Why Project Connect’s “Highland” urban rail would do nothing for I-35 congestion (Austin: taxes, to live)

[jb9152]

Originally Posted by scm53

1. Project Connect obviously disagrees with you:

Quote:
Project Purpose
The purpose of the next high-capacity transit project in the Central Corridor is to:
Provide a reliable alternative to congestion

I can say, as someone who has observed the process from the inside, that that is not a semantic trick. All of the components of the TWG's High Capacity Transit Vision are intended to provide a reliable (i.e. congestion-proof / congestion-resistant) alternative (choice) to congestion (an infuriating and time-wasting part of rush hour driving). That has always been the way it's been talked about - it provides people with an attractive alternative to getting in the car. I doubt you'll find any transportation practitioner/expert/poobah worth his or her stripes who will say that we can "fix congestion". Just not going to happen. We couldn't pour enough concrete to do that, so one rational choice (amongst a menu of choices) is to invest in alternatives that are more reliable, cost-competitive, and time-competitive with driving in congestion.

[jb9152]

Originally Posted by scm53

Thanks for the semantics lesson, Dr. Hayakawa. I'm just a simple country boy, but in the two room school house where I learned to cipher and diagram sentences, "alternative to congestion" means "to relieve".

Only if you're trying to parse a statement to tweak out a new twist of meaning to fit your argument. If you want to argue semantics, then you're going to at least have to find a dictionary somewhere that shows "relief" as a synonym to "alternative". If you want to get really pedantic, then you should also find a way to make "alternative" (a noun) shoe-horn into the meaning of "to relieve" (a verb). Then, perhaps, your argument will at least have some internal consistency.

Simply, the argument is that high-capacity transit is an alternative to driving. And it plainly is.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by jb9152

Simply, the argument is that high-capacity transit is an alternative to driving. And it plainly is.

No one said it isn't. The issue is, at what cost? The proposed alignment, at the most optimistic forecast, takes 10,000 cars a day off the roads at a cost of $1.3B. In a community that will have 250,000 on the road in fifteen years. So if one is in that 4%, yippee! The other 96%?

Keep telling people you want them to hand you $1.3B to serve 4%. Be honest and tell them that is your goal.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by scm53

No one said it isn't. The issue is, at what cost? The proposed alignment, at the most optimistic forecast, takes 10,000 cars a day off the roads at a cost of $1.3B. In a community that will have 250,000 on the road in fifteen years. So if one is in that 4%, yippee! The other 96%?

Keep telling people you want them to hand you $1.3B to serve 4%. Be honest and tell them that is your goal.

Using that logic, we never should build _anything_. We've spent billions/trillions cumulatively on roads, each one of which individually only serves a fractional percentage of the population.

The US government shouldn't spend any money in Austin, as Austin is only .3% of the total US population.
The US government shouldn't spend any money in NYC, as NYC is only 3 % of the total US population.
The US government shouldn't spend any money in Houston, as Houston is only 1% of the total US population.
.
.
.
.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by scm53

No one said it isn't. The issue is, at what cost? The proposed alignment, at the most optimistic forecast, takes 10,000 cars a day off the roads at a cost of $1.3B. In a community that will have 250,000 on the road in fifteen years. So if one is in that 4%, yippee! The other 96%?

Keep telling people you want them to hand you $1.3B to serve 4%. Be honest and tell them that is your goal.

Again, taking cars off the road isn't the point of mass transit. Oh, and I completely forgot about that project that serves a majority of the 2 million residents of Austin. Remind me what it is?

[Atxroads]

Oh they can spend the money, as long as it doesn't remind people of big cities or something found in *gasp* Europe.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by Westerner92

Again, taking cars off the road isn't the point of mass transit.

Might want to call Project Connect and have them take it off their home page:

Urban Rail would remove 10,000 cars
from the road every weekday (by 2030).

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by scm53

No one said it isn't. The issue is, at what cost? The proposed alignment, at the most optimistic forecast, takes 10,000 cars a day off the roads at a cost of $1.3B. In a community that will have 250,000 on the road in fifteen years. So if one is in that 4%, yippee! The other 96%?

Keep telling people you want them to hand you $1.3B to serve 4%. Be honest and tell them that is your goal.

1. No single piece of infrastructure serves the whole.

2. Highland is the first line of a complete system of transit.

3. How many cars off the road would result from 1.3 billion in roads?

[scm53]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Using that logic, we never should build _anything_. We've spent billions/trillions cumulatively on roads, each one of which individually only serves a fractional percentage of the population.

The US government shouldn't spend any money in Austin, as Austin is only .3% of the total US population.
The US government shouldn't spend any money in NYC, as NYC is only 3 % of the total US population.
The US government shouldn't spend any money in Houston, as Houston is only 1% of the total US population.
.

Well, since we are lecturing on logic, your flawed logic needs correcting, since you are confused by "any" and "only". If "only" Austin, or "only" New York, or "only" Houston got "any" money, then you'd have a point. But we all know that isn't the case, is it?

You true believers, in your insulated, self reinforcing echo chamber are going to sound like Pauline Kael when this turkey is shot out of the sky by people "outside your ken". And a few inside that see this for what it is.

[Westerner92]

Originally Posted by scm53

Might want to call Project Connect and have them take it off their home page:

I imagine they put that there for people who don't quite grasp mass transit's purpose rather than explain urban planning that doesn't center around cars.

Will you answer my question, please? It wasn't rhetorical.