AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[wwmiv]

M1EK: have you ever actually ridden on the MAX in Portland? They fit those lines in places that are far smaller than any stretch of Burnet WITH as heavy of traffic as Burnet has. Speaking from experience - it is the only way I get around town there when I visit my sister - I can say that light rail up Burnet, Lamar, Guadalupe, and down Congress, 1st, and Lamar are all hugely possible. I know that all of those studies the city did suggested that it wasn't really feasible. But it wasn't feasible because of the CARS that utilized the existing ROW.

What light rail strives to do is eliminate those cars. Wouldn't Guadalupe on the drag be a more pedestrian environment if it were wholly transitioned into light rail ROW from downtown until Dean Keaton? The road could easily be modified so that Dean Keaton and Guadalupe meld into one flow at that corner.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

M1EK: have you ever actually ridden on the MAX in Portland?

They were the model for the 2000 LRT plan. Which included running down Lamar and Guadalupe. To be clear, I have NOT said that you can't take traffic lanes on a busy street. What I have said is that you can't do that unless you can predict high ridership - which a light rail line going further up Lamar instead of to the suburbs can't do; and which a light rail line going (slowly) further up Lamar and then up Burnet also can't do.

The whole point of the 2000 line, again: fast in the burbs, slow in the high-traffic areas. If all you have is slow, you're not getting many riders, unless the entire length of the route covers "high traffic areas" like in Houston.

By the way, the first line of MAX in Portland is described in detail here. Includes several fast segments off the street in the outskirts before running in the street in the core. Just like the 2000 LRT plan. Again, matching the model of most successful light rail starts in this country - go fast where density is low, go slow where density is high (or where the activity centers are now and where density is most likely to be high in the future).

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Buckhead transitioned from being a purely suburban built environment into something that is more hybrid and decidedly more urban. There are other similar neighborhoods around the country, with the most obvious being Tysons Corner outside of DC and the Galleria area of Houston. I spent childhood summers in Atlanta during the 1950s and early 60s and remember when Lenox Square opened as a one story outdoor mall. There were no highrises at all. Buckhead was just a place with very big and beautiful homes. Forty years or more later and central Buckhead is a much, much more densely developed place. Give it another 20 or 30 years, and I suspect that it will more closely resemble a traditional cityscape.

That's really not the way these things work - you can't retrofit a streetcape onto a bunch of highrises that are oriented to their own parking garages and/or surface parking lots.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Scott Wood

I'm having a hard time seeing anything of significance on Google aerial maps crowding in Burnet between 183 and Anderson -- even most of the parking lots are set back with driveways. Further south on Burnet looks pretty open as well. What am I missing?

The city does not have the political will to condemn any property of note on a corridor where ridership won't be all that high to begin with. And, yes, some property would have to be condemned in that vicinity (and, no, you couldn't just eliminate left turns either - the entire corridor depends on left turning traffic - as do most suburban retail strips).

In any case, it doesn't seem any less likely than scrapping the red line and going back to the 2000 plan, at this point. :-)

I've already said what the one and only one remotely possible scenario for rail up Guadalupe is as an add-on to the CoA urban rail plan coming up from the south. The reason I bring up tearing up the Red Line is to compare its expense and unlikelihood to even more expensive and even less likely proposals like running light rail cars side-by-side with the Red Line in the same corridor; or running in the street all the way to the Domain at 15-20 mph. Even more important, like with the Red Line, if you make the wrong decision now, you can't un-make it; we can't ever make the Red Line better; and we couldn't ever make a 15-mile-long 15-miles-per-hour completely street-running-through-density-hostile-areas LRT line any better either.

That's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem -- who's going to develop high densities, especially with reduced parking, in the absence of either good transit or high land values? This is an area that the city is trying to promote higher density in; it shouldn't skimp on the services that would enable that.

