Map from Austin Rail Now/Our Rail leaflet distributed at July 26th “Traffic Jam” shows 21-mile light rail transit line proposed as a “high-capacity transit” alternative to the “BRT” line in I-35 advocated by TxDOT and other road proponents.
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As our April 30th article «Reorganized Project Connect 2.0 opens up, reaches out» explained, Project Connect – the major planning effort -sponsored by Capital Metro, has been re-evaluating Austin-area corridors as possible candidates for rail and other forms of “high-capacity transit”. In recent months, the Texas Department of Transportation (seeking funding participation for its planned overhaul of Interstate Highway 35 through Austin) has been prodding the transit agency to allocate funding for a so-called “bus rapid transit” (BRT) service to be installed in the proposed reconstructed highway. This has become one of the de facto “high-capacity transit” alternatives competing with urban rail in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor for major local funding.
On July 26th, Project Connect, Capital Metro, and several other collaborating agencies sponsored a “Traffic Jam” community meeting, with invited panelists, to discuss possible options in the planning process. The following article is adapted from a leaflet published and distributed by Austin Rail Now, together with the Our Rail political action committee, at the “Traffic Jam” meeting, focusing on a proposed central 21-mile light rail transit (LRT) project, paralleling I-35 and Loop 1 (“MoPac”, Austin’s other north-south freeway), as an alternative to the I-35 “BRT” proposal.
Why not a true mobility option?
• Alternative to I-35 and Loop 1 — A 21-mile urban rail line, running from Tech Ridge in the north to Southpark Meadows in the south, following the Loop 275 (North Lamar to South Congress) corridor, could provide alternative traffic relief to Austin’s major north-south freeways (I-35 and Loop1/MoPac).
Map at left illustrates the major neighborhoods and activity centers that would be served. Such a route could plausibly have a potential of attracting ridership of 100,000 a day.
• Better option than I-35 “BRT” — Urban rail is a far better public transit option than a dubious, seriously handicapped “bus rapid transit” (BRT) line in I-35. Urban rail lines have demonstrated significantly greater potential to attract riders, guide adjacent development, improve commercial taxbase, and stimulate economic activity. It’s unlikely that buses running in an I-35 HOV toll lane would yield any of these benefits.
• Affordable — Light rail transit (LRT), predominantly surface-routed, can most easily and affordably be installed to serve people where they live, work, and need to go. Decades of experience in other major U.S. cities demonstrates that light rail is substantially less costly to operate per passenger-mile than buses, and tends to create high-value taxbase around stops. This can significantly enhance public revenue for better city services, while at the same time helping stabilize or even lower property taxes.
• Guadalupe-Lamar starter line — Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) is the center city’s 3rd-heaviest north-south corridor. In addition to major activity centers, the corridor serves a variety of dense, established neighborhoods, including the West Campus with the 3rd-highest population density in Texas. With Austin’s highest total employment density on Guadalupe-Lamar, an urban rail line could serve 31% of all Austin jobs.
An initial 6 or 7 mile LRT starter line from U.S. 183 or Crestview to downtown could serve as the initial spine of an eventual metrowide system, with branches north and south, northwest, northeast, east, southeast, west, and southwest.
• BRT Reality Check — So-called “BRT” operations in other cities like Minneapolis and Cleveland typically fail to meet the ridership and urban benefit claims of their promoters. Minneapolis’s Orange Line, an upgrade of the city’s heaviest bus transit corridor in I-35W, with just 14,000 daily ridership on 25 routes after 45 years’ worth of facility investment, is no model for Austin. (In contrast, Minneapolis’s 2 LRT lines attract ridership of 68,000.) Cleveland’s Health Line carries ridership of 16,000 in the city’s historically busiest local corridor. Running both in reserved lanes and in mixed traffic, this line is more akin to Austin’s MetroRapid bus services than a “BRT” operation in I-35.
• Community benefits — Compared with buses, LRT systems are more user-friendly, more comfortable to access and ride, and more reliable. G-L LRT would provide higher passenger capacity than the proposed I-35 “BRT”, while being more energy efficient, encouraging denser development and safer, more livable urban environments, and emitting less greenhouse gases.
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_______________Austin Rail Now 