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Latest TTI data confirm — Guadalupe-Lamar is central local arterial corridor with heaviest travel

13 October 2014
Heavy peak-hour traffic on North Lamar. Guadalupe-Lamar is Austin's most heavily travelled inner-city central corridor, long seen as top priority for urban rail. Photo: L. Henry.

Heavy peak-hour traffic on North Lamar. Guadalupe-Lamar is Austin’s most heavily travelled inner-city central corridor, long seen as top priority for urban rail. Photo: L. Henry.

♦

For years, many Austin public transit activists have been insisting that the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor is the central inner city’s most heavily travelled local travel route, and should be the first priority for installing urban rail. In this blog’s first posting, in the spring of 2013, we described how City of Austin planners were proposing an urban rail starter line to connect downtown and the east side of the University of Texas with the Mueller development site, but “Lamar-Guadalupe is the ‘Missing Link’ in their plan.”

Ironically, COA has also been emphasizing that Lamar-Guadalupe is the primary local traffic corridor in central-city Austin, and even identified this corridor in the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) scoping meetings, held throughout Austin in spring 2012, as being at maximum capacity for over the past 2 decades.

In a posting just this past August, we summarized the case for Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) in a single sentence:

Guadalupe-Lamar is the outstanding corridor to start urban rail — among the top heavy travel corridors in Texas, a long-established commercial district, with major activity centers, the city’s core neighborhoods, and the West Campus, having the 3rd-highest residential density in Texas.

By far, the heavy travel flow in this corridor one of that most compelling features that cry out for the capacity, public attractiveness, and cost-effectiveness of urban rail (light rail transit, LRT). Study after study has documented the fact that this is the most intensely traveled inner-city local corridor — the only major corridor serving the city’s central axis between I-35 and Loop 1 (MoPac).

Now, the latest annual report of the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), endorsed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) not only strongly corroborates these assessments, but provides data that further emphasize the key importance of the G-L corridor. The report tabulates both vehicular traffic (measured as daily vehicle-miles travelled, or VMT) and congestion (measured as annual person-hours of delay) for each major roadway included in the list.

TTI’s complete statewide listing of major roadways, in an Excel XLSX spreadsheet, can be downloaded from this link:
http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/umi/most-congested-in-texas-final.xlsx
Selected data from Austin (Travis County) is summarized (webpage text) at this link:
http://mobility.tamu.edu/most-congested-texas/austin/

Certainly, as north-south highways, I-35 and Loop 1 (MoPac) remain at the top of the list in terms of traffic flow and congestion (person-hours of delay). But these are primarily intercity-regional highways, flanked by frontage roads and sprawling, motor-vehicle-oriented development, mostly commercial. As potential transit corridors, they are physically inappropriate as alignments for regional passenger rail, and definitely unsuitable for urban-suburban light rail, which is ideal for interconnecting points along an inner-city corridor.

Guadalupe-Lamar is ideal for urban rail, since it channels incoming suburban travel from both I-35 and Loop 1 and distributes it to inner-city destinations. And it interconnects those same activity centers as well as many of Austin’s most established central-city neighborhoods.

The TTI data underscore the high-traffic primacy of Guadalupe-Lamar. Since these data a presented for segments of the total corridor, we’ve consolidated these segments to show flow in the entire corridor.

We’ve created graphic comparisons to contrast Guadalupe-Lamar with other major inner-city north-south corridors, both in terms of traffic flow (daily VMT) and congestion (annual person-hours of delay). Data for South Congress, South First, and Manchaca have similarly been consolidated to highlight each of these corridors in its entirety. (Data for South Lamar and Burnet Road were not similarly segmented in the TTI report.)

Graph illustrates that traffic flow in Guadalupe-Lamar is more than twice that of any other inner-city north-south corridor.

Graph illustrates that traffic flow in Guadalupe-Lamar is more than twice that of any other inner-city north-south corridor.

Graph illustrates that congestion (person-hours of delay) in Guadalupe-Lamar is nearly twice that of the next highest inner-city north-south corridor, South Congress.

Graph illustrates that congestion (person-hours of delay) in Guadalupe-Lamar is nearly twice that of the next highest inner-city north-south corridor, South Congress.