Transit doesn't create density where none currently exists - this is a common fallacy. See Christof's piece, one of many making the argument that "Density begets density. What you can get with transit is more density in places where it already exists; or you can get new density if a ton of people are riding your rail line (because it hits major activity centerS on the other end); but if you just stick a rail line on a non-dense corridor with low ridership, you get what Tri-Rail has gotten after 20 years in South Florida: jack squat.

[wwmiv]

Is all you do rebut the opinions of other people?

You are correct about the operational necessities of light rail, but I really don't think you understand that light rail would be effective up Burnet - ESPECIALLY if it develops according to plan. Any light rail line that is south of 183, within Mopac and 35, and north of 71/290 would be an automatic success. The density is already there to support it. You don't have to have downtown-like levels of density to beget a successful plan. Even the MAX proves this. And what are you talking about with the speed thing? The ONLY reason that the MAX garners high stats in ridership is because the highways there are so horribly congested that even IT has faster times.

I know we like to complain about our traffic here, but we couldn't ever effectively take light rail or commuter rail or any other type of rail to the suburbs because no matter what we do the speed it takes to drive will practically always be faster than the time it would take to get to work downtown. The other major problem is that compared to a lot of cities with successful light rail systems (the MAX and Portland is still my primary example), Austin has a a very low percentage of jobs located in the urban core. We have Dell in Round Rock. In fact, a plurality of office space is located in the Northwest here. The MAX works because it connects the suburban workers with their jobs. We couldn't effectively do that here because the jobs are so widely dispersed that connecting them all is cost prohibitive.

That leaves one thing: build light rail for a different purpose. Create an interconnectedness amongst various local attractions, venues, parks, hospitals, neighborhoods, etc. The only way this is going to work, though, is if it is accompanied by other policies... such as an urban growth boundary (a la Portland), a peak hour toll on major thoroughfares, extremely aggressive zoning that is actively enforced, urban planning along the lines of what is proposed on North Burnet, greater incentives for larger businesses to locate here instead of out suburbs, tax breaks for smaller businesses that meet certain standards (community benefit, urban character, etc.), incentives for housing developers to discontinue large-scale suburban subdivisions in favor of smaller scale neighborhoods closer to the urban core, an extension and upgrade of several roads (Parmer should be a freeway - with only limited stretches of access roads - which is an easy thing to do apart from that central stretch), and most especially community outreach by local leaders to explain WHY this is a viable option that is a winner for EVERYONE.

The problem is that we have a populace who comes to this issue from one point of view and experts/advocates that approach it from another. To gain majority support you have to do two things: 1) have an ambitious/extensive plan and 2) support expansion of other options in conjunction.

90% of the political game is decided by turnout. In 2006 the Democrats took over congress because they increased their turnout from the previous midterm election while the Republicans mainly held steady from the previous election. To win a vote on something like this we need to be able to turn out the voters that share our opinion (which are a sizable minority in Austin). The way we do this is by crafting a large scale ambitious plan - multiple lines at once type thing - and frame it in a community serving way instead of a suburb-to-CBD type thing.

The other 10% of the political game is gaining the voters who could support us under optimum conditions, but whose support we don't yet have. The easiest way to do this is by supporting other options in conjunction with an ambitious proposal. Without supporting these other options our leaders would look disingenuous by telling voters that this is a winning solution for everyone - it would only be a winning solution for light rail advocates. Now everyone has something they can vote for.

Forget about the people who are against us no matter what we do - don't cater to them. Don't scale down the proposal on account of them, they're going to vote against it anyway.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by PartyLine

I don't see how else they could have arranged the buildings though you probably still would have to walk between the phases unless it was an inclosed mall like Barton Creek or the Galleria it's the same as the Hill Country Galleria out in bee Caves isn't it? I haven't been to Bee Caves lately so I don't remember how the Galleria is. I guess they could have build a garage infront of Macy's like they did Neiman Marcus.

It's really simple. Look at 2nd street. End of story.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Is all you do rebut the opinions of other people?

