AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[electricron]

Maybe we should review what ATP can and can not do.
Per https://www.capmetro.org/docs/default-so...mitment-resolution.pdf?sfvrsn=b767bae8_2
"The City shall:
▪ within six-months of voter approval, provide a process for the creation of neighborhood-level strategies with community members and organizations; and
▪ create an Equity Assessment Tool ....in order to analyze, on a neighborhood level, both (1) potential unintended, or undesirable effects of the transit investment that contribute to difficulties for people to remain living in an area, such as gentrification and displacement, and (2) opportunities to make investments to build economic mobility for residents along the transit corridors; and
▪ create with the community, neighborhood-level prevention and mitigation strategies based on the Equity Assessment Tool, including (1)
recommendations that leverage other programs managed by the City, other local governments, and community organizations, to create a
connected efforts for anti-displacement strategies, and (2) recommendations for funding proposals and implementation of identified
strategies; and
▪ provide the professional services of representatives from City departments, which may include employees from Neighborhood Housing and
Community Development, Austin Transportation Department, Equity Office, Innovation Office, Sustainability Office, or other employees to
Austin Transit Partnership to assist with developing proposals, as described below, for approval by City Council and the Capital Metro
Board; and
▪ make publicly available a performance dashboard to track progress on strategies identified for implementation for each neighborhood that is
frequently updated.
Capital Metro shall:
▪ serve as the FTA Project Sponsor and conduct an environmental justice analysis as required as required under National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) for each eligible project and provide any recommendations to Austin Transit Partnership for financing tools and strategies based on the
NEPA review.
Austin Transit Partnership shall:
▪ develop proposals on an ongoing basis, based on the recommendations from the City and Capital Metro, and provide a budget for approval by City Council and the Capital Metro Board; and
▪ enter into interlocal agreements and/or grant agreements with the City of Austin to timely develop and implement these anti-displacement strategies."

So, ATP is not responsible for anything on its own except the property tax revenues, everything they propose to do must be approved by both the City and CapMetro. What you have here is a three headed hydra. Good luck with that.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by freerover

Deleting anti-doxing posts because the mod finds them annoying is personal and it still irks me neither of them care. You shouldn't use your mod tools to delete posts from people critical of you doxing peeps.

People shouldn't be posting the personal identities of people on the forum if that's really what that was about.

[The ATX]

Take the Blue Line from downtown to the airport. I'll make several posts until the trip is completed.

[The ATX]

Continuing down Riverside:

[The ATX]

Continue to US183...

[The ATX]

Arriving at the airport...








All images are unsourced.

[wwmiv]

Anyone else notice the “future alignment by others” at the airport that points directly toward all of the Tesla land across the river? Would that indicate Austin is working with Tesla to incorporate a spur to their land?

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Anyone else notice the “future alignment by others” at the airport that points directly toward all of the Tesla land across the river? Would that indicate Austin is working with Tesla to incorporate a spur to their land?

I noticed that. Definitely could be trying to accommodate that.

Another potential option could be trying to accommodate future HSR (Recent hand wavy maps I’ve seen proposing such usual have Austin’s connection out here at the airport)?

[Novacek]

Other interesting details:

They seem to be designing around or requiring CC expansion. Now what?

They don’t seem to show a maintenance yard, I think most of us assumed it would be in metro center somewhere.

More of the airport section seems elevated than I would think would be necessary. I wonder if it’s just to get up high enough to the terminal station? Or maybe leaving as much room as possible for highway expansion, future extensions, etc.

[chinchaaa]

I am really dying to see what they have planned near the Statesman site. I really hope this helps that area explode.

[Mikey711MN]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Other interesting details:

They seem to be designing around or requiring CC expansion. Now what?

They don’t seem to show a maintenance yard, I think most of us assumed it would be in metro center somewhere.

More of the airport section seems elevated than I would think would be necessary. I wonder if it’s just to get up high enough to the terminal station? Or maybe leaving as much room as possible for highway expansion, future extensions, etc.

My sense is that the yard could also be closer to the airport, e.g. north of SH 71, as well.