We also compared the Guadalupe-Lamar data with TTI data for the officially proposed Highland-Riverside (H-R) urban rail route. H-R data were consolidated from available arterial data provided in the TTI report, which included the entire Riverside Drive alignment from South Lamar to S.H. 71, plus Airport Blvd. from North Lamar to I-35. (Other arterials in the Highland-Riverside route, such as Trinity, San Jacinto, and Red River, apparently register too little traffic and congestion to even qualify for inclusion on TTI’s listing.)

Graph illustrates that traffic flow in Guadalupe-Lamar is at a volume about 2.4 times that of arterials in the Highland-Riverside route.

Graph illustrates that traffic flow in Guadalupe-Lamar is at a volume about 2.4 times that of arterials in the Highland-Riverside route.

Graph illustrates that congestion (person-hours of delay) in Guadalupe-Lamar is nearly three times that of arterials in the Highland-Riverside route.

Graph illustrates that congestion (person-hours of delay) in Guadalupe-Lamar is nearly three times that of arterials in the Highland-Riverside route.

This comparison suggests that, in terms of both traffic flow and congestion (which can be interpreted as a proxy for travel density), the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor far outpaces the H-R corridor proposed for urban rail by Project Connect, and offered for public endorsement (i.e., bond funding authorization) in Proposition 1 on November 4th. (It’s worth noting that Project Connect’s much-vaunted “scientific” and “data-based” exercise a year ago, portrayed as a “study”, failed to evaluate a single actual travel corridor, let alone with this kind of data comparison.)

The logical conclusion: Overwhelmingly, in both traffic and mobility congestion, Guadalupe-Lamar trumps not only the official Highland-Riverside line, but every other alternative corridor as well. Good sense suggests that Guadalupe-Lamar remains the top-priority corridor for an urban rail starter line. ■

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin urban rail issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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How soon to get Austin’s urban rail on track after Nov. 4th?

11 October 2014
Graphic: LifeHacker.com

Either the Highland-Riverside urban rail plan or a Guadalupe-Lamar plan will need several years to be ready for federal approval. Graphic: LifeHacker.com

♦

By Dave Dobbs

How quickly can Austin get another rail proposal on the ballot if Proposition One fails on Nov. 4th? Pass or fail, I think any rail proposition that would be ready for federal funding is at least three years out — i.e., 2018, considering that the new 10-1 council gets up and running early in 2015.

If Proposition One passes, the new council would have to deal with the political mandate of $400 million of road funding — most likely, in Certificates of Obligation (COs). And given the nature of COs, meant for emergencies, not for general obligation (GO) situations, the oxygen in council chambers is going to be consumed as new council members (a) hear from the public pro and con and (b) recognize that large city indebtedness limits their ability to expend funds for many other needed things (particularly their own priorities and campaign promises), while at the same time setting the stage for even more debt for a controversial rail project that will surely necessitate giving up a quarter cent of Capital Metro’s sales tax they now collect.

Assuming that the issue of COs could be settled in a year’s time and the city could begin selling bonds to fund the detailed planning necessary to qualify for federal funding, it will still take two to three years for the federally mandated steps necessary to get back into line for federal funding. Remember, when Project Connect switched the destination from Mueller to Highland, the current project on the ballot lost its place in line. (Council members knew this when they placed Proposition One on the ballot.) Considering that federal funding is highly competitive, with something like 50 U.S. cities doing some kind of urban rail planning in pursuit of federal dollars, Austin’s current project (supposedly with 18,000 daily riders) for $1.4 billion is simply not cost-effective or cost-competitive.

Now if Project Connect still has some funds left from the $5 million allocated from CAMPO’s SMP-MM grant and what the Council provided in 2013, and Prop. One passes, then rail planning for Highland/Riverside could go on while council thrashes about trying to deal with the $400 million in COs. Nonetheless, it would still be 2018 before any Project Connect plan would be ready for federal consideration and the ridership and the project won’t be any better.

If Proposition One fails, then the new 10-1 council will be able to get organized and set its own priorities, one of which would be to disconnect Project Connect, along with its funding, and then assess where the community goes with Capital Metro, transit priorities, rail planning, and what role the city, itself, has in all this. Hopefully, any funding that is left from Project Connect could be held in abeyance until Council agrees to set up a new public study process that has real public input and gives public stakeholders ownership. Right now, Capital Metro has been so poorly used by politicians and the private political agendas the politicians represent, that we need to have a community discussion about what transit’s role is in the future and who does what.

