BIKE: commuter rail in Mudville

[Mike Dahmus]

Patrick Goetz wrote:

> 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).

While I agree with most of what Patrick said, I think it's important to 
emphasize that the Austin LRT plan, with all of the stars aligned 
against it by Mike Krusee, still did better than most rail plans do 
their first time out. Patrick half-handedly acknowledges this, but I 
think it's worth more then an aside; it actually points out that the 
2000 plan WAS a good plan. It actually DID go where people wanted to go; 
and DID compare favorably to new LRT starts in Portland, Dallas, Denver, 
Salt Lake. It DIDN'T make the mistakes made in San Jose or Buffalo. That 
being said:

It has not failed to amuse both Patrick and myself that, despite my 
misgivings, it may in fact turn out that the only way to salvage urban 
rail service for the center-city after the commuter rail line is built 
is monorail. This is not because I've turned into a monorail believer 
and a light-rail disbeliever; it's because it's going to be politically 
and technically impossible to build light rail down lamar/guadalupe if 
commuter rail is built.

And Dave Dobbs, please spare me the bullshit about how commuter rail, 
once it runs every 15 minutes all day, might as well be light rail.

If it doesn't go directly to UT and the capitol without transfers, it's 
still a piece of junk. Yes, even if you extend it to Seaholm.

If it doesn't run through any neighborhoods which actually WANT infill, 
like West Campus, instead of through the neighborhoods that are 
single-family low-density 1950s design, it's still a piece of junk. 
Those neighborhoods have consistently refused to accept any additional 
density through their neighborhood plans. They aren't turning into Hyde 
Park, folks, they're turning into Anderson Mill. That goes for the east 
neighborhoods too - they could not be any MORE opposed to densification 
if they were Circle C! The ONLY neighborhoods through which this line 
runs which have demonstrated ANY like for density are the near-Mueller 
neighborhoods, and even THEY only want density IN MUELLER, not in the 
neighborhoods actually on the line!

If it doesn't run through the actual transit-oriented developments on 
the ground and being built today, instead of relying on pie-in-the-sky 
plans for Leander and Robinson Ranch, it's still a piece of junk. This 
plan never brings rail to the Triangle or to Mueller or to West Campus, 
and it never will.

- MD