Good article addressing some of the common misconceptions and bias, aka scare mongering I’ve about this high speed rail project http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/04/debunking-5-myths-about-texas-high-speed-rail/390903/ Continue reading Debunking 5 Myths About Houston-Dallas High-Speed Rail Plans – CityLab
There is a better choice and it’s worth the wait, Austin’s strongest and densest corridor: Guadalupe-North Lamar.. Communities want light rail on that route and have written it into the neighborhood plans. The FTA has said it would consider funding a MetroRapid bus-to-light rail conversion in that corridor. Continue reading There are no $1.4 Billion do-overs
From where I see it, this was never about rail, it was always about developing an under-developed corridor of central Austin. A previously undesirable corridor because of it’s proximity to I35 and the noise and congestion associate, along with specific properties, which, without rail wouldn’t be nearly as viable or valuable. Continue reading Prop-1 The Wrong Rail for Austin
Prop.1 on the Austin November ballot is an attempt to fund the largest single bond in Austin history, almost half the $1 billion going to the light rail proposal. Finally people seem to be getting the fact that the light rail, if funded, won’t help with the existing traffic. KUT had a good review of this yesterday, the comments also some useful links. You can listen to the segment here: Is a Light Rail Line Going to Solve Austin’s Traffic Problems? Jace Deloney, makes some good points, what no one is saying though, and what I believe is the real reason … Continue reading Rail isn’t about Congestion
On Tuesday I wrote about “Austin and Alcohol tourism” and speculated on the lack of an alternative transport policy as a leadership failure. I said: Rather than rally behind what most transport conscious users and urbanization advocates believes would be hard, but right choice to put a rail line of some sort, straight down Lamar from North West Austin, [Mayor] Leffingwell used his last state of the city to rally behind the current rail proposal. And today Leffingwell lived up to that speculation. The outgoing Mayor is reported by the Austin Statesman as saying in relation to making space on … Continue reading Transportation leadership failure
I’m not trying to conflate two separate subjects with this post, but finally people are starting to get part of the real need for alternate transport options in Austin. Urban Rail and Drink Driving. NPR posted a link to this KUT segment/web page to it’s facebook page today. I listened to the story as I drove to work this morning on Morning Edition. Providing additional transport isn’t enough, it will need a generational change. However, generational change needs real leadership to solve this problem and that’s been distinctly lacking from the “Rail or Fail” Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, and departing Governor of … Continue reading Austin and Alcohol tourism
As an exercise for the reader, how often do you find yourself needing to head to places on Guadalupe and Lamar? How often for Red River? If you’re like most of the Austinites that are forced to waste their time stuck in traffic on the Drag each day, it’s clear that there are tons of people who want to go places along the Guadalupe/Lamar corridor. We should put rail there. – Niran Babalola As noted on in a comment to my earlier post on last weeks transport vote, the city have effectively taken the *white flag or the **white envelope … Continue reading Transport in Austin, last chance saloon
Attached is the text of an email I sent to council member Tovo today. I’ve removed a sentence with some personal information, corrected a spelling, but otherwise it’s as I wrote it earlier on my phone. I’ve also added a picture of the Sheffield Super Tram which is of course something like what we should be getting rather than the proposed light rail route and the rapid buses which actually seem to represent a “slight of hand” since they are decreasing the frequency of other buses in one assumes an effort to drive up the ridership of the rapid buses. … Continue reading Light Rail and Transport in Austin