The city and the transit authority, after all, have to agree upon how to use the limited assets we call the public streets. We have to decide whether streets are for people (pedestrians, bikes, and transit) or sewers for cars. While some of our elected officials piously claim we can’t give up automobile travel lanes for rail on Guadalupe and Lamar, the CAMPO plan (its Capital Metro elements) projects dedicated bidirectional busways for MetroRapid on all of the best potential rail routes in the city by 2025.

Overhead view of MetroRail on Main St. at Preston. Photo: Houston Metro.

Houston’s MetroRail light rail transit system runs on dedicated tracks on Main St., re-allocated from traffic lanes. Photo: Houston Metro.

Given the undeniable need, now becoming patently obvious to most of the attentive public, that something must be done in the core along the Guadalupe/North Lamar corridor, the new Council will be under enormous pressure from most of the Project Connect supporters and the loyal opposition pro-rail supporters to begin anew looking at a rail proposal that has the right combination of route, ridership, capital cost, and O&M numbers that gets the most bang for the buck. Again, we’re looking at 2018 before any plan could be completed and eligible for Federal Transit Administration funding.

The difference between passing and failing is, of course, funding — i.e., Austin’s local match for a federal grant. While both Proposition One proponents and the loyal opposition pro-rail supporters agree that a local match is essential, the contention that a November bond failure means “another 14 years” before we can visit the issue again, or that a 10-1 council will be unable to agree on where to begin, are arguments for people with an agenda and those who are flying backward to see where we’ve been. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Dave Dobbs's postings, Federal Transit Administration issues | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

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A “Plan B” proposal for a Guadalupe-Lamar alternative urban rail starter line

5 October 2014
Proposed 6.8-mile "Plan B" light rail transit line in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor would have 17 stations and connect the North Lamar Transit Center at U.S> 183 with Crestview, the Triangle, UT and the West Campus, the Capitol Complex, the CBD, and the Seaholm-Amtrak area. It's projected to serve 3 times the ridership of the Prop. 1 Highland-Riverside rail line at slightly over half the capital cost.

Proposed 6.8-mile “Plan B” light rail transit line in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor would have 17 stations and connect the North Lamar Transit Center at U.S. 183 with Crestview, the Triangle, UT and the West Campus, the Capitol Complex, the CBD, and the Seaholm-Amtrak area. It’s projected to serve 3 times the ridership of the Prop. 1 Highland-Riverside rail line at slightly over half the capital cost. (Click to enlarge.)

♦

Supporters of the Proposition 1 urban rail proposal have been issuing dire warnings that “there’s no Plan B” if Prop. 1 — with its Highland-Riverside rail line — is rejected by voters on Nov. 4th.

Apparently, they’re willfully ignoring that there definitely is a “Plan B”. All along, there’s been an alternative urban rail project on the table … and it’s ready to replace the Project Connect/Prop. 1 plan if it fails.

Light rail transit (LRT, a.k.a. urban rail) for the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor has been in various stages of planning since the late 1980s. The ridership potential has been assessed in the range of 30,000-40,000 a day (see Austin’s 2000 light rail plan — Key documents detail costs, ridership of Lamar-Guadalupe-SoCo route).

There are various design alternatives (see, for example An alternative Urban Rail plan and Another alternative urban rail plan for Guadalupe-Lamar corridor.)

In this particular proposal, including elements in both alternative G-L plans listed above, we present a plausible and fairly simple option for an LRT starter line aimed at minimizing design and cost while providing an attractive service with adequate capacity. Like the Prop. 1 plan, this would require re-allocation of some traffic lanes to dedicated rail transit use, some intermittent property acquisition, and streetscape amenities including pedestrian and bicycle provisions. Our plan would route LRT entirely on the surface; thus there are no major civil works (although there is a bridge included over Shoal Creek and rebuilding of the pedestrian interface).

We assume a 6.8-mile line starting at the North Lamar Transit Center (NLTC, Lamar and U.S. 183) on the north, running south down North Lamar and Guadalupe, then Guadalupe and Lavaca to the CBD, then west on 4th and 3rd Streets to a terminus to serve the Seaholm development and Amtrak station at Lamar. (See map at top of post.) We’ve assumed 17 stations, but have not proposed specific locations except for the termini at NLTC and Seaholm-Amtrak.