You are correct about the operational necessities of light rail, but I really don't think you understand that light rail would be effective up Burnet - ESPECIALLY if it develops according to plan. Any light rail line that is south of 183, within Mopac and 35, and north of 71/290 would be an automatic success. The density is already there to support it. You don't have to have downtown-like levels of density to beget a successful plan. Even the MAX proves this. And what are you talking about with the speed thing? The ONLY reason that the MAX garners high stats in ridership is because the highways there are so horribly congested that even IT has faster times.

I know we like to complain about our traffic here, but we couldn't ever effectively take light rail or commuter rail or any other type of rail to the suburbs because no matter what we do the speed it takes to drive will practically always be faster than the time it would take to get to work downtown. The other major problem is that compared to a lot of cities with successful light rail systems (the MAX and Portland is still my primary example), Austin has a a very low percentage of jobs located in the urban core. We have Dell in Round Rock. In fact, a plurality of office space is located in the Northwest here. The MAX works because it connects the suburban workers with their jobs. We couldn't effectively do that here because the jobs are so widely dispersed that connecting them all is cost prohibitive.

That leaves one thing: build light rail for a different purpose. Create an interconnectedness amongst various local attractions, venues, parks, hospitals, neighborhoods, etc. The only way this is going to work, though, is if it is accompanied by other policies... such as an urban growth boundary (a la Portland), a peak hour toll on major thoroughfares, extremely aggressive zoning that is actively enforced, urban planning along the lines of what is proposed on North Burnet, greater incentives for larger businesses to locate here instead of out suburbs, tax breaks for smaller businesses that meet certain standards (community benefit, urban character, etc.), incentives for housing developers to discontinue large-scale suburban subdivisions in favor of smaller scale neighborhoods closer to the urban core, an extension and upgrade of several roads (Parmer should be a freeway - with only limited stretches of access roads - which is an easy thing to do apart from that central stretch), and most especially community outreach by local leaders to explain WHY this is a viable option that is a winner for EVERYONE.

The problem is that we have a populace who comes to this issue from one point of view and experts/advocates that approach it from another. To gain majority support you have to do two things: 1) have an ambitious/extensive plan and 2) support expansion of other options in conjunction.

90% of the political game is decided by turnout. In 2006 the Democrats took over congress because they increased their turnout from the previous midterm election while the Republicans mainly held steady from the previous election. To win a vote on something like this we need to be able to turn out the voters that share our opinion (which are a sizable minority in Austin). The way we do this is by crafting a large scale ambitious plan - multiple lines at once type thing - and frame it in a community serving way instead of a suburb-to-CBD type thing.

The other 10% of the political game is gaining the voters who could support us under optimum conditions, but whose support we don't yet have. The easiest way to do this is by supporting other options in conjunction with an ambitious proposal. Without supporting these other options our leaders would look disingenuous by telling voters that this is a winning solution for everyone - it would only be a winning solution for light rail advocates. Now everyone has something they can vote for.

Forget about the people who are against us no matter what we do - don't cater to them. Don't scale down the proposal on account of them, they're going to vote against it anyway.

It's necessary to keep rebutting the opinions of other people when they offer up opinions that aren't going to get us to where we need to go. In order,

1. MAX 'fast' vs. 'slow' is relative. It runs faster in the suburban areas (off-street) than in the core (in-street). A Burnet LRT would be running in the street the entire way. Again, this is not a fatal flaw, but only IF the corridor is already extremely dense (can already be expected to generate big ridership) - like Houston's. Other cities which have run all in-street in a low-density suburban area like Allandale have been viewed as failures due to low ridership (San Jose, for instance).

2. About Burnet - there is very little room there for more density (south of 183) before you butt right up against the reality of the suburban Allandale mentality. And, again, density wants to be with other density - so a line that doesn't have a large built-in ridership on that corridor isn't going to generate any new density because there's effectively no old density there to stick it to. All you need to do is look at what happened with the VMU ordinance - the populace there will fight any density tooth and nail; so there's little opportunity for TOD even if the line had a lot of riders from day one, which it wouldn't (again, no existing density; slow ride to activity centers compared to 2000 LRT path). As for north of 183, there's opportunity for TOD in the fact that nobody lives there now, but again, density wants to be near density - it's very hard to convince people to move to an expensive apartment on a rail line that isn't very heavily used next to a bunch of old warehouses that gets you to your job downtown extra-slow because it has to run in the street the entire 15 miles instead of just the last 5.

