[ssiguy]

A downtown tunnel for Austin?………..what a ridiculous idea and nearly as stupid as the Nashville proposal. Austin does not have even remotely the amount of ridership to justify such a huge expense.

Let Calgary and Edmonton be your guides...………… In 1975 to 85 both cities embarked on LRT projects with Edmonton ahead by a few years. Both cities used the same technology and suppliers but took very different path. Calgary decided to run it's LRT at grade downtown on a new transit mall allowing far more money for a much larger system while Edmonton decided to build a large downtown subway section at a very high price resulting in a very stunted system. The result?...Calgary ridership was a huge success while Edmonton's downtown stations were near empty. Even after the large expansions that both cities have experienced, the Calgary CTrain still carries near triple the daily passengers of Edmonton's LRT with a very respectable 300,000 passengers a day in a metro of just 1.5 million yet Edmonton is the same size. The moral of the story is that you have X amount of dollars to spend on transit so build the system that serves the most people and destinations as possible.

This said, even if it goes the at-grade route, LRT is still a waste of money in a city like Austin with such incredibly low ridership levels.