AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[drummer]

I think voting yes on Prop A and B is a must. I also think that researching new technology is highly important and necessary. I don't see these as mutually exclusive.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by drummer

I think voting yes on Prop A and B is a must. I also think that researching new technology is highly important and necessary. I don't see these as mutually exclusive.

They aren't. What people like this dude are missing is that there are going to be so many more parts of the city that have huge needs in the coming decades. Not just the highways. Maybe these are the only light rail lines we build and they connect with the next people mover technology on other corridors like 7th from 183 to Lake Austin, Stassney, Slaughter, William Cannon, MLK/FM969, S. Lamar, Manor etc.

If you are always waiting for the next new technology to get here then you will never build anything.

[drummer]

Originally Posted by freerover

If you are always waiting for the next new technology to get here then you will never build anything.

[nixcity]

So disappointed in JAM here, I used to enjoy reading your comments and now you come back siting fake news paid for by car dealerships as real. Lets really think this out, man. Even if, IF, they are able to make the software work (rolling out a few random tests here and there is a far cry from being usable) then how are they going to get 200,000,000 people out of their cars and into a self driving vehicle??? For many, it is akin to taking their guns, you won't be able to do it. Simply from a manufacturing standpoint, how many cars do we even make in one year?

Edit to add answer to my own question. We average just under 11 million cars per year. So just to manufacture this magic bullet traffic stopper we are going to need 15-20 years of nonstop manufacturing.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by nixcity

So disappointed in JAM here, I used to enjoy reading your comments and now you come back siting fake news paid for by car dealerships as real. Lets really think this out, man. Even if, IF, they are able to make the software work (rolling out a few random tests here and there is a far cry from being usable) then how are they going to get 200,000,000 people out of their cars and into a self driving vehicle??? For many, it is akin to taking their guns, you won't be able to do it. Simply from a manufacturing standpoint, how many cars do we even make in one year?

Edit to add answer to my own question. We average just under 11 million cars per year. So just to manufacture this magic bullet traffic stopper we are going to need 15-20 years of nonstop manufacturing.

sorry to disappoint, i have no idea who wrote the study, its just common sense. its happening as we speak. we have bills going forward in the US Congress on this. It will occur. People are not going to give up their cars. now, we can do this, or we can only allow rich people to have cars. the rest of us will get packed into trains crammed with 200 people LOL. maybe I'll get a job as a pusher!

Bottom line, this prop A is a bunch of money, and I've lost faith in our city council. don't trust them with the money, and many people who I know dont either, regardless of political affiliation. anyway that is a topic for another thread.

if we really want to expand public transit, then I say make the BRT better. It sucks, but could be so much better. for far less money.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by JAM

sorry to disappoint, i have no idea who wrote the study, its just common sense. its happening as we speak. we have bills going forward in the US Congress on this. It will occur. People are not going to give up their cars. now, we can do this, or we can only allow rich people to have cars. the rest of us will get packed into trains crammed with 200 people LOL. maybe I'll get a job as a pusher!

Bottom line, this prop A is a bunch of money, and I've lost faith in our city council. don't trust them with the money, and many people who I know dont either, regardless of political affiliation. anyway that is a topic for another thread.

if we really want to expand public transit, then I say make the BRT better. It sucks, but could be so much better. for far less money.

City council wouldn't be in charge of the money. It would be a non-political committee independent of council and cap metro.

BRT was a part of an actual study that cap metro was doing very publicly over the last 2 years. The reasons LRT was picked is because BRT has a capacity cap that would make it only useful for a few years when it opened. LRT has a much higher capacity and with the downtown tunnel, has room for future expansion of train length to meet Austin's needs in the decades to come.

Also, nothing about public infrastructure is "common sense." It's complicated and has so many different layers compounded one onto the other. If anyone thinks it's all "common sense" then it's a good indication of they don't know what they are talking about.

[We vs us]

Originally Posted by JAM

Bottom line, this prop A is a bunch of money, and I've lost faith in our city council. don't trust them with the money, and many people who I know dont either, regardless of political affiliation.