As a starter line for urban rail, this plan would serve Austin’s most heavily traveled inner-city corridor (North Lamar Blvd. and Guadalupe St.) plus the West Campus, Texas’s third-densest residential neighborhood — both totally ignored by the seriously flawed Prop. 1 plan. Our plan would also serve the Seaholm-Amtrak area. All these crucial residential and activity areas are missed by Prop. 1’s proposed line.

At Crestview, we’ve assumed a track diversion into and through the mixed-use development to facilitate interchange with the MetroRail Red Line; the tracks would return into N. Lamar at each end of the development. There are other options for achieving this transit interface, including a major overhaul of the entire intersection of N. Lamar, Airport Blvd, and the Red Line.

Through the West Campus area, to serve this dense neighborhood and the University of Texas campus, we’ve assumed a simple route on Guadalupe. However, several other options are possible, such as a split-directional alignment with one track on Guadalupe and another on Nueces.

We assume 30,000 to 40,000 as a plausible potential ridership range for this proposal, based on previous forecasts for this corridor plus factors such as the interconnection with MetroRail service at Crestview, and extensions both to U.S. 183 and to the Seaholm-Amtrak site. Our “horseback” design and cost assessment (generally similar to a typical “systems-level” engineering estimate) envisions sufficient rolling stock to accommodate this volume of daily passenger-trips in 3-car trains at 10-minute headways. We’ve estimated average schedule speed at 16 mph and a round trip of roughly an hour.

On this basis, we’ve assumed a fleet of 30 LRT railcars, including spares. Storage, maintenance, and operations facilities would be located at the NLTC, which would also provide expanded park & ride facilities.

As presented in the table below, we’ve estimated the capital investment cost of this project at $586 million. We believe this is a far more affordable investment for an initial LRT starter line than the daunting $1.1 billion ($1.4 billion in year of completion) estimated for the Highland-Riverside proposal in Prop. 1. With 50% Federal Transit Administration funding assumed, this would mean a local share of $293 million, most likely financed from local City of Austin bonds and possibly other sources.

Line installation includes right-of-way acquisition, trackwork and running way construction, minor civil works, electric power supply and distribution, signal and communications system, stations and facilities, and streetscape amenities, including sidewalks and bicycle lanes. Rolling stock is assumed as “short” low-floor LRT cars similar to those recently procured in Salt Lake City and Atlanta; a storage, maintenance, and operations facility is included. Total cost includes a 25% contingency and a 15% administrative/engineering allowance.

2_ARN_PlanB-G-L-urban-rail-altv-est-cost

Unit capital cost of this “Plan B” project calculates to about $87 million per mile — roughly 73% of the cost per mile of the Prop. 1 proposal. Total cost is 52% of the Prop. 1 Highland-Riverside plan. Thus, for just over half the cost of the Prop. 1 plan, this proposal would render about three times the ridership. We’d expect this high ridership (as well as high passenger-mileage) to translate to signficantly lower operating & maintenance (O&M) unit costs compared with the Prop. 1 rail proposal, as well as lower unit subsidies.

In addition, it would serve Austin’s most heavily travelled inner-city arterial corridor, one of the state’s densest neighborhoods, the city’s highest-density corridor, and a number of Austin’s most established center-city neighborhoods — neighborhoods that have anticipated and planned for light rail for well over a decade. It would also serve centers of development such as the Triangle area, clusters of major new development emerging in various segments along the corridor, and much of the very high-density residential and commercial development booming in the western section of the CBD.

Hopefully, by investing dollars wisely and conservatively in an affordable initial starter line project, Austin will be in a position to budget for a vigorous expansion of LRT lines in other potential corridors citywide, such as:

• South Congress
• North Lamar to Parmer Lane
• Northwest to Lakeline Transit Center
• South Lamar
• East Riverside to ABIA
• Mueller development and northeast Austin
• Lake Austin Blvd.
• West 38th St.

