If you live in Austin, chances are you have not taken a ride on the city's wildly ineffective light rail system. The stations along its 32-mile track are poorly spaced and serve a fairly small niche community. If you live in Leander and work in Austin (or vice-versa) and want to skip rush hour traffic, it is great for you. For anyone outside that group, it is quaint, unnecessary scenery (or an extra 30 second stop at a railroad crossing) and its abysmal ridership reflects that.
The MetroRail Red Line was originally designed with the intention of relieving congestion from IH-35 and demonstrating the importance of a light rail system to Austin residents. As it crosses IH-35 at one point, does not run parallel to it, and pays for approximately eight percent of its cost through fares, it would be unfair to blame Mark Lisheron at The Texas Watchdog for his skepticism of it.
The city of Austin is well-meaning in its light rail venture, but it may be too early (or too late) in the city's history to take this step out of its carbon footprint. Austin's rapid growth and dedication to environmental awareness calls for substantial and costly infrastructure changes that may not be suited to such a sprawling city. In the meantime, if it plans on this extensive and expensive rail expansion, it owes the local populace some thoughts for their pennies. A concrete or feasible funding plan has yet to be proffered, save wishful thinking about private investment. In any case, I wonder how Mr. Lisheron feels about those 2.1 million dollar glowsticks hanging at the intersection of Sixth Street and IH-35. Money well spent, Austin.
We both have some very similar views regarding the weak layout of the current system. As I mentioned in my previous post(http://paul-e-ticks.blogspot.com/2013/03/change-metrorail.html)... Only a specific number of people are able to conveniently use the system and as you mentioned, this minimal amount of use is costing the residents of Austin a good chunk of change to keep it running. I enjoyed the comment regarding the fancy parking lights located under I-35 and 6/7th streets. It just goes to show Austin really needs to work on priorities on what they should be spending money on. The city could have easily put in lights at half the cost with the same functionality and used that extra money on other more important things such as education, expanding the Rail for greater use, etc...
ReplyDeleteWith Austin's continuous growth, I do agree it may be too early to figure out just how beneficial this costly Rail may be but in the meantime, at least folks from Leander who work in town have a nice scenic route to enjoy without having to worry about the never ending traffic this city has to offer. Ugh.
Come and Take It's post "Dazzled by Promise of Rail, Austin Leaders Still Need to Persuade Public" from Feb 6th is the author's personal feelings mixed with some objective observations in response to a Texas WatchDog report on the running punchline that Austin MetroRail is. CTI's initial statement of the rail being "wildly ineffective" is absolutely agreeable from my perspective; I in fact have not had the joy of riding the rail as I live no where near its service area. CTI's observation of Leander residents who work downtown town are the ideal riders is pretty accurate, however a more concise statement would be anyone who lives, works, or habitates along the rail and uses the complimenting bus service would be the ideal riders. Sadly, this is still a very small number of riders.
ReplyDeleteCTI states one original intent of MetroRail was to help relieve congestion along IH35. Most folks I know would agree MetroRail has not helped this one billionth of a percent, give or take a few millionths. I further believe Austin taxpayers have not embraced or accepted any demonstrated need for light rail.
While I agree whole-heartedly with CTI on the first two paragraphs, I disagree that Austin has been well-meaning in its rail adventure. I do think that it is too early to tell if it will be Rail or Fail and I feel that Austin under-invested in the Rail expedition. One single line between Leander and downtown Austin with a few stops is wildly ineffective, logistically speaking. I feel an inclusion of more lines is necessary to tip the speculation from a "maybe this will work" to "this will be an investment for our transportation crises for the next one hundred years". I cite lines from Lakeway into downtown, service to F1 track (that area is going to explode with growth and the roads will not be able to manage the volume), and any other lines to enable other riders to embrace and use the system. If you follow this link, here is a future rendering of other lines. I hope these become reality. Texasbytrain.org is another website further expanding upon trainsportation.
I appreciate the attempt by Austin, however it is falling short. One commuter rail that serves a narrow segment is astronomically ludacris, financially speaking. With the continuing sprawl both with our city and the Dallas/Ft. Worth/Austin/San Antonio, I feel that if we are going to invest in rail, we need to go big. We should be taking our cues from the TVR in Spain and Japan's Bullet. Consider the impact that would have on IH35 traffic, especially with Red River weekend and holidays. One single line is MetroFail.