Despite the last two pages of back and forthing, I actually think this is your argument. The rest is mostly googlable windowdressing.

[chinchaaa]

Originally Posted by We vs us

Despite the last two pages of back and forthing, I actually think this is your argument. The rest is mostly googlable windowdressing.

And it’s a poor argument.

[atxsnail]

Originally Posted by We vs us

Despite the last two pages of back and forthing, I actually think this is your argument. The rest is mostly googlable windowdressing.

This also basically sums up the opposition PACs nicely.

[StoOgE]

I think the issue for the PACs that fight bond proposals are they used to come in two varieties:

1) Taxes are bad
2) NIMBY crap

#1 only really works on a small % of the city that owns extremely expensive houses and dislikes taxes on said houses - and really really works well for property developers/landlords who get hit the hardest. But its not enough of the population in a left-leaning city that is generally pro government projects.

#2 used to be their bread and butter to defeat everyone (I dont hate light rail, but this light rail isn't the one) - but I think most of the citizens have stopped falling for their lies and have realized that every proposal is the "wrong one".

So the new path forward seems to be some hand-waive about future technology coming to magic away all the problems with big cities. It's the same people making new arguments in bad faith to get the result they want.

Like, our worst case scenario is in 30 years no one needs mass transit anymore and we can pivot away from it.

[chinchaaa]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

I think the issue for the PACs that fight bond proposals are they used to come in two varieties:

1) Taxes are bad
2) NIMBY crap

The frustrating thing is these are the same people who go to New York or Europe, and come back talking about how amazing the train systems are there and how they wished we had something similar here. This is it. This is the time. This is the proposal. We CAN have those things here. What else do they want? We have to start somewhere and we should have started years ago.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by chinchaaa

The frustrating thing is these are the same people who go to New York or Europe, and come back talking about how amazing the train systems are there and how they wished we had something similar here. This is it. This is the time. This is the proposal. We CAN have those things here. What else do they want? We have to start somewhere and we should have started years ago.

[drummer]

Chinchaaa, that is my point. Additionally, most of the people who complain the loudest are not involved in any of the potential solutions to our issues as a city/metro area.

[StoOgE]

Originally Posted by chinchaaa

The frustrating thing is these are the same people who go to New York or Europe, and come back talking about how amazing the train systems are there and how they wished we had something similar here. This is it. This is the time. This is the proposal. We CAN have those things here. What else do they want? We have to start somewhere and we should have started years ago.

100% this.

They are also the same people who have a "in this house we believe" sign right next to their "code-next wrecks Austin" and "no new taxes during a pandemic" or whatever other NIMBY nonsense they spout.

Americans are obsessed with controlling what goes on near them on property they don't even own. A large barn-chic McMansion duplex went up next to our house and all the neighbors were whispering about it and calling the code enforcement officer every other day to measure trees and set backs and whatnot. Like, who cares. Your neighbors house is ugly, its not your house. I have to watch you fall off a slackline all day too and I'm not calling the cops about it.

[drummer]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

I have to watch you fall off a slackline all day too and I'm not calling the cops about it.

[austin242]

