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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.

[nixcity]

I'm having a hard time following this process right now. Is Cap Metro not in on this discussion since their plan for a circulator was no good?
Is the line from the airport still in consideration, if so where would it cross the river? If the plan is to go up the east end of dtown, UT, then will it not get any closer to 5th and Congress than the Convention Center commuter rail stop? I'm just having a hard time understanding why Lamar or Guadalupe are not in the discussion, why would Mueller be a destination? First of all it wont even be a densly populated area when built out, secondly, I thought that Mueller was supposed to be set up as a community where you really shouldn't have to leave much, ie...work, live, and play all there.
I would hate to make a decision that leaves us with two dead end rail lines, I do agree the time is now as there is little to be done in the city to greatly reduce traffic and we all know the commuter rail won't do it.

[M1EK]

CAMPO has taken over the planning work - led mainly by Wynn and McCracken, with Watson trying to make sure CAMPO lets them do what they need to do for the city (occasionally throwing bones to suburbanites trying to hijack this into yet another commuter line for the far burbs like Elgin).

Best guess currently is that the line comes from the airport in on east riverside, and then follows something similar to the awful CM circulator route. I don't think political will exists to run up Guadalupe, even though I continue to push for it to do so.

The addition of east riverside MIGHT yield enough prospective riders to make this thing enough of a success to build on. I don't think there's going to be enough people at Mueller heading downtown or to UT (and the UT service isn't going to be good); so Riverside was a smart idea by McCracken.

I figure we need to shoot for 10,000/day for this thing to be good enough to win the PR battle and then get expansions built. Hopefully there'll still be enough UT people in the E Riverside area 5 years from now to make this happen.

[zaphod]

I have some friends from the austin area and was there and I have thought of something.

Has there been any thought into extending the presently useless metrorail project, by say about .7 miles(by my google earth calculations) on street trackage past frost and up congress by a few blocks, to be somewhat closer to the downtown center of employement?

Since the train runs infrequently the wide radius curve onto Congress could be signalized and once in the road since congress is so wide it could have a reserved single track.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by zaphod

I have some friends from the austin area and was there and I have thought of something.

Has there been any thought into extending the presently useless metrorail project, by say about .7 miles(by my google earth calculations) on street trackage past frost and up congress by a few blocks, to be somewhat closer to the downtown center of employement?

Since the train runs infrequently the wide radius curve onto Congress could be signalized and once in the road since congress is so wide it could have a reserved single track.

The turn onto Congress isn't possible with the porky DMUs we've got -- if we had it turning off a street that wide onto Congress, it might just make it.

The way the New Jersey folks 'solved' this was by making sure they were running through a Robocop-like downtown area where they could condemn as many corners of blocks as they felt like without substantial cost.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah the new commuter train might as well be a freight train. It's turning radius is exactly the same as a any freight train. There's no way it would be able to make those corners. The few times that cities have had commuter trains run in and through downtown, at least somewhat, they've had to cut the tracks into downtown blocks. So any development on that block had to build around or over the tracks. San Diego is an example of this. The trains actually run under part of the buildings on their corners. I believe their tallest building, the One American Plaza, actually has train tracks that chop off a bit of its block. Part of the building actually sits on top of the tracks.

[Goothrey]

I saw a train cross Anderson Ln during mid-day the other Sunday. It surprised me. It was quick and quiet though.

[Jdawgboy]

Both KVUE and KXAN had segments in their newscast at 6 giving a tour of the inside of the trains. They said they are top of the line in North America. They look very nice inside and I love the sliding doors that you go through from one car to the next. Also Capital Metro mentioned that they expect about 2,000 riders a day not 1,000 as been previously mentioned on this thread.

[M1EK]

2000 is the maximum capacity of the vehicles for the number of runs per day they're making. 1000-1500 was Capital Metro's official prediction. I wouldn't trust local TV news to be able to distinguish between the two.

[M1EK]

Oh, and by the way, the 2000 LRT plan predicted 43,000 riders per day on day one. Using the conservative standard.

[bgrn198]

I think the rail line from Austin to San Antonio would be awsome I would probably use it if you don't want to fight traffic to go down to SA to say the Riverwalk or to a Spurs game or something I haven't seen anything about light rail in SA though you would think they would get it like Houston and DFW.

[paulsjv]

Originally Posted by bgrn198

I think the rail line from Austin to San Antonio would be awsome I would probably use it if you don't want to fight traffic to go down to SA to say the Riverwalk or to a Spurs game or something I haven't seen anything about light rail in SA though you would think they would get it like Houston and DFW.

Anyone have an ETA on this? I also heard they would have a stop in San Marcos at the outlet stores. I would totally use the train!

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by bgrn198

I think the rail line from Austin to San Antonio would be awsome I would probably use it if you don't want to fight traffic to go down to SA to say the Riverwalk or to a Spurs game or something I haven't seen anything about light rail in SA though you would think they would get it like Houston and DFW.

