"Austin, we have a problem" (San Marcos, Dean: to buy, live in)

[scm53]

Originally Posted by jb9152

No, not true. You'd still face the capital cost

I understand that. I was just pointing to potentially where the money was.

Originally Posted by jb9152

The Red Line is currently standing room in the AM leaving the second station, Lakeline. The demand is there; the issue now is that the supply is inadequate (and that Cap Metro doesn't really price its premium services like premium services). Cap Metro received an $11 million TIGER grant this year to expand capacity on the line, so there may be some relief in sight.

Well, since the operating subsidy is almost $20/boarding, how much more rail ridership can we afford?

[kavorka]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Again, expanding as kavorka desires (double the buses and double the routes) would require something like an additional 300 million dollars (per year). The cost of metro rail isn't even noise in that figure.

I followed my statement about using rail funding with "But seriously..". That indicates that I was not very serious about rail funding being a solution. I am serious, however, in thinking that improving our bus service is the best option for the money.

[jb9152]

Originally Posted by scm53

I understand that. I was just pointing to potentially where the money was.

Oh, I got what you were saying. I just wanted to point out that it's not quite so simple as shifting $9 million in operations and maintenance money. In fact, it's absurd (no offense).

Originally Posted by scm53

Well, since the operating subsidy is almost $20/boarding, how much more rail ridership can we afford?

It's actually in the $14 range, from what I understand. Still high, but the advantage of rail is that you can accommodate much more capacity with lower marginal cost as demand increases, which means that in general accommodating more passengers leads to lower subsidy. Higher capacity vehicles, the ability to "MU" (add a vehicle to a train pretty much at will) without adding additional labor expenses, and marginal increases in fuel or power costs for each additional car, make rail a far better choice if you're trying to provide an attractive, congestion-proof, reliable, and higher capacity potential solution (in other words, one that will still be useful in 25 years). If you want to spend hundreds of millions on a system with limited attractiveness, low capacity, and increasing marginal costs, then a huge increase in bus service on the Austin region's congested roadway network would be just the way to do it.

The fact really is that there is no one tool in the toolbox that will do it all. What is needed is an emphasis on people-moving capacity, not necessarily vehicle-moving capacity. That means improvements across the board - realistic and high-impact highway improvements, transit improvements, freight rail improvements, and shifts in commuting patterns. And I'll throw in telecommuting, even though I think that idea has marginal effectiveness.

[jb9152]

Originally Posted by kavorka

I followed my statement about using rail funding with "But seriously..". That indicates that I was not very serious about rail funding being a solution. I am serious, however, in thinking that improving our bus service is the best option for the money.

Absent a tectonic shift in the political landscape to make taking travel lanes away from drivers even remotely possible, you're stuck for the most part with a system that is stuck in the same traffic that auto drivers enjoy every day. And charging higher "premium" prices for it, too. With limited capacity to respond to demand increases, and a relatively low high-water mark per route in terms of capacity.

Buses serve a needed purpose, and address a portion of the travel market. But alone, they are not a solution, for any amount of money.

[kavorka]

Originally Posted by jb9152

Absent a tectonic shift in the political landscape to make taking travel lanes away from drivers even remotely possible, you're stuck for the most part with a system that is stuck in the same traffic that auto drivers enjoy every day. And charging higher "premium" prices for it, too. With limited capacity to respond to demand increases, and a relatively low high-water mark per route in terms of capacity.

Buses serve a needed purpose, and address a portion of the travel market. But alone, they are not a solution, for any amount of money.

We've already seen the arrival of "bus only" lanes downtown, with supposedly more on the way in the future for the metro rapid routes. Your claim that this would require a tectonic shift to be remotely possible, which the rest of your argument is based upon, is inaccurate.

I'll just add that if lanes can be claimed for trains then they can be claimed for buses, and for a much smaller investment.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by kavorka

We've already seen the arrival of "bus only" lanes downtown, with supposedly more on the way in the future for the metro rapid routes. Your claim that this would require a tectonic shift to be remotely possible, which the rest of your argument is based upon, is inaccurate.

I'll just add that if lanes can be claimed for trains then they can be claimed for buses, and for a much smaller investment.

The ones downtown were constructed by taking away a parking lane. Let's see what the response is like when the proposal is for taking away lanes on a severely congested road like Guadalupe (this is independent of bus/rail mode, some of the G/L route rail supporters want to remove 3/4 of the lanes). Personally, I'd support it, but I can imagine it getting a _huge_ push-back.

