPI site I usually link on TOD mentions up to a half-mile walk for high-frequency high-quality rail transit. But streetcar may be high-frequency but is definitely not high-quality; and commuter rail may be high-quality but is definitely not high-frequency.

Note they used Portland and San Francisco as their examples; and light rail, not streetcar or commuter rail.

Finally, SecretAgentMan, cut out the submarining, please; it looks like an effort to just snipe and misinform (assuming you're not Lyndon Henry or Dave Dobbs, who would just be doing it on purpose).

Also,

Trying to wait until I get some actual information about route before going any further out on my limb, but in short: if this is just Capital Metro's awful circulator route (which heads over to parking-garage-land and then up the ass end of UT, then out Manor to Mueller, then back across I-35 on 51st street to the Triangle), and assuming it's streetcar and not true LRT, it will be completely useless as the only advantage of shared-lane streetcar over shuttlebus is its ability to draw dense development to nearby tracts. The areas which are allowing more density are West Campus, and to a lesser extent Guadalupe itself (through VMU); most definitely NOT Manor Road, and the density of the Mueller tract is already set in stone.

I really hope this is not the case. Gotta go where people are already on foot.

A side issue to this discussion, but I thought Mueller could increase density by 40% if there was a rail line going through. (And I don't think it matters what type of rail.) Could be wrong though.