BIKE: commuter rail in Mudville

[Patrick Goetz]

If the commuter rail plan were in fact a good plan, I would agree with 
the observations made below.  In point of fact, it's a terrible plan 
which is much more likely to turn Austinites against rail than to create 
support for further expansion of the system.  This, by the way, is Mike 
Dahmus' main point, consistently and COMPLETELY ignored by commuter rail 
supporters, who seem to assume that anything which gets implemented will 
turn Joe Austinite into a mass transit crusader overnight.  Wait until 
people start sitting in a traffic jam at major at-grade intersections 
for minutes at a time during rush hour while largely empty commuter rail 
cars glide past in plain sight of everyone fuming behind the crossing 
arm barriers.  Did no one read my post yesterday?  The commuter rail 
plan is Big Oil's favorite public works project.

The many reasons why it's a terrible plan have been well documented (see 
Skip Cameron's list of questions reprinted in my posting yesterday for 
one example).  And of course the main reason, which Skip doesn't 
mention:  the commuter rail line doesn't go ANYWHERE that almost ANYONE 
in Austin wants to go.  It's a train from nowhere to nowhere and people 
who've heard Sam Archer's talk know that Capital Metro is more 
enthusiastic about "suburb to suburb" rail connections than they are 
about providing service to the inner city!!!

FACT:  A bad plan is NOT better than no plan at all.

FACT:  Please note that the commuter rail supporters are using the same 
scare tactics used by the Toll Road Plan lobby and the Republican party:

   "If we don't implement the toll road plan RIGHT NOW, we will lose all 
of our Texas Mobility Fund money."
   "If John Kerry wins, terrorists will overrun America"
   "If the commuter rail plan doesn't pass, Capital Metro will lose it's 
1/4 cent sales tax allocated for rail"

Nonsense, nonsense, and nonsense.

Roger, please do try and be rational.  If we really are approaching peak 
oil (and I believe we are), then how on earth is any politician going to 
be able to reduce funding for mass transit?  Particularly since the 
majority of Austinites HEARTILY SUPPORT the implementation of a Metro 
system (grade-separated, fast, frequent service across the most densely 
urbanized area, large passenger capacity)?

Earth to commuter rail bobbleheads:  the reason the 2000 plan didn't 
pass is IT WASN'T a good plan, either.  What people want is a Metro 
system (as defined above).  This is what they've used in cities like New 
York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt 
(the list goes on and on), this is what they know will work.  What they 
were offered was a slow, dangerous, at-grade LRT system which was going 
to take away significant numbers of travel lanes from cars, disrupt 
traffic on major streets for years to come, and which didn't even go any 
place useful for half of its route, and for which there was no guarantee 
of success like there would be for systems like those in the cities 
mentioned above  In short a complete lemon.  Despite all this, this 
half-baked plan STILL garnered 49.9% of the vote, and would have passed 
if either the South Congress merchants or Crestview hadn't been so 
opposed to it (for good reason, I might add).

Earth to commuter rail bobbleheads, second transmission:  Austinites 
SUPPORT mass transit; they just want a GOOD mass transit system, one 
which makes sense, one which can truly serve as an alternative to the 
private automobile, one which HAS NOT YET BEEN PROPOSED by the 
authorities who can make these decisions.  Please stop being whiny 
little chickenshits.  As mentioned before, if you're not part of the 
solution, you're part of the problem, and at the moment, Red (commuter) 
Line supporters are MOST DEFINATELY part of the problem.

David Dobbs wrote:
> 
> the political reality here is that if this does not pass 
> in November we will probably see another quarter cent of our transit 
> money go for roads and in very short order, probably in the upcoming 
> legislative session. (See above).
> 
> I suspect that most of us on this list would like a bigger and better 
> piece of transit pie, but in the "real world" the perfect plan is the 
> enemy of a good plan and after failing to get a good plan (2000) we can 
> either vote for our bikeway and a small rail start with the hope of 
> rapidly getting more camel into the tent


Roger Baker wrote:
 >
 > The best reason to support this small regional rail start is that it is
 > probably our ONLY chance to get any kind of rail start in the immediate
 > future, and maybe forever.  The road lobby and real estate lobby wanted
 > roads and they worked behind the scenes with Rep Mike Krusee to kill a
 > second vote on the comprehensive light rail that got narrowly voted down
 > a few years ago.  That is the real reason why we won't get to vote again
 > on a really good light rail system like the one that got turned down.
 > Given the politics involved, its a choice between voting for that one
 > little rail line or nothing.