Saturday Metrorail Service (Austin, Leander, Center: transfer to, living, price)

[passionatearts]

Originally Posted by 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.

No, I'm just criticizing because Capital Metro can't get their act together and probably never will.

[eileenkeeney]

I didn't even know it was running this Saturday, or I would have probably been one of the frustrated riders.
(Actually I would have probably ended up taking the bus home, after seeing the crowds waiting for the lightrail).

In most cities, this size, that have light rail, the trains run more often than 1x per hour on a Saturday.

[DarkWolf]

idk 1x per hr , its more like 90sec-5 mins on weekends for heavy rail , for light rail its 5-20 mins depending on the system. The more lines that share the the same line , the more frequent the service is. CapMetro should make it every 30 mins.....They should also ask an Agency who very familiar with rail and other transit like Tri-Met , NJT , MBTA , DART , or MTA to help out and plan future lines.

[eileenkeeney]

I think that even 1x per hour, with enough train cars to carry the load, would be ok.

If I know what time the train is leaving, and there is room on it for me (so I don't have to wait through multiple trains to catch one), each hour would be fine.

Tri-Met (Portland Or) is nice. I, for some reason, expected that another large city (like Austin) would have mass transit system similar in quality.
I was also surprised to find out that the areas that border Austin (like Round Rock) did not have any useful mass transit

[AustinTx78660]

Originally Posted by 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.

Well, one can spin this in a negative way or see the good in this. Looks like there is a lot of interest in MetroRail. I would certainly love this service to go on trips from North Austin to downtown and back. Looks like the demand is there, now they can plan to meet demand.

Imagine what would have happened if they had invested many more millions of dollars and no one would have shown up to use the train. All the Teabaggers and anti-government people would come out crying how the tax dollars were wasted.

CapMetro needs to work with what they have (limited funds, sharing the line with the freight trains, only one track, etc.) - maybe this will be an incentive for whoever appropriates funds for these things to route more money into the MetroRail system.

Looks like a great success to me, they can't do much when more people show up than they can accommodate, at least not in the sho0rt term.

[AustinTx78660]

Originally Posted by passionatearts

No, I'm just criticizing because Capital Metro can't get their act together and probably never will.

Do you know what restrictions there are in place for this wand why?

They share the one track they have with a freight train (the only service they offer that is profitable for them).

Only one track means limited trains on the track, since they can't pass oncoming trains anywhere.

Funding limitations.

I think they do the best with what they have. Hopefully, this success (having more customers than you can serve is a success, even if people are inconvenienced) will allow them to get more funding.

[M1EK]

The reason Saturday's trains were so full and Monday's (and every other weekday's) are so empty: M1EK's Bake-Sale of Bile: Epic MetroFail

Don't buy the hype. This thing is nearly completely useless.

[jobert]

If the people of Leander needed to get downtown so badly, why did they move to Leander in the first place?

Serious question.

[AustinSpartan]

Originally Posted by jobert

If the people of Leander needed to get downtown so badly, why did they move to Leander in the first place?

Serious question.

Serious answer... it's cheap, it's safe, and they have good schools.

I have the same dislike for traffic and the expanded suburban occupancy of a city (I'm from Metro Detroit), but not everyone can / wants to live close to the core, but still enjoy what a city has to offer. It's quite the catch 22, but I do see public transportation to / from Leander as a good start for this area.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by AustinSpartan

Serious answer... it's cheap, it's safe, and they have good schools.

I have the same dislike for traffic and the expanded suburban occupancy of a city (I'm from Metro Detroit), but not everyone can / wants to live close to the core, but still enjoy what a city has to offer. It's quite the catch 22, but I do see public transportation to / from Leander as a good start for this area.

The other Catch-22: it takes just as long to get to one's destination using the train as it would if they had just driven in the first place.

We're trying to treat the symptoms (unsuccessfully), but ignoring the problem. If saving gas is the goal, then another problem arises: the train runs on diesel, so those who don't want to drive a car filled with $4-5 gas will see fare increases as well because of the price of diesel.