Actually there is talk of San Antonio having another go at light rail.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=148143

[Jdawgboy]

What are the prospects about the possible light rail line being built from downtown down Riverside Dr. to the Airport? There was a blurb about it in an artical thats in the Austin Updates updates thread. I would hope the city will do everything it can to get this line up and running.

[Raining Inside]

Is this fluff or is Austin's commuter rail realy cutting edge? I'm sure M1EK can set us straight.

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=8079232

Other cities say Austin commuter rail is cutting edge

Posted: March 27, 2008 01:37 PM
Other cities say Austin commuter rail is cutting edge
Transportation organizers said Austin's system is the future of transportation.
Transportation organizers said Austin's system is the future of transportation.
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Capital Metro welcomed transportation organizers to Austin for a look at its commuter rail system.

Organizers from Europe, California, Washington state and other Texas cities came to Austin to attend Capital Metro's Commuter Rail Symposium on Thursday. Transportation teams have been following the Capital MetroRail's progress, and they came not only to tour the cars but to learn how a bio-diesel system could be adopted in their cities.

Austin's commuter rail has attracted attention from other major cities because of budget. Other rail systems can run about $100 million a mile. Capital Metro's rail system runs for about $4 million a mile.

Transportation organizers said Austin's system is the future of transportation.

"The kind of DMU units that the agency here is using are becoming basically the product of choice for this kind of application," said Marvin Snow of Bay Area Rail Transit.

The rail will run from Leander to Downtown Austin with nine stops. When service begins in the fall, five cars will run at 30-minute intervals and transport about 200 people per trip. Capital Metro is still working on a price to ride the rail, but organizers estimated it would cost about the price of an Express Bus trip, which is $1.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

What are the prospects about the possible light rail line being built from downtown down Riverside Dr. to the Airport? There was a blurb about it in an artical thats in the Austin Updates updates thread. I would hope the city will do everything it can to get this line up and running.

I've gone to two meetings of a group Brewster McCracken brought together to comment on this effort - he/Wynn are pushing for that system, against headwinds at CAMPO from people like Daugherty. There's zero chance left that the initial proposal will go up Guadalupe; the "downtown to Mueller" route is just running essentially over the same ground as the stupid Cap Metro proposal; but the CAMPO group (at least McCracken) understands that a route like that with no reserved guideway is a joke.

I, personally, don't think there's enough density out at Mueller five years from now to make this a success. But MAYBE with the addition of East Riverside, there MIGHT be. Going to be a hard struggle either way - but at least this technology (streetcar in reserved guideway is what it looks like) can be applied to Guadalupe at some future point. Commuter rail is a dead-end; can't go anywhere worth going.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by Raining Inside

Is this fluff or is Austin's commuter rail realy cutting edge? I'm sure M1EK can set us straight.

The vehicles are cutting-edge. The service is Tri-Rail vintage 1989; transfer to shiny new shuttle buses for the last leg of your trip. And that will never change - these vehicles cannot be brought directly to UT or the Capitol or up/down Congress.

[M1EK]

Shilli from the austinist successfully goaded me into this response

[JAM]

M1EK - looks like there's an opening at Cap Metro....


By Laylan Copelin | Monday, March 31, 2008, 02:16 PM

Lee Walker, who has led Capital Metro’s board of directors over a decade of turbulence, is resigning, effective at the end of May.

“When I leave something I really love,” Walker said in an interview Monday, “it’s really hard. Actually, I’m kind of sad.”

Just a few weeks ago, Walker said he had assured Sen. Kirk Watson that he could continue as chairman through the 2009 legislative session. But he changed his mind after a particularly long day of balancing his public duties, the needs of his family (ranging from an 88-year-old mother to a three-year-old daughter) to his teaching duties at the University of Texas.

“I remember looking in the mirror and saying, ‘I can’t keep this up,’” said Walker, 66.

In addition to stepping down at Capital Metro, Walker also has handed over the chairmanship of Westcave Preserve, an organization that protects a lush canyon formed by a collapsed grotto, after 25 years.

Walker may be slowing down but he’s not stopping.

“Teaching is my real career,” Walker said. “When I’m 91, I’ll still be teaching.”

He teaches a Plan II course entitled “Community & Place.”

Walker, a Texas native, made his fortune as an entrepreneur in New York, then retired to Austin before he was 40. He was lured out of retirement to become the first chief executive to what became Dell Computer. He retired again after an illness.

In 1997, after the Legislature had scrapped the Capital Metro board amid allegations of corruption and incompetence, Walker was appointed to a new board to redirect the agency.

During that time, Walker and the new board righted the agency, but his true passion, bringing passenger rail to Austin, was a struggle. In 2000, voters narrowly defeated a proposal to build light rail on Austin streets.

Four years later, they approved a 32-mile commuter line from Leander to downtown Austin. Rail cars are being tested now, but the opening of the line is not expected for several months as Capital Metro works through safety issues.

“I won’t get to cut the ribbon,” said Walker, only half-jokingly.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte..._was_time.html

[M1EK]

ha ha

I'm gritting my teeth at the thought that Walker's been pushing so hard for passenger rail. BS - he's let Gilliam (who believes more in Rapid Bus) run it into the ground.