Was in D.C. recently and loved their rail system. Austin should bite the bullet and build a subway system in DT. You cannot increase capacity by eliminating traffic lanes and replacing them by rail. Think big Austin....

Yeah, but DC got to think big with access to all sorts of federal funds that Austin will never get. Most members of Congress back in the mid to late 70s wanted the DC Metro built. That is why it is so deluxe compared to other more bare bones US subway systems from the same era. During the 30 plus years that the DC Metro has taken shape, the DC area has grown from about 3 million people to over 5 million people. There is no question that the Metro system has helped to shape that growth. It does not hurt that there are three or four hundred thousand federal government jobs located in or near the center of the DC region. Austin does not have employment concentrated in the same fashion making it harder to build a system that would really attract the ridership needed to reduce auto traffic or slow down the growth of auto traffic. Still, I agree that Austin should "bite the bullet" and commit to funding a rail system that includes a subway tunnel through campus and downtown areas. It is the only way to bring any kind of useful rail into the center and make it work. The problem, of course, is selling that concept to the local taxpayers who would have to pay for this tunnel without much assistance from the feds.

We need mass transit that isn't encumbered by traffic to offer a value proposition people will buy. This may mean sub or elevated. Gotta think big cause the culture won't let a car lane be stolen.

yes. yes. yes. I really like the gondola proposal. I think it would pass.

My own random thought, but wanted to see if anyone agreed...

Austin is not very 'round'. Instead, it's stretched out along a N/S axis. The biggest distance people need to transit is more N/S than E/W, right? My own experience more or less lines up with that, but that's only N=1. However, this does correlate to our most easily accessible corridors, MoPac and I-35.

Therefore, I propose elevated multi-track commuter rail on these corridors, and cross-town gondolas or "high speed" buses meeting up with them at 20 block intervals. No more twisty bus routes.

The system's shaped like a ladder, and everyone knows how to use it, anytime, anywhere in the metro. E/W to the rail, N/S, then E/W again.

Has a grid approach like this been tried anywhere?

Gondola will never pass. People will laugh in your face if you block walk that to try to persuade them to vote in favor of such a ridiculous proposal. Take it from an actual campaign professional...

:previous: In fact it has, in this magical faraway land called Manhattan ;-) I actually really like that idea... And for a totally personal and frivolous reason, I always loved the gondola idea from when it was first proposed a few years back, because it would be a unique and "weird" mode of public transport for a city that takes pride in its weirdness. Not to mention the fact that I think something unique would garner more local pride from Austin residents than a run-of-the-mill light rail system. I believe the original proposal from a local architecture firm called it "The Wire." There you go, it has an identity, a unique name, and is aspidistras with a special town. It has the potential to be as renowned as NYC's subway, Chicago's L, Boston's T, San Francisco's cable cars, at least in my mind.

In faraway magical urban lands where there is enough political capital and voter support for such things.

Austin is NOT NYC or any of these other cities you list. We're substantially more suburban and the only majority political support you'll find is for a rail line that will make a discernable impact on traffic.

Yep. I think people would eat it up. I understand what you're saying wwmiv, TRUST ME. After prop 1. failing I have little faith people want anything other than their car....but I think if the route were phenomenal, people wouldn't care. It costs less, easy to construct, has incredible views, and carries a shit ton of people. NYC has it...as does Portland...I think people would look beyond the laughs. The Wire has such a great ring to it.

The Wire was not produced by an architectural firm. It was produced by Frog Design, a graphic design and marketing firm. No transit planning professional in town considers it a feasible idea. Gondolas are not designed for such applications. For instance, their length is limited by the ability to produce a continuous loop of braided cable. A multi-mile system would require gondolas to transfer between loops at every single station.

Their estimates of capacity and speed are greatly exaggerated, and their cost estimates are way too low.

Gondolas have been used successfully in urban transit by making connections by two points that cannot be conventionally connected due to topography or other geographic barriers. Portland OSHU is a good example. The only application I can think of in Austin would be to connect some intense future use in Westlake Hills to a future intense use on the Brackenridge Tract.

Love this thinking/ idea

For some reason, this is making me like the idea more :D

With the Prop 1 route, local transit planners have severely degraded whatever reputation they might have had. Kind of like infectious disease control doctors in Dallas.

My transportation idea would be to make Austin the first city to truly embrace driverless vehicles as a comprehensive transit solution. Give money to Google (they are here for their fiber network anyway) to develop the technology here, and offer local citizens rebates and incentives to purchase cars with the new technology. Maybe even dedicate some lanes. I think driverless cars, if there are enough out there on the road, could emulate something like rail. There could be algorithms that groups sets of driverless cars together when the passengers are traveling a common route, with the cars running at a decent rate of speed with just inches separating them (virtually connected). A FIFO or other algorithm based on who needs to be dropped off where could dictate the order of the vehicles, which could change at each stop or even while moving. Individual trips could be distributed among different alternate routes before congestion actually clogs up the main route.

