AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[nixcity]

^That may be the case, I've riden it within downtown and it was just fine, but if I were to head out to Gresham or somehwere on the outside of downtown I would use the light rail. This proposed route is just TOO long for a traditional streetcar.

[electricron]

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...111032219.html

KINKISHARYO International, L.L.C. announced today that the prototype of its LFX-300, a 100 percent low-floor, dual-powered 'hybrid' streetcar specifically designed for North America, will arrive in the U.S. in mid-December. Following a series of tests, the LFX-300 will be unveiled to the public and industry in Charlotte, North Carolina in January, 2011.

The LFX-300 is a hybrid vehicle propelled by either overhead electric catenary or on-board battery power. In battery powered mode, it uses electricity stored from regenerative braking and by charging the batteries while running on catenary, minimizing total power consumption. As an electric hybrid vehicle, it does not emit fumes that contribute to smog and greenhouse gasses. The LFX-300 has been specifically designed for North America and is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Buy America and NFPA-130.

The LFX-300 will also debut in other U.S. cities in the coming months. Following Charlotte, for example, the LFX-300 will be displayed in Dallas, and KINKISHARYO is presently in discussion with officials from other cities also interested in hosting the LFX for display or demonstration.

LFX-300 pdf
http://kinkisharyo.com/home/media/pdf/lfx.pdf

My opinions:
Hopefully Austin will get to peek at the KinkiSharyo streetcar too. If not, you could visit Dallas on the day it's on display. According to the pdf, the top speed is 50 mph, which should be more than enough for arterial streets in Austin, whether in dedicated lanes or not.

A thought I would like to bring up is how much space is really needed by any type of light rail to have room for dedicated lanes. Each "track" requires a full lane of traffic for clearances. Let's also assume continuous parallel parking spaces qualifies as a lane.

A four lane highway with on street parking has enough room for dedicated lanes for tracks, at the expense of on street parking. Few business are going to like losing on street parking in front of their stores. So, you're going to have to sacrifice two lanes of a six or four lane avenue for dedicated tracks. With shared lanes, you don't!

A point many forget is that a streetcar in shared lanes will have same effect on traffic as existing buses. If buses don't cause traffic jams today, neither will streetcars tomorrow.

I also suggest that if traffic is already congested on the selected streets, taking two lanes away will cause much more congestion than adding a streetcar into the existing lanes.

If you're thinking of adding lanes to the existing streets to make room for tracks, where do you find the real estate and how do you pay for it? Costs will multiply by more than twice if land in an urban area has to be purchased.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by pdxtraveler

If it is meant as a streetcar system than that is fine. The Portland Streetcar shares lanes of traffic and works wonderfully.

Problem is this is supposed to be our backbone, a la MAX. So, no, it's not good that so much of its route anticipates sharing lanes. (The only reason the Portland Streetcar works as well as it does is that a bunch of voluntarily car-free choice commuters already arrive downtown via MAX).

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by electricron

A point many forget is that a streetcar in shared lanes will have same effect on traffic as existing buses. If buses don't cause traffic jams today, neither will streetcars tomorrow.

I also suggest that if traffic is already congested on the selected streets, taking two lanes away will cause much more congestion than adding a streetcar into the existing lanes.

If you're thinking of adding lanes to the existing streets to make room for tracks, where do you find the real estate and how do you pay for it? Costs will multiply by more than twice if land in an urban area has to be purchased.

The easiest way to tell whether a transit advocate has any clue about what it takes to get car drivers to switch to transit is whether they think the problem is the transit slowing down the cars or the cars slowing down the transit.

The point here is that we have a goal of attracting a bunch of people out of their cars. In that environment, a transit vehicle which is stuck behind everybody else's car AND can't change lanes to get around obstructions is the worst of both worlds - all the bad parts of both buses and trains with none of the good.

Do not forget, folks, I'm the only one who told you back in 2004 why the Red Line would fail to attract more than a few riders. People like electricron, and the others who think shared running is no big deal, predicted standing-room-only crowds and people left at platforms.

[BevoLJ]

I'd rather they not take to much road or parking for this. Primarily because I doubt I would ever use it. I live in Westlake which has no access to any sort of transit so use my car. If you take much more of the roads downtown away for this I think you are going to make things a mess. If road and parking is being removed downtown for transit, I would rather it be for bike lanes than for a tram and just have the tram on shared lanes.

[electricron]

I suggest you take a Google Earth tour of downtown Norfolk Va. where a brand new in dedicated lanes light rail line is being built. It's being routed through city blocks and rounding off city corners, just like GTWs do in Camden N.J. Maybe to a smaller degree, never-the-less, light rail trains can not turn sharp enough to avoid this entirely. Streetcars can turn sharp enough to stay entirely in city streets when needed.

The Tide eventually uses an abandoned rail corridor, just like DART, as it heads east. Too bad there isn't an abandoned rail corridor in Austin that can be used. Austin rail transportation has to use city streets or active rail corridors.

