Quote:
Originally Posted by ahealy
I really believe Burnet/Domain is the next urban hub of Austin
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This is probably true is development starts kicking into high gear. In fact, I anticipate that as this area becomes more dense and mixed-use, that the red line will start picking up commuters
into North Burnet / Domain from both ends and will develop probably 4-5 stations overall (as any downtown would have at a minimum). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see the red line as fundamentally North Burnet centric, as if that is a separate urban core with two lines: one extending south into the Austin historic downtown and one north into Cedar Park.
Furthermore, what this really underscores is the need for Austin to vigorously buy out the MoPac rail line so that we can use commuter rail on it locally. Build a separate track to the east. In the median of 130? Who cares where. The way the rail lines are built through North Austin would allow variable service into the Domain and North Burnet from the North. You could run trains from Round Rock to both the Domain / North Burnet west and east tracks as well as doing the same for trains inbound from Cedar Park because they interchange with each other already around McNeil. More and more employers are locating here, and therefore more and more inbound commuters there will be. And the more dense it becomes, the more it is a destination in its own right drawing in riders.
If we could do that and then simply extend both of the two lines further into downtown and buy a lot downtown somewhere so that we can turn both the tracks (which have cars with wide turning radii at, I think, ~328 feet) onto a north/south street (that's where we should build the really nice grand central station) and then simply run it all the way to MLK and just stop there (for now), that solves our rail problem entirely. It hits the both of our choice employment cores and the employment density nodes within them and by drawing riders who don't have to transfer we increase ridership.
For instance, this system which satisfies all the above by utilizing a short subterranean section for minimal traffic disruption:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pi...-Y&usp=sharing