Why the Anderson Lane alignment (as shown in previous slides) is better:
1) Just from the slides we can't really tell the cross section of a 183 route, whether it's underneath 183 or one track on each side or both tracks to the north of 183. But I think I can conclusively state that any one of those is not really conducive to a true urban fabric.
In any of those permutations, you severely limit the walking shed and access to the stations. If they're truly proposing putting a station at 183 and Northgate (which is what I think that word in the slide is), then 180 of the station perimeter is blocked by this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3684...7i13312!8i6656
Running it along 183 (or perhaps even worse, trying to wind it through the neighborhood north of that somehow) is basically the exact opposite of what they've said they did in the 2025 plan, that transit should run along the Imagine Austin/Mixed Use Corridors.
Anderson Lane is a Imagine Austin corridor. Burnet Road south of 183 is a Imagine Austin corridor. 183 is not.
2) By spurring off at an acute angle (if they're following 183), they're actually duplicating a lot of their coverage. NACA would have routes on 3 sides, while Wooten would have 1 (if you can accessibly cross 183) while North Shoal Creek would have none. They may feel the (current) demographics of NACA are more conducive to high ridership, but there's no guarantee that lasts.
Now, I'm in Wooten, so I'm biased
. But reaching new areas rather than duplicating seems better even from an unbiased system planning perspective.
3) As mentioned, Anderson is an Imagine Austin corridor. But by reaching the Anderson/Burnet intersection, you also provide (some level of) service to the Northcross IA center. You also better provide service to the Crossroads area (183 and Burnet, s of the intersection). This isn't a named center in IA, but the IA map does seem to group that slice south of 183 with the NBG regional center.
4) There's room for it. Anderson Lane is a 4(5) lane road. I'm not sure of the exact RoW width, but that section of Anderson has a daily traffic count of about 20k. You should be able to take a lane each way, especially since some of that traffic will now be riding. Some today is also probably cut-through traffic that could instead that burnet/183 and would reroute.
While Burnet north of Anderson (if I'm remembering the Burnet corridor plan study) actually has a really wide 135' RoW, enough for the existing 4/5 lanes plus transit lanes.
Anyway, those are my arguments, and I hope to convince CM with them. Maybe I've convinced a few of you, and you'll join me.