Saturday Metrorail Service (Austin, Leander: sales, costs, buses)

[calien]

Looks like it was a cluster - who could have guessed it.

See comments to this report:
Rail service draws criticism, crowds | KXAN.com

Interesting things to note:
- people South of Leander were taking the northbound train to make sure they could get downtown, since southbound trains were too full.
- people paid for a day pass but couldn't use it b/c the train was too crowded, time and time again
- people seem to be complaining about too few trains (or infrequency of pickup)
- some people got downtown by train, but ended up taking buses home

Logic tells me they should have charged more than a $6 for a day pass to discourage some of the use, but they surely will take this to show why they need to spend another few million for add'l trains.

Anyone have any stats on weekday use so far? Saturday probably was a bigger day than their average week is and it still wouldn't allow them to make any money. I don't want to subsidize this forever, so I'd like to see it run for a profit or break-even.

[passionatearts]

Until Capital Metro gets their act together (which is 99% likely to never happen), I will never use any of their transportation services. Every other city I've been to that has public transportation services has more competent people running those services. Why is Austin's transportation authority so bad?

[atxcio]

I guess the lesson for now is they should NEVER, EVER run it on a Saturday with a Longhorn game. Or anything else important going on downtown. There would be riots.

[robino2001]

I'm with calien in hoping they use this as a piece of evidence for increased service and ideally, expanding the system to more lines. While it sucks for the people who did try to use it, I personally am glad to see the high demand for the service. I'm very hopeful for greater service and expansion and any step in that direction is a right one... albeit I realize it's going to be a slow, painful process (and yeah, more than likely mismanaged also, but that's how we roll in Texas).

[centralaustinite]

An efficient service would require dedicated track (no sharing with freight) and dual lines plus many more cars. The costs quickly become astronomical! It would reach a billion dollars without much effort (particularly expanding the right away for dual track).

[CptnRn]

It is an encouraging sign to me that there is actually enough demand to have overloaded the system. Apparently the Pecan Street Festival was the attraction. It seems like Capital Metro should be able to monitor ticket sales and cut off sales when it is likely the system will be overloaded. I can't help but wonder why they sold so many more day passes then they could handle.

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

I can't help but wonder why they sold so many more day passes then they could handle.

I'd be willing to bet you know why.

[DarkWolf]

This Cap MetroRail keeps getting better and better ,....grabs some popcorn and waits for the next problem

[eepstein]

As a former employee in the "transportation" industry, I can tell you that Capital Metro has always been a flawed business. Almost from day 1, they have had horrible management issues, money issues, and planning issues. Capital Metro has lost money all but 2 years of it's existance.

I can remember working an internship with Sacramento Regional Transit back in 1996 and hearing about the "Train wreck" that was Capital Metro in Austin, TX. Oddly enough, back then I know two things about Austin. 1) it was the capital of Texas 2) It had a really messed up transit system.

Originally Posted by passionatearts

Until Capital Metro gets their act together (which is 99% likely to never happen), I will never use any of their transportation services. Every other city I've been to that has public transportation services has more competent people running those services. Why is Austin's transportation authority so bad?

[RevMen]

I would hope the people criticizing because there were too many riders aren't the same people who criticized earlier because they didn't think the train ran where people would want to ride it.