Plan B — possibly this design or something similar to it — is definitely ready and waiting. Hopefully, it will move forward vigorously if Proposition 1 is rejected on Nov. 4th. ■

Portland's light rail transit line on 4-lane Interstate Avenue gives an idea of how urban rail could operate in reservation in G-L corridor. (Photo: Peter Ehrlich)

Portland’s Yellow Line LRT on Interstate Avenue serves a corridor similar to Austin’s Guadalupe-Lamar. (Photo: Peter Ehrlich)

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin 2014 urban rail bond campaign, Austin urban rail issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

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Dobbs: Density, travel corridor density, and implications for Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail

24 September 2014
Aerial view (looking north) of "Drag" section of Guadalupe St. (wide arterial running from bottom middle of photo to upper right). Western edge of UT campus is at far right, and extremely dense West Campus neighborhood occupies middle left of photo. In upper right corner, Guadalupe jogs northwest, then north again; main travel corridor eventually merges with North Lamar further north. Photo: Romil, posted in forum.skyscraperpage.com.

Aerial view (looking north) of “Drag” section of Guadalupe St. (wide arterial running from bottom middle of photo to upper right). Western edge of UT campus is at far right, and extremely dense West Campus neighborhood occupies middle left of photo. In upper right corner, Guadalupe jogs northwest, then north again; main travel corridor eventually merges with North Lamar further north. Photo: Romil, posted in forum.skyscraperpage.com. (Click to enlarge.)

♦

By Dave Dobbs

This commentary has been adapted from the author’s Sep. 17th posting to an online rail transit discussion list.

How dense does a city need to be to justify a rail transit system?

One of things that the hard-core rail transit opponents like to do is to confuse a city’s overall population density with travel corridor density. Los Angeles, for example, because it grew up around 1100 miles of electric urban rail, has some very dense travel corridors, notably the Wilshire Blvd. corridor where currently they are about to begin construction on the “subway to the sea” (extension of the MetroRail rapid transit subway line to Santa Monica) The Wilshire corridor has densities comparable with those in New York City.

In my 35+ years as a transit advocate, I’ve heard the “Austin doesn’t have the density to support rail” argument hauled out time and time again. But Austin has a very congested core where 50% of the region’s employment is located within a half-mile of a six-mile-long travel corridor, Guadalupe-North Lamar. Austin is unique in that a 50-block-long segment of that corridor contains downtown, the Capital complex, the University of Texas (UT), and two residential areas, West Campus and Hyde Park with densities of more than 12,000 per square mile. And lots of people who don’t live there are traveling up and down this corridor trying to get to these places.

To serve this and similar travel corridors adequately with affordable urban rail transit will require re-allocating available street space from motor vehicles to higher-capacity transit. In other words, giving priority to rail transit because of its higher capacity and ability to ensure essential mobility. Instead of regarding the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor as a disaster because the solution means giving up two of the vehicle travel lanes for trains, politicians need to see the situation in Chinese terms, where the word “crisis” merges two concepts: “danger” and “opportunity”. ■

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin urban development issues, Austin urban rail issues, Dave Dobbs's postings, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT) | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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UT should pay for East Campus urban rail — not Austin taxpayers

2 September 2014
Project Connect map showing half-mile radius from proposed urban rail stations. Except for a mainly commercial and retail sliver along the Drag, most of high-density West Campus residential neighborhood is beyond station access radius.

Project Connect map (annotated by ARN) showing half-mile radius from proposed urban rail stations. Except for a mainly commercial and retail sliver along the Drag, most of high-density West Campus residential neighborhood is beyond station access radius.

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By Lyndon Henry

The following comments were made during Citizen Communications to Project Comnnect’s Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) on 13 June 2014 regarding Project Connect’s proposed 9.5-mile, $1.4 billion urban rail starter line connecting East Riverside (southeast) with the Highland ACC site now under development (north). Ultimately, the group voted to recommend Project Connect’s proposal to the City Council.

Since 2006, UT has insisted on a San Jacinto route that would bolster its development aims for the East Campus. However, the West Campus is where the people are, with the third-highest residential density in Texas. It’s where the heavy travel flow is, and where most activity is clustered. And the FTA-required half-mile demographic “watershed” around proposed urban rail stations on San Jacinto barely touches the eastern edge of the West Campus. (See map at top of this post.)

