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UT’s take on streetcars
By Ben Wear | Monday, March 10, 2008, 10:30 AM
OK, I’m a bit late on this. Like, a week.
But it’s still worth reporting some of what University of Texas Vice President Pat Clubb and Associate Vice President Bob Harkins had to say last week about a potential streetcar system. They spoke to Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s transit task force.
In short:
** They threw water on the idea that a streetcar connection between UT and downtown Austin would be a much-used link. What they want are slick, quick connections to three things: the Pickle Research Campus, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (which would go through downtown, of course) and the commuter rail line that will be running essentially north-south through East Austin about a mile away from the campus.
“We have had the School of Engineering come and ask us to build a tunnel to the Pickle Campus,” Clubb said. “Seriously.”
(T’aint happening, of course. That would be VERY expensive. Just ask Bostonites about the Big Dig.)
** The campus has about 50,000 students, 17,000 staff and faculty and about 3,000 visitors on a daily basis. And 15,000 parking spaces. You can do the math there.
“I fear the day when all the students wake up and decide to drive to campus that day,” Harkins said. The reality is that many live on campus or within walking or biking distance of campus, and thousands more take the shuttle buses. About 11 percent of Capital Metro’s 94,000 rides a day on its fixed route services are UT-related. And the shuttle system averages 13,400 rides a day over 365 days, more than that during regular school days when you consider that weekends and summer have lower ridership.
** UT isn’t real happy that the proposed streetcar line would go out Manor Road to the Mueller development, while the commuter rail stop would be a few blocks south on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. So anyone coming in on the commuter rail line to go to UT, rather than being able to then catch a train into UT at the MLK stop, would instead have to take a bus.
So why is the proposed streetcar line on Manor instead of MLK? Two reasons: An MLK line would have to cross Interstate 35 on an overpass, which is harder to do from an engineering perspective than the underpass at Dean Keeton Street (which then feeds into Manor a couple of blocks later). And a streetcar line from downtown that goes east on MLK would basically just graze the south end of the campus, as opposed to one cutting through the campus on San Jacinto Street and then heading east on Dean Keeton.
OK, then why is the commuter stop at MLK then? Why not just put it at Manor?
Answer: transit-oriented development. There is land aplenty around the railroad at MLK for development, which increasingly is the prime reason-to-be for the train line (since it won’t carry enough people to make much of a dent in traffic).
Possible solution: stops at MLK and Manor.
We’ll see with all this. When UT speaks in Austin, people usually listen.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: Passenger rail
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By Tim
March 10, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this
Yeah, there’s a massive vacant lot at Alexander and MLK. Perfect place for a stop. Any reason for not doing manor AND mlk? You get a massive amount of central austin that way.
I don’t know why we’re still talking about streetcars though. Seems like a lot of technical constraints for what is essentially a bus on rails. Just use a bus. If you’re want a cutesy bus that people will want to ride just decorate them up like dillos.
By M1EK
March 10, 2008 2:41 PM | Link to this
Tim, this streetcar line, unlike Capital Metro’s ridiculous circulator proposal, would have some segments of reserved guideway.
By M1EK
March 10, 2008 2:58 PM | Link to this
Oh lord, UT. Maybe the engineering department SHOULD be running this, since you apparently forgot how to count.
From Pickle to Main Campus:
1) Bus to commuter rail station behind IBM/Tivoli 2) Train out of the way to East Austin 3) Bus (or streetcar) to main campus
versus
1) Bus from Pickle straight to Main Campus
One versus three. The three had better be a LOT faster than the one - not just a little, or people aren’t going to use it. Even an all-rail three-leg trip would compete poorly against a single-leg bus trip, even with traffic.
Again, don’t spend money on things unless you can see how they’re going to be attractive enough for a user to CHOOSE them. The congestion on Mopac would have to get drastically drastically worse before the single bus ride would take longer than the 3-leg trip; especially since the first trip leg and likely the third are stuck in traffic too.
(To be fair, this is not a case where 2000’s LRT would be a million times better - only a dozen times better; since it would eliminate one of the three legs, still leaving two).
By txb
March 11, 2008 2:15 PM | Link to this
As far as I’ve heard, Capital Metro IS looking at two stops - one at manor to make the streetcar connection and one at MLK to serve a TOD.
As far as streetcars being buses on rails, it just ain’t so. They run more smoothly, they’re not as loud, they have a greater land-use impact, and people who have a choice are simply more likely to get on a streetcar than on a bus, cutesy or otherwise. Speaking of cutesy, it’s unlikely the streetchars would be cutesy; they’ll probably be similar to what Portland has.
By M1EK
March 11, 2008 6:43 PM | Link to this
txb, that’s all stuff that makes people try it instead of the bus - but once they figure out it isn’t any faster and even less reliable than the bus was, they won’t be coming back. Daily commuters aren’t comparing streetcar to bus - they’re comparing streetcar to their own car.
The good streetcar systems around the country people think of are ones that have some segments of reserved guideway (like McCracken/Wynn are aiming for) - i.e. more like light rail than “bus on rails”. Yes, Portland’s has some.
Cap Metro’s circulator proposal calls for zero feet of reserved guideway, for comparison.
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