Austin Urban Light Rail Phase 1 - Why Mueller? (Hemphill: moving, authority)

[yam]

Seems like the south part of the rail ought to follow south lamar with the several thousand new housing units currently under construction right along this path. This area has grown quite a bit more dense since the last line selection. Also for festival transit to Zilker.

[steve78757]

Originally Posted by Komeht

Your projections are not close to true. Mueller will have 2-3X that number of people full built out.

Besides which - the Mueller route is a bit of a misnomer, it's Mueller-Hancock-Red River-Medschool-UT-Capitol-CBD route - serves a lot more than just Mueller.

Fair enough on the total number at Mueller. No need to get hung up on the label, though. The Guadalupe route isn't just Guadalupe. Weird that you chose to focus on that given the breadth of my responses to you.

[steve78757]

Originally Posted by Komeht

I certainly think it's dead. But if it's not, I'll be the first on board cheering for it.

I actually think a Guadalupe/Lamar line AND Mueller is possible:




This line would be fairly incredible start to light rail. It would connect:

2ndStreet/Town/Lake/Seaholm (close)
CBD
Capitol Complex
Travis County Courthouse
West Campus/Drag/University
North Campus
Hyde Park
Triangle
Walking distance to Hancock
Connection with Redline at Airport Blvd.
Mueller
Windsor Park

It would connect all the densest parts of Austin together.
Allow Mueller to grow denser.
Get the servicing station in Mueller as currently proposed.

And really, it's no more circuitous than the current Mueller route and would take more people to more places they would want to go.

That looks good. Then Riverside to the airport next.

[steve78757]

Originally Posted by Novacek

If you're going to provide "evidence", please link to it. Googling any of the above does not produce any documentation.

You have the names of the three studies. I'm not going to do your homework for you. If you want to convince yourself that they're made up to win an internet debate, feel free.

Edit: Received more info, about yet another study. This study, like the others mentioned, is real.

"Transit System Plan — Austin, Texas, prepared by Carter-Burgess (Austin) and BRW (San Diego) for CMTA, 19 October 1995. This also proposes LRT down the railway ROW to Airport/Lamar, then down Lamar, then Guadalupe, then 1-track Guadalupe, 1-track Nueces-San Antonio to MLK.

This study is particularly significant in including engineering cross-sections. First of all, these indicate that, from 29th St. north, Guadalupe has 60 ft total street width (excluding sidewalks). The C-B/BRW solution was to install 1 reserved LRT lane and have the other LRT track in a shared lane with general traffic. This is very similar to the solution for a similar situation with the LRT line in Sacramento (installed 1987), where on 12th St. they have LRT running with 1 track reserved and the other track shared. This has worked quite well for over 25 years."

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by steve78757

That looks good. Then Riverside to the airport next.

I think that's pretty much guaranteed, though personally I'd run a line down Lamar to Wetsgate and a line down Congress to at least Ben White first

But you can tell all development along Riverside now is in anticipation of getting a line.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by steve78757

You have the names of the three studies. I'm not going to do your homework for you. If you want to convince yourself that they're made up to win an internet debate, feel free.

I told you, I tried to google it and nothing's coming up. I'm not claiming you made it up, but how can we discuss a study I can't even read (unless you provide a link).

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by steve78757

"There have been at least three major federally sanctioned projects proposed for running LRT down Lamar-Guadalupe and maintaining at least 2 lanes of traffic in each direction: (1) Study by EP Hamilton Associates/LTK Engineering for CMTA in the early 1990s; (2) Study by PB for CMTA in late 1990s-2000; and (3) Joint CMTA-COA Rapid Transit Project study, 2000-2003.

I'd call this rather compelling evidence that the G-L route is feasible."

Besides, if leaving 2 by 2 the whole way is so easy and feasible, why was the 2000 rail plan intending to remove lanes? I have it on good authority this was the plan (see, I can do it too

Okay, maybe not so reliable, but Mike Dahmus has repeatedly claimed he was involved in the process, and that the plan included removing lanes.
AUSTIN Transportation Thread - Page 140 - SkyscraperPage Forum
and
http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/...alignment.html

[mayfair44]

Originally Posted by steve78757

That looks good. Then Riverside to the airport next.

Originally Posted by Komeht

I think that's pretty much guaranteed, though personally I'd run a line down Lamar to Wetsgate and a line down Congress to at least Ben White first

But you can tell all development along Riverside now is in anticipation of getting a line.

The DT-ABIA path certainly seems defined...

Mueller-45th-Guad-CBD-SoLa-Westgate sounds compelling too, at the expense of North Lamar and SoCo.

Interesting to take a step back and look at the long-term vision though of the "consensus map," depicting both options for Mueller and G/L, along with SoLa and SoCo.


http://www.connectcentraltexas.org/d...7-v2_34x44.pdf

[mayfair44]

Urban Rail back on track under new leadership | The Daily Texan

"Keahey intends to have an analysis of the work already completed on the rail done by May 1 in order to lay out a time line for future milestones in terms of planning and funding, Watson said."

[Austin97]

Just wanted to chime in. I have voted against every rail plan and vowed that I always would. Seeing the metro rail (and riding it once) has actually changed my mind to actually consider voting for a rail proposal. For 120 million metrorail was a bargain as far as rail lines go. It will connect the north suburbs to any downtown rail system.

We have all seen what happens in the summer when UT is out. All of a sudden mopac is drivable. I doubt that rail will have the full impact of summer, but I could be convinced that it would have a significant impact on mopac traffic getting students, state of texas and UT employees off the road.

If there is a marketing message to be sent that could be it. Think about mopac being summer all the time..

dont try to sell the pollution benefits, the people who would vote for rail are going to vote regardless, the people that would vote against rail are highly suspicious of environmental motives. If they see any mention of environmental reasons they will believe the whole scheme is cooked up to save an owl or something with traffic reduction as a lie.