[jb9152]

Originally Posted by kavorka

We've already seen the arrival of "bus only" lanes downtown, with supposedly more on the way in the future for the metro rapid routes. Your claim that this would require a tectonic shift to be remotely possible, which the rest of your argument is based upon, is inaccurate.

I'll just add that if lanes can be claimed for trains then they can be claimed for buses, and for a much smaller investment.

Ever wonder why only downtown has those lanes? Do you know the behind the scenes struggle to get even that? I do. And you want to take lanes off freeways to support express bus service? Good luck with that, friend.

Trains that operate in the street (i.e. urban rail, streetcar, and light rail modes) will have the same congestion issues that buses do, which would seem to make the comparison a wash, except for the facts that rail has a much higher people-moving potential than bus, with lower marginal costs per unit of capacity added than bus, and is for better or worse considered a more attractive mode than bus, meaning more people would generally want to ride it, all other things being equal.

If you prefer a system that will be at capacity in less than ten years (assuming you could make it attractive enough to get people out of their cars, even though it's stuck in the same traffic), with little ability to expand capacity or improve reliability short of expending hundreds of millions to billions to build new express lanes on the region's freeways and hiring hundreds of new drivers, mechanics, cleaners, supervisors (to say nothing of the capital cost of acquiring the needed buses and making all of the expansions you'd need to make to park and ride and maintenance/storage facilities), then please...by all means...double the routes and double the service.

If, however, you're serious about making some measurable dent in our congestion issue, then the answer has to be "all of the above" - highway, bus and rail transit, and freight rail improvements. We've left ourselves in a deep hole that's going to take our best effort (and a little pain here and there) to get out of.

[kavorka]

Originally Posted by Novacek

The ones downtown were constructed by taking away a parking lane. Let's see what the response is like when the proposal is for taking away lanes on a severely congested road like Guadalupe (this is independent of bus/rail mode, some of the G/L route rail supporters want to remove 3/4 of the lanes). Personally, I'd support it, but I can imagine it getting a _huge_ push-back.

I'd support it, too.

[kavorka]

Originally Posted by jb9152

Ever wonder why only downtown has those lanes? Do you know the behind the scenes struggle to get even that? I do. And you want to take lanes off freeways to support express bus service? Good luck with that, friend.

I think what's happening on Mopac is a good example of what to expect. Buses will share the toll lane. Makes sense don't you think? This ties into an important point, which is that buses can share toll or HOV lanes with cars.

Originally Posted by jb9152

Trains that operate in the street (i.e. urban rail, streetcar, and light rail modes) will have the same congestion issues that buses do, which would seem to make the comparison a wash, except for the facts that rail has a much higher people-moving potential than bus, with lower marginal costs per unit of capacity added than bus, and is for better or worse considered a more attractive mode than bus, meaning more people would generally want to ride it, all other things being equal.

Dedicated bus lanes are much cheaper to implement and therefore more palatable to taxpayers. You talk about how hard it is to get dedicated bus lanes, but just wait until you see the results of the potential upcoming bond election for rail. Rail will be going down to defeat in a big way because it costs so much to get started. Project Connect's idiocy hasn't helped the odds either.

Also, the worse traffic becomes in this town the more attractive buses are going to look.

Originally Posted by jb9152

If you prefer a system that will be at capacity in less than ten years (assuming you could make it attractive enough to get people out of their cars, even though it's stuck in the same traffic), with little ability to expand capacity or improve reliability short of expending hundreds of millions to billions to build new express lanes on the region's freeways and hiring hundreds of new drivers, mechanics, cleaners, supervisors (to say nothing of the capital cost of acquiring the needed buses and making all of the expansions you'd need to make to park and ride and maintenance/storage facilities), then please...by all means...double the routes and double the service.

You miss the fact that the new lanes being built will be shared by toll payers, and/or HOVs and buses. There's something for everyone. Those are the kinds of projects that actually get done. See Mopac.

Another advantage of buses over rail is flexibility. They can go where the people are in new developments and existing routes can be altered.

I really didn't want to get into the tired bus versus rail debate. I like rail, but it's just not going to happen in Austin regardless of what you or I think.

[10scoachrick]

Is a tectonic shift just as big as exponential change or an order-of-magnitude change? Just sayin'