Austin's $10 Billion Expanded Rail with Subway Plan Approved

[The ATX]

Here are some renderings from the Transportation thread in the Austin sub-forum.


Airport




Airport Station




Downtown Subway Station

[Easy]

Austin is going to build a light rail network that uses diesel-electric trains and platform doors? Why not electric?

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Easy

Austin is going to build a light rail network that uses diesel-electric trains and platform doors? Why not electric?

It’s common for renderings to omit overhead wires, even when they are planned. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Austin officials conduct a serious evaluation of the latest battery electric technologies. With no snow or cold weather it may be a great place for this kind of technology.

The platform doors are actually the harder thing! There is only one LRT system in the world with platform doors, this is in Dubai where the stations are fully enclosed and air conditioned. Most cities don’t do it because it requires an advanced and very expensive signaling/ATO system to align the train doors with platform doors. Since the whole point of light rail is to save money over a full metro line, this kind of signaling is usually avoided. If the light rail runs at surface on streets, it may even require some kind of AI to detect pedestrians, vehicles etc that have strayed on the tracks.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It’s common for renderings to omit overhead wires, even when they are planned. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Austin officials conduct a serious evaluation of the latest battery electric technologies. With no snow or cold weather it may be a great place for this kind of technology.

The platform doors are actually the harder thing! There is only one LRT system in the world with platform doors, this is in Dubai where the stations are fully enclosed and air conditioned. Most cities don’t do it because it requires an advanced and very expensive signaling/ATO system to align the train doors with platform doors. Since the whole point of light rail is to save money over a full metro line, this kind of signaling is usually avoided. If the light rail runs at surface on streets, it may even require some kind of AI to detect pedestrians, vehicles etc that have strayed on the tracks.

Toronto's new light rail line is using ATC (no platform doors though..) in the tunnelled section, and will have the trains manually driven on the surface section. The drivers just sit back and relax in the tunnel when the computer is driving the trains.

[ardecila]

Yeah there are actually newer platform door technologies that eliminate the need for precise berthing. They just have really wide openings, or in some cases the doors slide upward instead of horizontally.

As for the traction system, the state of the art right now is probably a mix of wired and non-wired sections, combined with significant onboard battery storage. The batteries can charge while under wire. Some systems also promise the ability to supercharge in stations, but I'm not convinced this can be done without needing to hold the train for an excessive period of time... nobody wants to sit at a platform for 6-8 long minutes.

[Sigaven]

Isn't there a light rail technology out there that doesn't require overhead wires, somehow the electricity is embedded within the tracks? I think I read that Montreal or some place has that technology...can't remember...

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Sigaven

Isn't there a light rail technology out there that doesn't require overhead wires, somehow the electricity is embedded within the tracks? I think I read that Montreal or some place has that technology...can't remember...

There are many different ways to get electricity to a rail vehicle. Over the last 100 years several cities have experimented with "ground level" collection systems. Unfortunately they tend to be expensive to build and require a high level of maintenance, so they have not seen widespread adoption.

Bordeaux in France is famous for this kind of technology, but it's a mild climate with limited snow and limited rain to foul up the underground system. Even there, they still use a traditional overhead system on 2/3rds of their network... the underground system is only used in the most historic parts of the city.

The newer battery-based technologies, combined with partial overhead wiring or charging points at stations, seem to be a more cost-effective solution to the aesthetic problem of wires.

[Easy]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It’s common for renderings to omit overhead wires, even when they are planned. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Austin officials conduct a serious evaluation of the latest battery electric technologies. With no snow or cold weather it may be a great place for this kind of technology.

The platform doors are actually the harder thing! There is only one LRT system in the world with platform doors, this is in Dubai where the stations are fully enclosed and air conditioned. Most cities don’t do it because it requires an advanced and very expensive signaling/ATO system to align the train doors with platform doors. Since the whole point of light rail is to save money over a full metro line, this kind of signaling is usually avoided. If the light rail runs at surface on streets, it may even require some kind of AI to detect pedestrians, vehicles etc that have strayed on the tracks.

It struck me as odd that the renderings indicate that they are going to spend lots of money on something that essentially no one does - platform doors - and then cheap out on something that nearly everyone does - overhead catenary.

I was thinking that they would be diesel-electric because that's what's existing and the agency website discusses extending the existing line with no mention of changing the power. The vehicles shown also look substantially like the existing vehicles.

[jmecklenborg]

The overhead wire systems on all of the post-2000 streetcar and light rail systems are almost invisible. Older light rail systems like Buffalo and St. Louis have a somewhat more conspicuous wire.

The old-school Dayton, OH trolleybus wires are pretty noticeable at curves and junctions and there is a huge web of them near the maintenance shed. A pretty funny thing happened four years ago when Dayton sent its ice-clearing bus 50 miles down I-75 to clear the brand-new Cincinnati streetcar wire.

My point is that overhead wire systems shouldn't be argued against on aesthetic grounds anymore, because they're hardly noticeable and have very few operational problems. Getting power off wires allows the vehicles themselves to be lighter weight and so use less power.

[electricron]

It does not matter what type of battery you decide to use, batteries are heavy. The heavier the vehicle, the more fuel it takes to move it, and the more brakes it takes to stop it. That is Newton’s second law, F=MA.