You'll find it far easier and cheaper to build streetcars in city streets and commuter/regional rail in active rail corridors. Look at what DART had to do to build the Green Line light rail near an active rail corridor; take note of the amount of elevated guideways required.
• Video Link

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by electricron

I suggest you take a Google Earth tour of downtown Norfolk Va. where a brand new in dedicated lanes light rail line is being built. It's being routed through city blocks and rounding off city corners, just like GTWs do in Camden N.J. Maybe to a smaller degree, never-the-less, light rail trains can not turn sharp enough to avoid this entirely. Streetcars can turn sharp enough to stay entirely in city streets when needed.

The Tide eventually uses an abandoned rail corridor, just like DART, as it heads east. Too bad there isn't an abandoned rail corridor in Austin that can be used. Austin rail transportation has to use city streets or active rail corridors.

There was a perfect combination of rail corridor and in-street route available; but the Red Line took the rail corridor and isn't going anywhere. It's performing just as badly as I predicted it would, despite your claims to the contrary.

An all in-street alignment is the best we can do now, unfortunately, thanks to what the DMU Red Line did to us. We desperately need to ensure that no more than the bare minimum of the route is shared-lanes, or it will be absolutely pointless.

[tampasteve]

Originally Posted by M1EK

There was a perfect combination of rail corridor and in-street route available; but the Red Line took the rail corridor and isn't going anywhere. It's performing just as badly as I predicted it would, despite your claims to the contrary.

An all in-street alignment is the best we can do now, unfortunately, thanks to what the DMU Red Line did to us. We desperately need to ensure that no more than the bare minimum of the route is shared-lanes, or it will be absolutely pointless.

Forgive my ignorance, but since the Red Line runs so infrequently as of now, would it be possible to share parts of the line with another rail mode?

Steve

[electricron]

Originally Posted by M1EK

There was a perfect combination of rail corridor and in-street route available; but the Red Line took the rail corridor and isn't going anywhere. It's performing just as badly as I predicted it would, despite your claims to the contrary.

The Red Line uses an active rail corridor. Light rail trains on it would have to use: (1)temporal separation like the GTWs, or (2)elevated guideways like DART.
(1)Temporal separation would limit train service significantly. Possibly to the same low numbers of trains as seen today, although I hope not.
(2)Elevated guideways would greatly increase the construction costs. DART's Green Line is 28 miles in length, and the published costs is $1.8 Billion. That's 18 times more than what CapMetro spent for the 31 mile long Red Line.

How you ever believe CapMetro can afford that when something that costs 18 times less has almost bankrupted them is beyond me? Even if the Feds joined in and financed half the costs, it'll still cost CapMetro 9 times as much.

[nixcity]

If this is what they want to stick with,,,that is, so much shared road then they might as well just run the busses more often. If they are running as often as possible then they need to just buy the longer busses. As is it does not seem worth the time or money.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by electricron

The Red Line uses an active rail corridor. Light rail trains on it would have to use: (1)temporal separation like the GTWs, or (2)elevated guideways like DART.
(1)Temporal separation would limit train service significantly. Possibly to the same low numbers of trains as seen today, although I hope not.
(2)Elevated guideways would greatly increase the construction costs. DART's Green Line is 28 miles in length, and the published costs is $1.8 Billion. That's 18 times more than what CapMetro spent for the 31 mile long Red Line.

How you ever believe CapMetro can afford that when something that costs 18 times less has almost bankrupted them is beyond me? Even if the Feds joined in and financed half the costs, it'll still cost CapMetro 9 times as much.

The 2000 LRT proposal envisioned building double track throughout this corridor and to be honest I can't remember what the freight proposal was (I suspect it was to simply end freight service on this corridor but am not sure). It would have run electric LRT vehicles all day - approx 10 minute headways during rush hours, 15-20 minutes elsewhere. Really almost exactly like Dallas' FIRST line.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by M1EK

I suspect it was to simply end freight service on this corridor but am not sure......Really almost exactly like Dallas' FIRST line.

The Green Line routes through downtown Dallas on the original Red and Blue line rails. There's wyes on both sides of the streetmall on Bryan and Pacific Avenues. Look carefully, for almost the entire ~1 mile run on city streets, DART eliminated all other traffic. What once was a 3 to 4 lane avenue with on street parking, its just a two track light rail and pedestrain corridor today.

Is there a street in downtown Austin which can be converted into a light rail only corridor?

There are other options CapMetro could do, for example Phoenix's split rail corridor on two parallel streets through downtown Phoenix. Minneapolis and Portland solutions are very similar too. Are there two parallel streets in downtown Austin that can be used? How far away will they be from Congress? Is that within the 1/4 mile preferred walking distance of Congress? Can either corridor be expanded into south Austin in the future?