As to the current alignment being up in the air like that, it looks like it's up on straddle bents as it runs E-W along the northern boundary of the Parking Spot property, which they've done so to accommodate a future EBFR (separate TxDOT project) that probably needs to stay north to keep the utility easement in place.

[atxsnail]

The parts that I found new or interesting were:

• the underground blue line storage tracks on Trinity north of 4th
• the proposed realignment of car lanes on riverside near pleasant valley. I thought the prevailing thought was to use the huge grassy median for the station. not complaining though, as it brings the station a little closer to the action in that area.
• the pretty significant ROW acquisitions required along riverside. it's just a few extra feet wide but it's for most of the length of the road, which I had assumed was already wide enough
• just how useless the Travis Heights station will be - there may be a total of 100 people living within a 15 minute walk of the station. I get that the stop spacing is about right, but there's nothing there but a dozen houses and a dog park (which I hope won't lead people to try to bring non-service dogs on the trains). maybe it offers a different boardwalk access point I guess.
• how useful the Metrocenter station might end up being. Having budget hotels near the airport but accessible to transit is pretty good and somewhat reminiscent of Portland's first stop away from PDX. It also probably provides a decent number of transit accessible jobs.

[We vs us]

Re: cc Expansion -- everyone seems to think the renovation timeline has the potential to sync up with the tunneling/station construction. Things are still loosy goosey, but there will probably be significant excavation for the new CC -- because they still want to put at least one of the additional exhibit halls below street level.

That Trinity station could actually be pretty amazing when all is said and done. Significant for the CC, that's for sure.

[freerover]

whatever. delete.

[freerover]

I'm so happy to see the tunnel spur being built out for the future Gold Line LRT. That makes me feel like it might actually happen. We also have definite confirmation that it'll stay a tunnel under 6th St which is really good. I wonder where it's going to come out? Also love the underground connection between the Trinity and 4th St tunnels. The only thing that still gets me is the distance from the Rainey station to Rainey. I guess with development coming the pedestrian walkways linking the 2 areas will be a lot better in 10 years than they are today.


Also, deadline is tonight at midnight for the senate to pass the bill that would give Cap Metro permission for the underground stations.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by atxsnail

just how useless the Travis Heights station will be - there may be a total of 100 people living within a 15 minute walk of the station. I get that the stop spacing is about right, but there's nothing there but a dozen houses and a dog park (which I hope won't lead people to try to bring non-service dogs on the trains). maybe it offers a different boardwalk access point I guess.

As I mentioned in the argument above, I wouldn't _entirely_ be surprised for some stations to slip out of initial implementation/service if there's some budget juggling that has to happen. TH could be such a station. It still makes sense to plan it, and if you don't construct the track approach and do the RoW acquisition for it now, it'll _never_ happen.

I agree it's not really dense immediately adjacent to the station, but it will undoubtedly get some ridership from the neighborhood as a whole coming down Travis Heights Blvd.

Could also get some from stuff along the SB I35 frontage road there (easier to get to a TH station than crossing I35 on foot/bike to a station east of I25).

Maybe even some ridership from the very south part of Rainey (crossing the river at I35)?

[drummer]

I like it! And yes, a spur to Tesla and the surrounding area makes sense to be considered given the volume of workers in that direction in the next few years and after.

[Novacek]

More regarding TH

Going back to Spring 2018 ridership data (latest I've found).

Stop 1187 has 11.5 daily on/offs.
1246 has 58.4 on/offs
1188 has 44.3

In total, not great, but I've seen worse. Light rail would presumably see increased ridership.


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ni2THho2459DM_0f4pL0RkkljH24Qf0R3AOL4PSQ1Aw

[freerover]

Originally Posted by drummer

I like it! And yes, a spur to Tesla and the surrounding area makes sense to be considered given the volume of workers in that direction in the next few years and after.

But who pays for it? Tesla is outside the city as is most of everything over there except for COTA. Maybe if Travis county wasn't so focused on rural roads.

[The ATX]

The source provided me with the Orange Line route as well. It'll take a while to break that one out into snippets suitable for posting.