3. You're wrong about 2000 LRT speed - it would have been effectively just like the Red Line up to Lamar/Airport (possibly even faster since new tracks/signals would have been built, instead of using the old tracks/signals) - and then the advantage of going directly to activity centers would outweigh the slightly higher speed the Red Line achieves southeast of there (only slightly higher since the old freight tracks in that part of town aren't in good shape and because there's turns involved for the Red Line that are as sharp as the LRT path would have taken - you have to slow down pretty much the same for those turns whether you're in street or off street). I've run many use cases on my blog which have shown it to be faster (significantly) than the Red Line + shuttle; you can extrapolate to car speed as well. See links at end.

4. About employment. Austin's central activity centers have as many or more jobs than Portland's did when MAX was built. The Feds rated our 2000 LRT plan a win despite little anticipated local support for upzoning around stations further out - just because of that employment density. Just because most of us here work in high-tech doesn't mean there aren't tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands of workers down there - there are. Far more than IBM, Motorola, Dell, etc. put together, when you consider UT+Capitol+downtown.

If you base your opinions on facts that aren't actually facts, they are invalid, and they need to be rebutted before we can even move forward. This is akin to just letting the people who say "we voted down light rail 3 times before they finally passed it" go unchallenged.

I've offered up the path forward on a number of occasions here; it's difficult to see how you missed it - the only way to get rail up Guadalupe is to go north from the CoA rail plan, but just to the Triangle. After that it'll take $10/gallon gas to be remotely attractive, since the Red Line screwed us with no opportunity to go quickER (than in-street running) to the suburban park-and-rides. Far more attractive extensions than up Burnet/Lamar exist, if we're stuck running purely in-street (down S. Congress, for instance).

"Use Cases" category of my blog. One particularly relevant example here:

In general, I assumed you would get to the express bus stop and wait 5-10 minutes for the express bus, and I was charitably assuming it would be on time. The remainder of that trip is from the 7:25 route in from Leander, and assuming a 5 minute or less walk from the stop. The drive is me estimating what I suppose it would take that time of day (I'd like to hear from a Leander resident that makes this trip in their car for a more accurate estimate). The commuter rail time has such a wide swing because of the shuttle bus component - buses fare worse than cars in heavy traffic due to their acceleration characteristics and the fact that they can't change their route to get around heavy traffic. In general, I assume that the more time you spend on a bus, the less reliable your trip (could be faster or slower than the average). (The express buses don't try to slow down to avoid hitting stops early on the way in in the mornings, unlike city buses, so you actually could get dropped off earlier than schedule indicates).

Note that one of the key attractions to the 2000 light rail route is its reliability. A route which doesn't require that you take shuttle buses can dependably get you to work at the same time every day. The train isn't stuck in traffic, and you don't have to make any transfers.

[wwmiv]

Instead of rebutting everything you just said, I'm going to restate the main gist of my post:

The only way this is going to work, though, is if it is accompanied by other policies... such as an urban growth boundary (a la Portland), a peak hour toll on major thoroughfares, extremely aggressive zoning that is actively enforced, urban planning along the lines of what is proposed on North Burnet, greater incentives for larger businesses to locate here instead of out suburbs, tax breaks for smaller businesses that meet certain standards (community benefit, urban character, etc.), incentives for housing developers to discontinue large-scale suburban subdivisions in favor of smaller scale neighborhoods closer to the urban core, an extension and upgrade of several roads (Parmer should be a freeway - with only limited stretches of access roads - which is an easy thing to do apart from that central stretch), and most especially community outreach by local leaders to explain WHY this is a viable option that is a winner for EVERYONE.