I strongly believe at looking at what other cities have done to implement light rail through their central business districts. A visit to Google Earth can be very informative. In just about every other case, you'll see street traffic having to cross dedicated track lanes to turn into parking garages, for on street parking, and on street loading areas. Surprisingly for many to learn I sure, but many of these rail only dedicated lanes prevent through traffic only. Very much like painted bike lanes, they're not dedicated for rail only as much as many may think.

Austin doesn't need as many rail corridors extending far away from the central business district as Dallas or Houston. I still suggest streetcars in city streets is all Austin needs on most corridors. Where the right-of way is sufficient, they can be placed in dedicated lanes; where not sufficient, they can use shared lanes.

[M1EK]

"Where not sufficient, they can use shared lanes" means "they will use shared lanes", which means "they will be stuck behind everybody else's car", which means "they will not be even as fast or reliable as the city bus", which means "they will suck".

Since we lost the 2000 plan (based somewhat on Dallas'); our 2008 plan rested on being more like Houston (almost all in-street; almost all in its own lane; streets not fully dedicated to transit but working just fine there). Now, we're not even doing that, thanks to the input of folks like yourself who think reserved guideway doesn't matter, and that have allowed the job of this thing to slip back to "distribute the (missing) passengers from the (useless DMU) Red Line".

We had a good plan in 2000. We had a mediocre plan in 2008. Logic like yours has pushed it to a bad plan that should be opposed in 2010.

More here: http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blo...es/000666.html

[BevoLJ]

Austin isn't Dallas or Houston. Those cities have many more people and a lot more money. Also the state has always helped them out. Doesn't Waco get more money from the state for transportation than Austin does?

Spending a ton of money for a short line that is perfect might not be all that great if it is just so short that there isn't much use. But rather than spending all of that money in grades or its own lanes or whatever, if we use it to make longer lines that can reach more people that also might help ridership. So maybe it averages 4-5 mph less having some shared lanes, but reaches a lot more people so is used more.

Anyway, I don't know. I'm sure which ever way they go they will find a way to screw it up. =)

[arbeiter]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Austin isn't Dallas or Houston. Those cities have many more people and a lot more money.

That doesn't mean Austin doesn't have to do the right thing. Or that Austin is beyond reproach.

[BevoLJ]

Of course not. But that still doesn't change the obvious differences that I mentioned. While I agree Austin should do things right, it has to do so in a responsible way. Dallas and Houston are much larger cities than Austin. And Dallas and Houston does get tons and tons of money from the state on top of the fact they have a lot more money to begin with. What would it cost to 'do it the right way'? And if there is only enough money to do a tiny part that only reaches a few people is it worth it?

I read M1EK's new blog and if it is going to be that bad (which I don't really know it would be) then why is anyone pushing it at all? Why not just keep using buses? I'm not sure I see what trams give us other than if done the 'right way' taking a bunch of our road away from cars, bikes, pedestrians, or parking. To me that doesn't sound like something good for local businesses. It really isn't like downtown is all that congested other than on I-35 and Mopac so is it really worth the harm it might do to local business? Does removing that street, parking, or bike and pedestrian way actually do any harm to local business?

[M1EK]

Dallas and Houston didn't get one penny from the state for their rail lines. Don't know where you got that idea.

And the problem is getting INTO downtown - it's choking on its own success, and buses are not an answer, unless you have some magic formula for getting drivers to willingly ride them.

[Scott Wood]

Originally Posted by M1EK

And the problem is getting INTO downtown - it's choking on its own success, and buses are not an answer, unless you have some magic formula for getting drivers to willingly ride them.

Congestion charges and parking taxes -- and, just as with rail, dedicated right-of-way (unless the congestion charge is sufficiently effective). Now, if we could find the magic formula for getting voters to willingly accept that...

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Scott Wood

Congestion charges and parking taxes -- and, just as with rail, dedicated right-of-way (unless the congestion charge is sufficiently effective). Now, if we could find the magic formula for getting voters to willingly accept that...

Those work great when you have captive workers. We don't (except for state and university employees). The few large private employers downtown would abandon it quickly if the only solution we offered them was charging more for parking and providing buses as the transit option.

[Scott Wood]

Originally Posted by M1EK

Those work great when you have captive workers. We don't (except for state and university employees). The few large private employers downtown would abandon it quickly if the only solution we offered them was charging more for parking and providing buses as the transit option.

Yet unchecked congestion won't keep them away? It's of course a concern, and there's a limit to how much you can pile on charges relative to the alternatives and incentives you provide, especially with the general cost of driving (to the driver) remaining so low, no land-use disincentives to job sprawl, etc.

However, rail bias isn't infinite. Downtown is congested because a lot of people want/need to get there despite it already being less convenient/cheap for drivers, and if transit represents significant time or money savings, you'll see more people using it, whatever the mode.

Rail is great, and we should do it for the denser corridors subject to available funds (and competence) to do it right. But providing time/cost advantages for buses is still important, since rail will not cover as much territory as buses can, and thus rail will not be an option for a lot of people.