OKC and Dallas Liberty streetcars run on batteries over a portion of their route. In OKC under the BNSF mainline because they did not wish to raise the freight railroad tracks to make clearance for the streetcar’s catenary, and in Dallas over the historic Houston Street viaduct where visual appearance is important. But these are smaller streetcars, not larger light rail vehicles in trains.

In Austin, hydrogen powered light rail vehicles may make an appearance. Who knows what power they might decide to use, those type of decisions are made during the EIS process, which has not begun in Austin yet.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Easy

It struck me as odd that the renderings indicate that they are going to spend lots of money on something that essentially no one does - platform doors - and then cheap out on something that nearly everyone does - overhead catenary.

I was thinking that they would be diesel-electric because that's what's existing and the agency website discusses extending the existing line with no mention of changing the power. The vehicles shown also look substantially like the existing vehicles.

The Green Line to Colony Park will indeed be the same DMU technology used on the existing CapMetro. The Orange/Blue Lines will be some kind of electric powered LRT technology in order to operate in the tunnels without a crazy ventilation system. The exact technology is still being reviewed, and if Austin selects a PPP model to deliver the light rail lines the final decision may be left up to the private company that builds the lines.

Forgot to mention another drawback to the wireless systems is that they are all proprietary and non-standardized. That's a big problem when you're building a system that will be around for 100 years or more, what happens when you can no longer get parts?

[ssiguy]

Many European cities are now using hydrogen for regional rail and there are hydrogen LRT in China and others being developed.

[llamaorama]

So is all this talk about alternative power supply for trains just speculation based on renderings omitting the catenary or is real?

[Busy Bee]

Probably the former

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Probably the former

Not idle speculation, they have confirmed they are considering alternative systems for traction including battery/wireless. Could it still end up being a traditional overhead system? Yes.

https://www.railjournal.com/in_depth...-texan-capitol

Couch says the conventional approach for rail in the United States is 25kV ac overhead electrification, but he has been looking at technologies such as Alstom’s ground power supply for light rail, batteries combined with rapid charging at stations, and power regeneration. He is also aware that the technology is developing rapidly.

[Busy Bee]

My money is on conventional overhead for one reason: its the most efficient.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

My money is on conventional overhead for one reason: its the most efficient.

For now... But it will be backward sometime soon.
We've had some trams efficiently working on alternative systems in my country.

In Bordeaux, some kind of amazingly safe 'ground-level power supply'. It's sort of like so-called 3rd rail to supply regular subway trains with power in Paris, except people can cross it with no danger at all.
If you ever fell down on the Paris subway tracks, you'd probably instantly die from electrocution.
Nothing like that would ever happen to Bordeaux's tram.

In Nice where trams are more recent, they've been working further on batteries. Older line 1 batteries are reloaded by regular catenaries along a hybrid routes, but later line 2 is more advanced, safely reloaded at every stop by 'conductive ground-based static charging system', that must be inspired by Bordeaux's stuff.

https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions...electric-buses

This is now operational, working in Nice already.
Check it for yourself. There's neither overhead wire nor even any 3rd rail of any kind. But pay attention and you can see that every station is equipped with the necessary gear at ground level.
This is the most advanced power supply system we've ever seen for trams thus far.

Alstom is just more advanced than any other competitor in that kind of stuff.

[freerover]

Man I've been hanging out in the wrong subform.

[M II A II R II K]

The next challenge for Austin’s transit plan: Delivering on its equity pledge

https://citymonitor.ai/transport/the...-equity-pledge

.....

- Where new rail lines can be treated as a tool for neighbourhood redevelopment as much as a mode of transportation. Often the people who might benefit from newly accessible transit are instead pushed out by skyrocketing housing costs. This time around, however, Austin’s leaders are laying out a plan – and dedicating a sizeable budget – to protect those vulnerable residents from the start. The city’s transit expansion, called Project Connect, includes an equity plan to proactively counter the destabilising impacts of large-scale infrastructure projects.

- Project Connect represents a chance for Austin to prove that it can expand transit in ways that are both ambitious and equitable, if it can learn from the missteps of the past. When voters approved Proposition A, the ballot measure for Project Connect put forth by the Austin City Council and the Capital Metro Transportation Authority, they authorised a transit expansion funded by federal grants and a 4% increase on property taxes. Notably, the $300m for anti-displacement efforts includes rental subsidies and assistance to homeowners.

- The idea is for low-income people who live along projected routes to be able to stay in their homes and enjoy the increased connectivity that comes with transit expansion, instead of being priced out of a neighbourhood that’s just become that much more appealing to developers. The equity measures in the project build off of several years of efforts in Austin to counteract the worst impacts of gentrification. In 2017, Austin’s City Council passed a resolution acknowledging that displacement was a rampant problem in the city. The following year, voters passed a $250m bond explicitly for affordable-housing projects.

- If Project Connect’s anti-displacement strategies succeed, there is a real possibility for the extended transit system itself to achieve equity goals. The low-income communities that are at the greatest risk of gentrification are also the most dependent on public transit, while also being cut off from goods and services in other parts of town. Over half of Austin’s income-restricted affordable-housing units are within a half mile of a proposed Project Connect rail station. Additionally, much of the bus service expansion is projected to serve areas east of Interstate 35, including plans for several neighbourhood circulator buses.

.....

https://www.capmetro.org/project-connect

[mrnyc]

the new alstom trains and busses in nice charge in 20 seconds at each stop, thats regular dwell time and thats pretty amazing. no more overhead wires, hot third rails or even tracks, its just a pad on the roadway.