[craigs]

Originally Posted by mhays

Doady, I don't agree with that. Austin is growing too quickly, its need is too great, and this huge era of development isn't benefiting from transit enough.

Much can presumably be done in the short term with more buses and some speed and service enhancements. But using buses to change the transit culture THEN studying rail would mean getting rail in 20 years instead of 10. During that time, you'd be growing more driving culture and driving infrastructure, with public pressure to expand roads, developers building huge parking ratios, and so on.

Start moving in the direction of rail now, and you'll start influencing developer thinking. When the system breaks ground they'll start making location choices with rail in mind, probably with less parking. Meanwhile you'll be spending money on a permanent solution vs. a temporary one.

BTW, I'd expect the Austin of 2030 to consider grade separation pretty important at least in key areas.

Has the mixed bus/light rail tunnel in Seattle been successful? It seems like a great idea to allow buses and light rail to share a tunnel, especially for a city that needs to grow feeder bus service but faces a lot of surface level congestion like Austin.