BIKE: Commuter Rail In General

[Mike Dahmus]

Fred Meredith wrote:

> I will vote for this plan for the following basic reasons.
>
> 1.) We need a "first step" project in order to have any further 
> advancement in mass transit through consideration of rail or other 
> option to the single-occupant motor vehicle that increasingly 
> gridlocks Austin. It may not be the best beginning, but it would be a 
> beginning rather than a mandate to keep all rail plans off the horizon 
> and just throw money at more lanes of concrete in a misguided attempt 
> to overcome congestion. Once a first step is taken, I feel it is more 
> likely that better plans can be brought to bear on the issue. I think 
> it is a foot-in-the-door situation. 

I don't know how many more times I can take this argument without 
assuming that I've become invisible or inaudible (fat chance, huh?), but 
I'll try to remain calm once more.

The danger here is that a starter line that is bad ENOUGH will 
completely destroy the momentum among the public (that actually WANTS 
rail right now by at least a slim margin, in Austin itself). This is 
what happened in South Florida with a system which is identical in every 
way that matters to the one proposed by Capital Metro. (Their 
demographics are a bit more liberal than ours, if you include the entire 
Capital Metro service area, but still far more conservative than Seattle 
or Portland).

Aspects of Tri-Rail's service which are important:

1. It doesn't go anywhere people actually want to go, but relies on 
high-frequency circulators (shuttle buses) to take people to their final 
destinations.
2. What happened was that people who were potential new transit 
customers stayed away, in droves, when they heard about the shuttle-bus 
transfer. (This transfer makes the entire trip noncompetitive with the 
private automobile - i.e. not even close).
3. Hundreds of millions have been spent and are being spent to 
double-track the corridor, but now after 15 years of no real penetration 
among new transit customers, the people in charge are finally talking 
about moving or adding service to a far better rail corridor which 
actually goes through the major downtowns. (This is in their new 
long-range plans - meaning next decade or two).
4. In the meantime, nothing else could be done (in terms of transit) for 
15 years, and for at least another 10-15.
5. Transit-oriented development has been pursued vigorously along 
Tri-Rail's corridor for at least ten years now with no results 
whatsoever (no construction; only some plans, most of which died on the 
vine).

Compare (and contrast if you can) to Austin. Here's the danger:

1. We're exactly the same as Tri-Rail. Unless you think drivers in 
Leander are in love with transfers to shuttle buses. I don't.
2. Capital Metro comes back to the voter in 2008 with plans to "expand" 
(either build the next commuter line down Mopac; build a streetcar 
system downtown; or if you don't believe me that commuter rail precludes 
light rail, even rail down Lamar/Guadalupe).
3. The voters, who were told in no uncertain terms back in 2004 that 
they should evaluate the line's actual performance before voting on 
extensions/expansions, see that basically the commuter rail line is 
handling the old express bus riders (Capital Metro closed down the 
183-corridor express buses in 2007 as commuter rail came online).
4. The voters come to the (understandable) conclusion that "we tried 
rail, and it didn't work; so we're not going to spend any more money on it".

So no, the position that "Once a first step is taken, I feel it is more 
likely that better plans can be brought to bear on the issue. I think it 
is a foot-in-the-door situation" is not an accurate representation of 
what we face. It's more like "once a first step is taken on rail, it is 
very unlikely that better plans can be brought to bear on the issue 
unless the first step is a success in the minds of the voters. It is an 
out-on-a-limb situation".


Mike Dahmus
Urban Transportation Commission