Meanwhile, although insisting that its East Campus development program must be served by Austin’s urban rail, the UT administration has not offered a dime to fund it. Instead, they’ve happily assumed that Austin taxpayers can obligingly be squeezed with higher property taxes to pay for this amenity.

There’s a “reverse-Robin-Hood” aspect to this. Because of shale oil extraction on Permanent University Fund lands, according to a San Antonio Express-News report last year, “The University of Texas System is rich. … Oil is the reason why.”

The UT system is awash in money to the tune of a billion dollars a year, boosting UT Austin’s share to a total of nearly $200 million. Profits from football and other athletic entertainment bring in another $78 million a year.

While there are certainly various needs for this money — particularly the need to keep tuition costs affordable — and some constraints on how it’s used, it would seem logical and fair that, if UT desperately wants urban rail in the relatively less dense, less active San Jacinto route, UT should dip into its own resources to pay for it.

An East Campus-Medical School alignment could be installed as a branch from the Guadalupe-Lamar alignment proposed as an alternative to Project Connect’s plan. UT could cover the $45 million local cost in five years by modest annual dollops of $9 million from its abundant revenues.

This compromise alternative could buttress the feasibility of urban rail and increase the benefit to the entire Austin community. But UT’s administration needs to stop trying to soak Austin taxpayers, and take responsibility for funding its fair share of what it wants.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin urban rail issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect urban rail plan, University of Texas issues, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , , , | 15 Comments »

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Reality Check: How plausible are Project Connect’s time/speed claims for Highland-Riverside urban rail plan?

24 August 2014
LEFT: Phoenix's Metro LRT — similar to Project Connect's proposed Highland-Riverside line — runs almost entirely in street and arterial alignments, with maximum speed limits, traffic signal interruptions, and sharp turning movements that slow running speed. Average schedule speed: 18.0 mph. (Photo: OldTrails.com) RIGHT: Charlotte's Lynx LRT runs entirely in an exclusive alignment following a former railway right-of-way. Average schedule speed: 23.0 mph. (Photo: RailFanGuides.us)

LEFT: Phoenix’s Metro LRT — similar to Project Connect’s proposed Highland-Riverside line — runs almost entirely in street and arterial alignments, with maximum speed limits, traffic signal interruptions, and sharp turning movements that slow running speed. Average schedule speed: 18.0 mph. (Photo: OldTrails.com) RIGHT: Charlotte’s Lynx LRT runs entirely in an exclusive alignment following a former railway right-of-way. Average schedule speed: 23.0 mph. (Photo: RailFanGuides.us)

♦

In a Blitzkrieg of promotional presentations over the past several months, Project Connect leaders and team members have been touting ambitious travel time and average speed projections for their urban rail project proposed to connect the Highland ACC site with the East Riverside development area. In various presentations, the agency’s Urban Rail Lead, Kyle Keahey, has claimed that the line would provide an average speed of “21 to 22 miles per hour” (impressive, compared to an average of about 25 mph for motor vehicles in urban traffic, and typical local bus transit averages of about 12 mph generally and 4-8 mph running through a in a CBD).

In terms of travel time on Project Connect’s proposed line, the agency has detailed the following:

• From the East Riverside terminus at Grove to the Convention Center downtown (3.9 miles) — 11 minutes

• From the Convention Center to the ACC Highland campus (5.6 miles) — 17 minutes

Screenshot from Project Connect's June 23rd presentation to Capital Metro board, showing travel time claims for proposed urban rail project.

Screenshot from Project Connect’s June 23rd presentation to Capital Metro board, showing travel time claims for proposed urban rail project. (Click to enlarge.)

However, several anomalies immediately leap out to experienced public transit analysts. First, the distance and time projections provided by the agency — totaling 9.5 miles in 28 minutes — imply an average speed of 20.4 mph, not the “21-22” claimed by Kyle Keahey and other representatives. Second, even an average speed of 20.4 for this type of light rail transit (LRT) service in this kind of application raises professional eyebrows (and considerable skepticism) — mainly because it’s significantly higher than what is commonly characteristic of peer systems.