The problem is that we have a populace who comes to this issue from one point of view and experts/advocates that approach it from another. To gain majority support you have to do two things: 1) have an ambitious/extensive plan and 2) support expansion of other options in conjunction.

90% of the political game is decided by turnout. In 2006 the Democrats took over congress because they increased their turnout from the previous midterm election while the Republicans mainly held steady from the previous election. To win a vote on something like this we need to be able to turn out the voters that share our opinion (which are a sizable minority in Austin). The way we do this is by crafting a large scale ambitious plan - multiple lines at once type thing - and frame it in a community serving way instead of a suburb-to-CBD type thing.

The other 10% of the political game is gaining the voters who could support us under optimum conditions, but whose support we don't yet have. The easiest way to do this is by supporting other options in conjunction with an ambitious proposal. Without supporting these other options our leaders would look disingenuous by telling voters that this is a winning solution for everyone - it would only be a winning solution for light rail advocates. Now everyone has something they can vote for.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Instead of rebutting everything you just said, I'm going to restate the main gist of my post:

Which is meaningless. If you pass something that everybody likes (because nobody who knew better corrected them) but doesn't work, we end up with Red Line Part Deux. No thanks. And if you think we have a prayer in hell at something like an urban growth boundary in this state, with the state government we have, you're, well, on some really good mediciations.

For those actually interested in the history, here's a link I stumbled across again while doing all that work that wwmiv completely ignored: an abstract of the FTA response to the 2000 LRT plan. Money quotes:

Capital Metro is further proposing a phased implementation of the Austin Area LRT System with development of a 14.6 mile Minimum Operable Segment (MOS) from McNeil Road in north Austin to the CBD. The MOS is planned to provide direct access to the University of Texas, the State Capitol Complex and the Austin CBD. Service is proposed to operate at 10-minute frequencies during peak periods, and 20-minute frequencies during the off-peak. The 14.6 mile MOS is estimated to cost $739.0 million (in escalated dollars) and to serve 37,400 average weekday boardings by the year 2025.

Ridership Forecast (2025):
37,400 average weekday boardings
17,100 daily new riders

An in-street LRT line going to McNeil/1325 would look something like this and runs 14.6 miles (oddly enough, exactly the same length). The length of the in-street portion of the 2000 LRT line is about 5.6 miles - so an all in-street proposal using Lamar/Burnet subtracts 9 miles of fast running and replaces it with 9 miles of slow-running route, through low-density stuff. The cost of that 9 mile segment would likely be twice as high as in the LRT plan (due to street reconstruction costs) as well.

[wwmiv]

I don't think you understand what is politically tenable in this city. Nothing is passable that only serves a certain section of the city or that only serves a certain view point. People who don't get something in the deal are going to inevitably be put off and be more motivated to vote against it. That light rail proposal in my mind had overly rosy numbers... perhaps thats why it disappeared and got replaced by something that is actually worse. Who knows, maybe the red line will perform better than expected? Probably not though.

[M1EK]

wwmiv, you need to go back and read the last 5 years of my blog if you think that's why the 2000 LRT proposal lost. Two words: Mike Krusee.

In case you forgot, you're dealing with a guy who was on the UTC from 2000-2005; who was out on the corner of 6th/Congress waving a sign on election night in 2000 to try to get the center-city to overcome the suburban turnout (amped up because of W); who was one of 4 commissioners to get a preview of the Red Line turd down in Capital Metro's offices in early 2004 before it was unleashed on the public.

Short entry: I went down to Cap Metro at 11 for a briefing on the new different long-range transit plan (they're not ready for open-records stuff yet so they were only willing to talk to 4 people from our commission at a time) and yes, the urban core of Austin is getting screwed. Rail for people in the densest parts of town is now gone; replaced with "rapid bus" lines, which do not include plans for any knd of prioritization beyond the "keep the green light a few seconds longer".

In other words, the far suburbs, many of whom don't pay taxes to Cap Metro, are getting commuter rail; and the urban core, where most of the money comes from, is getting a slightly better version of the #101.

