BIKE: KUT yesterday morning: TXDOT Monorail

[Patrick Goetz]

I can't resist posting this to the list.  While Capital Metro continues to
eat the daily stupid pill (first LRT was the answer, then DMU, now BRT),
even TxDOT officials in Austin are acknowledging that monorail would
actually be a good solution for Austin.  (See below.)

As a chronic and frequent critic of TxDOT, it sure is hard for me to
swallow that the white hats and black hats are slowly but surely being
reversed, with the puppeteers who pull the strings at Cap Metro looking
increasingly more evil and TxDOT moving towards a more rational
transportation policy.  About a year ago, the Austin Monorail Project did
a presentation for the Capital Metro board.  Afterwards Lee Walker, Cap
Metro Board President, gave me a 15 minute, no-punches-pulled
you're-the-lowest-scum-on-the-planet-earth tongue-lashing because of this:

   1. we obtained an official Capital Metro document
      using the Freedom of Information Act
   2. reproduced it on a viewgraph
   3. circled a paragraph contained in this document
      with a red highlighter
 and
   4. showed it on an overhead projector

sure, the document demonstrated a high level of corruption and misuse of
public funds to insure that LRT would "win" the rapid transit project
search, but does this mean that I'm evil for pointing this out to the
public?  The message I came away with was, as far as the Cap Metro board
is concerned (or at the very least Lee Walker), corruption is A-OK as long
as

  A) it's your friends that are doing it
  B) no one finds out

but I digress.


-----Original Message-----
From: Elliot Kralj RIO LIMPIO INC. [mailto:ek]
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 11:08 AM
To: info
Subject: KUT this morn TXDOT Monorail

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kut/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=607230


Fixing I-35

AUSTIN, TX. (2004-02-23) It's Monday morning. Time to rush out the door,
start the car, hit I-35 and sit there. And if you plan to drive near M.L.K
expect to sit even longer. Every year commuters sit for a total of 4.4
million hours on that part of I-35. That's why the American Highway Users
Alliance has ranked it as the thirty-ninth most congested bottleneck in
the country.  The Texas Department of Transportation is constantly
struggling to come up with ways to ease congestion on 35 through Austin.

But any project would have a few barriers. Assistant Public Affairs Officer
for Tex-Dot, Chris Bishop, says, "We have restrictions on height,
restrictions on cost, we've got the river as a water barrier. Do you go
under it, do you go through it, do you go over it. And that all would have
to fit with the topography of the road."

Other ideas to fix the congestion include expansion of the road, the
addition of high occupancy lanes and even toll lanes. Bishop thinks those
ideas are a great place to start, but he's got his own ideas.

"I think Austin would go for a monorail, just cause it's weird enough ha,
ha, ha you know..it doesn't take up a lot of space, it's kind of futuristic,
it's kind of the way Austin thinks of itself." says Bishop.

Don't expect a monorail anytime soon. But Capital Metro will begin laying
out proposals for a new transportation plan in the spring. The ideas include
light rail, commuter rail and even rapid bus lanes. A plan could end up on
the November ballot. Beyond that, a couple of current projects are expected
to help the daily commute -- State Highway 130 and 45 are scheduled for
completion by the end of 2007.



http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kut/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_I
D=607230