I for one look forward to getting on a metro system or bus no matter what my class is. Pack me in with 200 or even a thousand people and I'd be happy with that. The future is coming and people need to get out of their damn cars. This is 2020 and my generation doesn't have time to deal with some peoples climate denial bs saying let me just get in my personal self driving car that will get me there while being a huge waste of resources. LET ME MAKE IT CLEAR THAT SELF DRIVING CARS ARE NOT GOING TO BE EVEN CLOSE TO MAINSTREAM FOR 20 PLUS YRS. AND EVEN THEN THEY WILL BE WASTEFUL AND HAVE TO DEAL WITH TRAFFIC. YOU"D HAVE TO BE SOME KINDA IGNORANT PERSON TO THINK ANYTHING ELSE. THERE WILL STILL BE TRAFFIC LIGHTS, TRAFFIC, AND YOU NAME IT FOR 50+ YEARS. IF YOU USE SIMPLE LOGIC HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE FOR EVERYONE TO COMPLETELY SWITCH OVER TO SELF DRIVING CARS? 1? 10? 50? 60? More Yrs? WE NEED A SYSTEM NOW THAT CAN SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS NOW. People need to pull their heads outta their bums and wake up. It's unsustainable and impossible to support self driving cars that for the mainstream market don't even exist. We should be considering stopping maintenance on suburban roads or taxing people extra in the suburbs before we ever think about self driving cars. Think about it, if there is 12 houses to a quarter mile of road vs 600+ apartments to a quarter mile of road who is being more efficient? Should city dwellers be paying for suburban roads and highways? If they can then someone in the suburbs can certainly pay for a metro. After all it will help the car drivers. I mean lets look at it a different way. It's going to cost 8billion dollars to add just two lanes down IH35. How much added capacity is that? It's going to cost less for the Project Connect and it will be more extensive too. How much capacity does one highway lane in each direction add to capacity? 30,000 cars? Maybe? Where as Project connect will add a way greater capacity. around 80,000 or more just for light rail and then you could add another 2000 for green line, and even more for all the new bus routes.I'm sorry I ranted a bit but when I got on and saw an argument against Project Connect because cars are the future I got a little ticked. Sure cars may be your personal future but it's not everyones. It's also illogical to deprive yourself of alleviated roads because you drive a car. If you don't pack people on more efficient modes of transit they will drive on your streets. Rail is cheaper than roads for capacity. Busses are cheaper than cars for capacity. Efficiency is what a transit system needs. You don't have to ride the train or bus but it will still be a nice option if you or anyone you ever know needs to or wants to. Thank you for letting me rant a little on this.

[slippi]

Austin242 said everything that needs to be said.

[ahealy]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

100% this.

They are also the same people who have a "in this house we believe" sign right next to their "code-next wrecks Austin" and "no new taxes during a pandemic" or whatever other NIMBY nonsense they spout.

Americans are obsessed with controlling what goes on near them on property they don't even own. A large barn-chic McMansion duplex went up next to our house and all the neighbors were whispering about it and calling the code enforcement officer every other day to measure trees and set backs and whatnot. Like, who cares. Your neighbors house is ugly, its not your house. I have to watch you fall off a slackline all day too and I'm not calling the cops about it.

Omg preach preach preeeeeach!!! LOL. So glad I don't live in Crestview anymore. There was SO much of that everywhere. Middle-aged bored WFH "locals" basically frothing at the mouth over nonsense that doesn't concern them. Some folks had the right to complain, but most seemed to have recently purchased a $600k bungalow within the last 2-3 yrs. Totally insane considering how much Crestview will be improved with the station up there.

[electricron]

Is there any requirements in Proposition A on what the revenues it collects must be spent upon?

Take the existing penny sales tax going to CapMetro, for years 25% of the transit revenues was transferred to the city to spend on road path improvements. Was any bus only lanes "added" to any of the city streets? Or were existing lanes "striped" using paint into bus only lanes? Where or where did that 25% go?

Is Proposition A funds going to be spent on transit only projects, or is it just another tax grab for the city? All those years the city misappropriated 25% of CapMetro's funds, CapMetro could have been just charging 3/4 of a cent sales tax.

Vote for or against as you feel inclined, just be aware of what the city did the last time a tax for increased transit occurred.

[Myomi]

Originally Posted by StoOgE

100% this.

They are also the same people who have a "in this house we believe" sign right next to their "code-next wrecks Austin" and "no new taxes during a pandemic" or whatever other NIMBY nonsense they spout.

Americans are obsessed with controlling what goes on near them on property they don't even own. A large barn-chic McMansion duplex went up next to our house and all the neighbors were whispering about it and calling the code enforcement officer every other day to measure trees and set backs and whatnot. Like, who cares. Your neighbors house is ugly, its not your house. I have to watch you fall off a slackline all day too and I'm not calling the cops about it.

First I am 100 percent for Prop A and B. But really? Pot calling the kettle black here?

Literally 90 percent of this forum is us commenting and complaining about what other people do with their property...