Cap Metro just got a new worst enemy. I don't expect to have any influence over the outcome, but I can and will make the people responsible for this decision as miserable as possible.

[wwmiv]

At times your blog is revisionist history.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

At times your blog is revisionist history.

If you have a specific complaint, let's hear it. That last piece was a post I wrote in May of 2004 when I was invited down to CM headquarters to see the plan they were about the unveil; I started the thing in late 2003.

[PartyLine]

Originally Posted by M1EK

It's really simple. Look at 2nd street. End of story.

Yeah 2nd street is nice also East Avenue looks like it will be nice

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

What she said, except there is an old rail spur from the red line into Pickle that could be extended into the Domain. I wouldn't completely discount North Lamar in the future, though. The existing land use is not very compatible, but the ridership in the area is quite high. The large immigrant population in the area is probably more willing to use transit than other Austinites.

I missed this in all the kerfluffle. One of the ways the Feds decide if they're going to contribute any money to your rail transit plan is how many 'new' riders it generates - so the existing bus riders aren't necessarily a positive with that part of town, unless they bring along a lot of new riders at the same time. (In other words, lots of existing riders + lots of new riders = great; but lots of existing riders + few new riders = low score).

There aren't a lot of new riders out there on that corridor unless you can come up with an abandoned rail right of way that would allow fast travel up to a big park and ride up in Round Rock or Pflugerville. TOD possibilities are negligible.

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by M1EK

I missed this in all the kerfluffle. One of the ways the Feds decide if they're going to contribute any money to your rail transit plan is how many 'new' riders it generates - so the existing bus riders aren't necessarily a positive with that part of town, unless they bring along a lot of new riders at the same time. (In other words, lots of existing riders + lots of new riders = great; but lots of existing riders + few new riders = low score).

There aren't a lot of new riders out there on that corridor unless you can come up with an abandoned rail right of way that would allow fast travel up to a big park and ride up in Round Rock or Pflugerville. TOD possibilities are negligible.

I don't disagree, which is why I advocate for the first extension to be to the Domain / Pickle - lot's of potential for new riders. FTA models used to not allow for future TOD ridership, but that is changing with a new administration and initiatives to get the FTA and HUD working together better. With a solid land use plan in place, and very strong evidence of changing land use patterns (the Domain), it should do very well. North Lamar does not have this momentum, but could do well in a more distant future.

Everybody is entitled to their opinions on what is feasible or likely to occur in the future. Official ridership models and some preliminary engineering are needed to validate before funding commitments can be made, but those are still only projections. The only real proof comes with time once a line is operating for at least a year.

I too, do sometimes get impatient with the progress of transit in Austin, and I am disappointed with the lack of progress made this past decade. Because I am intimately aware of the intricacy of the processes it takes to get a transit system developed, I realize that progress is often measured in decades, not years. I remain optimistic about the dawning decade, because the political stars are aligning in a different way than they were in 2000 at the Federal and local level.

I will continue to advocate for a northern expansion of urban rail to the Domain, but more significantly, I believe UT will as well. It is in their best interest to have better connections between Pickle and the Main, as well as other properties they have a vested interest in such as the Brackenridge Tract and the proposed UT medical tract at Mueller. UT needs to do more than advocate though. They need to step up to the plate as a funding partner if they want to get things done.

In case everyone missed it, there is talk of future expansion of the proposed urban rail starter system in all directions, and acknowledgement that more than 1 north-south and east-west corridor will eventually be needed downtown. http://austintx.swagit.com/player.ph...&item=0&pos=15

If Austin is to continue growing at its historic rate (or even half as much), it needs major investment in transit to maintain quality of life. This means a comprehensive system of lines in both the inner city and the greater region, using a variety of modes as is best suited to particular corridors, locations, purpose and need. The urban rail plan being discussed should just be the starting point. A growing city needs continual transit investment, expanding, improving and updating the system over time.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

I don't disagree, which is why I advocate for the first extension to be to the Domain / Pickle - lot's of potential for new riders. FTA models used to not allow for future TOD ridership, but that is changing with a new administration and initiatives to get the FTA and HUD working together better. With a solid land use plan in place, and very strong evidence of changing land use patterns (the Domain), it should do very well. North Lamar does not have this momentum, but could do well in a more distant future.