It could very much revolutionize transit, and bolster Austin's place as a premiere high tech city.

I love this too! Austin is a city on the edge of being truly great, and would only benefit from a transportation system that would attract the attention not just of other American cities, but of the entire world. Most of us on this forum are familiar with Medellin's gondolas and everyone knows about Seattle's monorail. Although the latter is largely a tourist attraction and doesn't do much for Seattle's overall traffic situation, it still illustrates, along with the existing gondola systems in other cities, that a city's image is enhanced by highly visible innovative urban systems.

When we think about transportation, we generally fail to consider the hedonic value (pleasure) of various modes of travel. But we spend an enormous amount of time getting from one place to another, and we do pay a great deal of attention to our enjoyment or discomfort while in transit. Advocates for expanding the use of buses as the sole means of public transportation miss the point that buses are clearly not enjoyable. Nobody is excited about getting on a bus for just about any purpose.

It goes without saying that being stuck in traffic jams is not enjoyable, although most seem to prefer it to riding on buses and I am among those people. In my car, I can listen to whatever I want and it's a lot more comfortable than sitting in a bus stuck in the same traffic.

Now, imagine commuting on a gondola or elevated train. The train could be somewhat uncomfortable when overcrowded, but at least it's moving, and the views are an added bonus when they're elevated. Unlike buses, it's a smooth ride, so this makes reading easy and it's also nice not to be jostled about.

Gondolas provide the highest level of hedonic value. I would ride around the city just for fun, on a regular basis, if that were available. I'd take visitors for rides around town on them. Tourists would want to ride them as a top attraction of visiting Austin. It could partially pay for itself just from voluntary ridership for the sheer enjoyment of it.

People worry about the visual impact of elevated transit systems, and I agree that this is a downfall. It's one of those things that we'd all have to get used to, and hopefully the uniqueness and fun side of it would make up for the negative visual effect. I know there are plenty of other problems with it, but I think it should be taken seriously enough to at least look into the costs and potential benefits before dismissing it outright as a silly and impractical option. Here's a useful website about gondolas, with basic info and updates about projects around the world: http://gondolaproject.com/tag/urban-gondola/

*Edit --- just a half-hour of reading more about gondolas, where they're effective and where they fail at their intended purpose, has me feeling more skeptical about them as an option for Austin.

I'm not sure voters will ever approve any more transportation projects; well planned and reasonably priced or not. They'll all get old, die in their cars of old age and decompose on the highway because the ambulance couldn't get through the traffic. I really wonder how long Austin is going to wait until it decides to do something about the traffic. I'm actually dreading getting a car and even a motorcycle (and oh, how I want a motorcycle) because I can get around so much easier and faster on my bicycle. We sit in traffic sometimes, and I'm looking over at the bike lane wishing I was on my bicycle.

I'm glad the rail prop failed, as proposed: It's not the right solution for us.

Driverless cars, if they can be brought down significantly in cost, will completely change the landscape of transportation while maximally utilizing existing infrastructure in the safest manner possible. Unfortunately, the cost is still sky high. Those Google cars cost around $150k and are not fully autonomous (cannot handle heavy rain, parking lots, etc).

The problem with driverless cars is that they cannot be implemented on any roadway alongside driven cars. It has to be all or nothing. This means we're surely many decades away from large scale adoption of them, if they'll ever be utilized on any widespread basis whatsoever. I just don't see it.

In the meantime, trains and gondolas are kind of like driverless cars but they're not dependent on removing all driven cars from roadways in order for them to function properly.

Thank you!

Not really. It'll take time but just like all tech it'll get better and cheaper in the long haul. Here's an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOn...fK1gsFiGEu_ty8

They can and are being implemented alongside driven cars. And with any technology, things will move faster than we can adopt. You have to look at roads right now like broadband folks did with phone and cable wire -- they were thought to be at capacity until some smart folks realized the limits were the data protocols themselves.

I think we're looking at significant adoption of some level of driverless vehicles within 10-20 years. About the same time it would take to even just get a starter rail line going.

Maybe we'll look more like some south Asian cities at some point with lots of tiny cars, mini-buses and mopeds/motorbikes, and limited adherence to the lanes.

Then I guess some tobacco-spitting jerk with a dually 3/4 ton pickup that's never hauled anything more than 400 lbs of humans comes and screws everything up.