BIKE: No more cheap oil -- local implications

[Mike Dahmus]

Patrick Goetz wrote:

> Finally, Daryl Slusher has wisely required Cap Metro to come up with a 
> plan which provides service to UT and the State Government complex if 
> the ASG proposal passes.  As Mike Dahmus has observed, especially with 
> the Red Line in place, monorail will be the only viable option for 
> such a line.

No.

Monorail is the only viable option for a line which goes through the 
high-density residential neighborhoods and continues north past the 
Lamar/Airport intersection, and the only way to recover the original 
northwest - UT - capitol - downtown line as well, but neither one of 
those is the problem that Daryl Slusher promised to solve. And I don't 
think that N/NE on Lamar past 183 corridor is economically viable 
anyways - most central workers live northwest, not at Lamar/Rundberg, 
and most reverse commuters from the center-city are headed northwest, 
not north.

Hint: streetcars, stuck in traffic and all, technically "provide [rail] 
service to UT and the State Government complex".

That's what they're going to propose - and it's going to be a marginal 
improvement over shuttle buses. Neither he nor anyone else has proposed 
anything which reduces or eliminates the transfer requirement for riders 
on the commuter rail line - and this is a huge problem when you're 
trying to attract new customers to mass transit.

- MD