That's fine, but it ignores these facts:

1. An all-in-street alignment up "to" the Domain or Pickle will be N% slower than the 2000 LRT alignment would have been. IE, the train cannot run as quickly on Burnet Road due to stoplights and design speed of the roadway as it could in the Red Line ROW. N is fairly large depending on the size of the segment now proposed to run in-street. For instance, if it's about 6 miles from the Domain to the place where the 2000 LRT alignment would have entered street running, and the street-running rail averages 15 mph while the rail ROW running train averages 30 mph, you've just added 12 more minutes to the rail trip - a rail trip which was probably at or slightly behind the car trip to begin with.

2. Even though a Burnet Road alignment would be closer to the Domain and Pickle than is the Red Line ROW (which would have been used in 2000's LRT plan), neither one is really close enough to walk; so neither one is going to produce much potential ridership to or from "The Domain" (unless the urban rail extension were rerouted THROUGH the middle of both, which is highly improbable given current development and future plans - even in shared runningway to say nothing of reserved guideway). You're relying on a really long walk or a shuttle-bus connector, in other words.

In both cases, this is Yet More Wishful Thinking about what choice commuters will tolerate - in no world short of $10 or $15 gas will somebody who owns a car and can afford parking willingly tolerate a commute with a shuttle-bus ride on one or the other end, or a train ride that takes 50 minutes compared to 30 in their car, so you're left with basically 0 new riders from the Domain or from Pickle. This is precisely the kind of thinking that led to the execrable Red Line, and precisely the kind of thinking we DON'T need going forward.

Additionally, I've expressed skepticism about the Domain in this thread so far - what you see out there right now is one small mixed-use pedestrian-oriented strip, separated from another one being built to the south by a large surface parking lot. I see no evidence so far that anybody involved with this project views this model as a negative, so I expect that future phases closer to Burnet will suffer from the same exact liability - leading to less prospective transit use as the walking paths between nodes and out to Burnet are likely to be through or along surface parking; i.e., repeating the San Jose LRT experience.

Finally, the admonition that this stuff takes decades is ridiculous. Other cities have surpassed us since 2000, even 2004; while we're stuck in a commuter rail morass - and a lot of the reason we're stuck is that nobody's being honest with the public about what the Red Line can and can't do, and how long it should have taken to get there. South Florida built Tri-Rail in about 3 years. Seattle's brought LRT from final decision to opening in about 7, in an environment similar to ours (distrust of agency, past plans to build on, funding problems, etc).

We don't even have decades. By the time oil gets really expensive, we'll be struggling to stay afloat; we won't have money for big infrastructure expenditures. So this is pretty much it, now, and we can't afford any more mistakes.

[Scott Wood]

Originally Posted by M1EK

The city does not have the political will to condemn any property of note on a corridor where ridership won't be all that high to begin with. And, yes, some property would have to be condemned in that vicinity (and, no, you couldn't just eliminate left turns either - the entire corridor depends on left turning traffic - as do most suburban retail strips).

Given how many suburban roads are divided, often for no apparent reason, I wonder how much of an issue that really is.

FWIW, the city's 2025 transportation plan has Burnet as divided: ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/GIS-Data/p...tp/central.pdf

Originally Posted by M1EK

I've already said what the one and only one remotely possible scenario for rail up Guadalupe is as an add-on to the CoA urban rail plan coming up from the south.

That may well be the best short-term plan, especially since the north will (in theory) already have a rail line (albeit a crappy one), making it politically unpopular to give it a second line before South Austin gets its first. Is there suitable right of way for a sufficiently fast train to the south? Will it require freight relocation?

Long term, though, I don't see the harm in planning for better transit in North Austin, especially in North Burnet -- at least to the point where the potiential right of way that does exist is preserved, and stop locations are identified to guide development. Most likely, it'll just be MetroRapid for the forseeable future, but I'd rather not dismiss other possibilities out of hand.

