Plan for galvanizing Austin’s public transport development: Light rail starter line in Guadalupe-Lamar
30 June 2015
LEFT: Map of proposed 6.8-mile light rail route in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. (Map: ARN.) RIGHT: San Francisco light rail train in dedicated lanes in Judah St., similar to Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. (Photo: Eric Haas.) (Click to enlarge.)
LEFT: Map of proposed 6.8-mile light rail route in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. (Map: ARN.) RIGHT: San Francisco light rail train in dedicated lanes in Judah St., similar to Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. (Photo: Eric Haas.)
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Austin’s transportation planning could be seen as “a tale of two systems“. On one hand, here in the 21st century — amidst crises over the climbing cost of energy, increasing road congestion by private vehicles, and global climate change impacted by greenhouse gas emissions — local planners and leaders are expanding highways like it’s 1955. In all directions, nowadays it’s mostly tollways, with new ones under development or planned in southwestern Travis County; across the river, double-decked over Loop 1 (MoPac); from East Austin to ABIA; and through the heart of the city with new toll lanes on I-35. Austinites who’re already paying taxes to fund roads now get to pay out-of-pocket tolls to use the new ones — a kind of Double Whammy.
So what about public transportation? Basically, since last year’s “Rail to Nowhere” Highland-Riverside proposal crashed and burned, public transportation planning has been going in circles — a circular maze, to be exact.
In other words, roads burgeon while transit diddles.
Meanwhile the solution continues to stare the Austin community in the face. As we noted in our March 29th article «Austin’s urban transport planning seems struck by catastrophic case of amnesia and confusion», “For two and a half decades, local officials and planners have explained why urban rail — affordable light rail transit (LRT), in Austin’s case — has been an absolutely essential component of the metro area’s mobility future.” We went on to elaborate that
…the fundamental case for LRT in Austin has been grounded in truth — the higher capacity, greater ridership attraction, cost-effectiveness, environmental benefits, unsurpassed magnetism to transit-oriented development and economic development, and other advantages of light rail are indeed essential for the future of this community. Mobility cannot be sustained of a continuing expansion of rivers of highways and tollways and a steadily rising flood of personal motor vehicles. Urban rail continues to be key to providing truly attractive public transit alternative, and shifting at least significant segments of the Austin metro to a sustainable alternative mobility lifestyle.
Austin Rail Now has underscored the case — and extensive evidence — in an array of solidly documented articles, including:
• Long saga of Guadalupe-Lamar light rail planning told in maps
• Latest TTI data confirm — Guadalupe-Lamar is central local arterial corridor with heaviest travel
• Dobbs: Density, travel corridor density, and implications for Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail
• West Campus is where the students are!
• Guadalupe-Lamar is highest-density corridor in Austin — according to Project Connect’s own data!
• Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail line would serve 31% of all Austin jobs
• Demographic maps show Lamar-Guadalupe trumps Mueller route for Urban Rail
• Dobbs: “Why are we squandering our best asset?”
• How urban rail can be installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor
• Strong community support for Guadalupe-Lamar light rail continues — but officials seem oblivious
• Poll: Austinites want surface rail!
• Why the MetroRapid bus project currently is NOT an obstacle to urban rail in Guadalupe-Lamar
So where and how could LRT be installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor? Austin Rail Now has provided conceptual details for a workable, affordable, attractive, cost-effective plan in a series of thoroughly researched articles:
• What and where — Our article «A “Plan B” proposal for a Guadalupe-Lamar alternative urban rail starter line» proposed a 6.8-mile LRT starter line from the North Austin Transit Center down North Lamar and then Guadalupe and Lavaca to downtown, with a westward spur to the Seaholm-Amtrak Station area. Total cost was estimated at less than $600 million (2014 dollars), and daily ridership was estimated at 30,000 to 40,000.
Map of proposed 6.8-mile LRT starter line in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, with connection to Seaholm-Amtrak Station site. (Map: ARN. Click to enlarge.)
• How — Our article «San Francisco’s N-Judah Muni Metro line shows design option for light rail in Austin’s Guadalupe-Lamar corridor» explains how two dedicated LRT tracks could be installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor in a design that maintains four traffic lanes (two per direction) and facilities for pedestrians and cyclists.
Cross-section of proposed LRT dedicated lanes in Guadalupe-Lamar, including 4 traffic lanes and pedestrian-bicycle facilities. (ARN. Click to enlarge.)
• How soon — Our article «How soon to get Austin’s urban rail on track after Nov. 4th?» explains policy steps that the new City Council could implement to re-focus planning on a viable Guadalupe-Lamar LRT starter line and a local funding mechanism. Our subsequent, more detailed article «Possible timeline for installing light rail transit in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor» lays out a plausible itemized timeline that brings an LRT plan for Guadalupe-Lamar from the start of system-level planning to opening of operations in less than seven years.
Conceptual timeline for proposed LRT starter line project, with assumed starting point in fall of 2015. (ARN. Click to enlarge.)
Until this city has a signature rail system, beginning with a starter line in the right corridor to serve as a spine and anchor for a citywide and regionwide network, Austinites will continue to face one highway ripoff after another — burdened with steadily rising costs for more roads and shackled to dependency on increasingly expensive private vehicles in worsening traffic congestion.
We’ve proposed a plan that can work and initiate a realistic path forward for solving Austin’s mobility crisis. Will Austin decide to proceed on that path, or continue to circle around in the maze of indecision and procrastination? ■
_______________Austin Rail Now 
Wow! By 2022 Austin will be drowning in gridlock. Pursuing an, uneconomical unaffordable, unsustainable, very limited serving LR would be sheer folly. Austinites, wake up! In 3-4 years you can have from anywhere to anywhere anytime faster transit for everybody that IS affordable and sustainable, with Austin bred Cellular Mass Transit http://www.CMT4Austinl.org
Change your name to Austin Transit Now, and gather support and push implementation of the only practical better transit system for all people ever offered to our community by Richard Shultz, one of our own citizens.
Cellular Mass Transit is a great idea and can be implemented NOW with minor effort or cost!! The Hubs will form the bases of a backbone system. The great thing, unlike street rail, is that a hub whose demographic change, can be relocated at minimal cost. Once a series of hubs start to reach the capacity that can easily be handled by busses, a grade separated system such as monorail can be installed between those hubs. The CMT system can truly be intermodal.
It is important to note that rapidly approaching technology will dramatically change roads, public transit and land use which will render, in almost all views, urban trains to be irrelevant and destructive to mobility and the greater good of all citizens.
New technologies include such advances as “driverless” vehicles and numerous car sharing implementations.
Urban trains cannot be cost effective and sustainable with future, approaching mobility transformations which will be here before a small, high-cost train can be implemented to serve a very small fraction of Austin mobility needs. It would be a tragic waste of taxpayer funds to implement a train which would provide no improvement in mobility and provide little or no value to the vast majority of taxpayers funding it.