Originally Posted by M1EK

Transit doesn't create density where none currently exists - this is a common fallacy. See Christof's piece, one of many making the argument that "Density begets density. What you can get with transit is more density in places where it already exists; or you can get new density if a ton of people are riding your rail line (because it hits major activity centerS on the other end); but if you just stick a rail line on a non-dense corridor with low ridership, you get what Tri-Rail has gotten after 20 years in South Florida: jack squat.

I wasn't saying that it would create density, but rather that if the rest of North Burnet starts to take off as planned, having plans up front for better transit could reduce the degree to which the design is overly car-oriented. Plus, as energy gets more expensive, transit is going to drive demand more than it currently does -- plan for the future, not the present.

I think comparisons to Tri-Rail are a little unfair -- the line would still be anchored by UT/capital/downtown. A better analogue for Tri-Rail would be if it ran down MoPac the whole way, or to a lesser degree the Red Line.

[Scott Wood]

Originally Posted by M1EK

That's fine, but it ignores these facts:
In both cases, this is Yet More Wishful Thinking about what choice commuters will tolerate - in no world short of $10 or $15 gas will somebody who owns a car and can afford parking willingly tolerate a commute with a shuttle-bus ride on one or the other end, or a train ride that takes 50 minutes compared to 30 in their car, so you're left with basically 0 new riders from the Domain or from Pickle.

I would gladly leave my car at home if it were only a 20 minute penalty (and frequent headways) versus the hour penalty (mostly walking) that it takes to get to the crappy suburban office I work in. I'm far from typical, but it's not zero. :-)

More relevantly, I think you're underestimating the degree to which people would put up with a modest increase in travel time in order to save money, be productive on the trip, etc -- as I recall, even when gas was only pushing $4 (which it surely will again (and go beyond) as the economy recovers, supply can't keep up, emissions are capped, etc), there was a non-negligible increase in transit ridership. It's not an all-or-nothing "is this fast enough" question, but rather a continuum of more riders as speed improves or alternatives get worse.

How long do you think that 30 minute toll-free commute is going to stay that way, as the population continues to grow? How long is parking downtown going to stay cheap as it grows?

Originally Posted by M1EK

We don't even have decades. By the time oil gets really expensive, we'll be struggling to stay afloat; we won't have money for big infrastructure expenditures. So this is pretty much it, now, and we can't afford any more mistakes.

Exactly.

At that time, there will be a lot fewer people saying "you know, I'd much rather pay $10/gallon for gas, or even whatever it costs to run an electric car at higher electricity prices, and pay a lot for parking and maybe tolls, and whatever it costs to replace the car (at expensive-energy manufacturing prices, possibly with expensive batteries) more frequently due to the extra usage, than take an extra 20 minutes to get to work".

Let's build it now, while we have the chance. By all means, start with the lines with the most immediate potential, but don't neglect a more comprehensive coverage plan, especially in areas that have been targeted for higher density.

[austlar1]

If times get really tough, there will probably be a lot of public works projects that, in an era of $10 a gallon gas, would likely be geared towards transportation projects. I know that sounds drastic, but the Great Depression produced MASSIVE infrastructure investment in roads, bridges, transit (NYC especially), and dams, etc.

It would, however, be nice to get things built now. I think those of you on this site who look forward with an eye towards what ongoing growth and development will bring into being over time are the ones that have the most to offer in terms of creative thinking about transit possibilities in Austin. I think M1EK kind of deals in what already is and doesn't let himself imagine what might be, especially if it interferes with any of his rigidly held opinions. There is going to be a lot of future development in North Austin, probably in the Domain and Burnet Road area. It would be more interesting, organic, and dynamic development, if rail transit (and I am not talking about this stupid Red Line to Leander) were part of the mix. It is short sighted to assume that because density does not exist now, it is never going to exist. In a rapidly growing area like Austin, rail can help shape density