Light rail transit planners commonly know that lines routes in street and arterial alignments, even reservations, face substantially more constraints to speed than do systems routed in exclusive, private right-of-way (ROW) alignments such as railway corridors, tunnels, viaducts, etc. (This is illustrated in the photo composite at the top of this post.) Some major constraints include: maximum speed limited to traffic maximum speed; operation constrained by traffic signals and cross-traffic; sharper curves and turning movements as route follows street grid. Compared with routes in exclusive alignments, the differentials usually aren’t tremendous, but enough to make a difference in schedule speeds, travel times, and other performance factors.

To illustrate this, and perform a rough comparative analysis, we’ve compiled average speeds from two sources. The first is a comparison on the Light Rail Now website, in an article titled Light Rail Schedule Speed – Faster Than Bus, Competitive With Car, with speeds summarized in the following table:

Table of LRT average schedule speeds from Light Rail Now website.

Table of LRT average schedule speeds from Light Rail Now website.

The second source is a recent compilation by Light Rail Now publisher Dave Dobbs, summarized with route lengths, average stop spacing, travel times, and average speeds, in the table below:

Table of LRT average schedule speeds and other data compiled by Dave Dobbs.

Table of LRT average schedule speeds and other data compiled by Dave Dobbs. (Click to enlarge.)

Dave notes that he included the lines he did “because they were examples from Project Connect slides.” He also points out that Project Connect’s East Riverside-to-Highland line “is virtually all street running save for the tunnels and the bridge and I don’t see that much time saving there.”

Indeed, Project Connect’s proposed line is far more of a winding, meandering route, with more traffic speed constraints and sharper turning movements, than any of the comparative peer street-running systems. It includes running in mixed traffic (Red River St.) as well as a segment through the UT campus (San Jacinto Blvd.) with heavy student pedestrian traffic crossing the alignment.

LRT systems are identified with the following designations:

BAL — Baltimore
CHA — Charlotte Lynx
DAL — Dallas DART
HOU — Houston MetroRail Red Line
LA — Los Angeles
MIN — Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro
NFK — Norfolk Tide (Hampton Roads Transit)
PHX — Phoenix Metro
SEA — Seattle Link
SLC — Salt Lake City TRAX

To simplify this comparison, we’ve included clearly identifiable route segments from both table sources, and differentiated them into Predominately Street Alignment and Predominantly Exclusive Alignment categories. For several individual systems, segments are identified in our charts as follow:

Dallas
CBD — West End to Pearl/Arts
Green Line A — West End to Fair Park
Blue Line A — West End to Ledbetter
Blue Line B — West End to Corinth
Blue Line C — Corinth to Illinois
Red Line A — CBD to Plano

Denver
Littleton — CBD to suburb of Littleton

Houston
Red — Red Line

Los Angeles
Blue — Blue Line, CBD to Long Beach

Minneapolis
Blue — Blue Line, Hiawatha
Green — Green Line, Minneapolis-St. Paul

Salt Lake City
701 — Medical Center to Ball Park
704 — West Valley Central to Airport
Sandy — CBD to suburb of Sandy

Using the data from these tabular compilations, we’ve presented a comparative summary of average schedule speeds in the following two graphs. Speed data values (mph) have been rounded to a single decimal point. The first graph presents a comparison of various predominantly street-running lines, similar to Project Connect’s proposed project. This includes an average for the actual, operating peer systems. The second graph presents average speeds for various lines and line segments in exclusive (mostly railway right-of-way) alignments. (Click either graph to enlarge.)

5_ARN_Chart-LRT-mph-street

6_ARN_Chart-LRT-mph-exclusive-rev

From this comparison, it can be seen that the average speed for Project Connect’s Highland-Riverside line, based on the projected travel time presented by the agency, is significantly above all of the peer systems running predominantly in street right-of-way. Not only does Project Connect’s line show a higher average schedule speed than any of its peer systems, but it’s a full 6.4 mph — nearly 46% — above the peer average. This seems highly implausible, particularly in view of the more convoluted, tortuous profile of the proposed alignment and the other encumbrances we’ve cited. Indeed, the travel time (and implicitly schedule speed) assumptions of Project Connect planners seem more appropriate for the operating characteristics of a route in predominantly exclusive right-of-way rather than running on streets and arterials, as they’ve designed it.

Projecting reasonably accurate travel times and speeds is important to planning any rail transit project, and not just because of plausibility with respect to public scrutiny. Travel time constitutes one of the key inputs into the ridership modeling process. Underestimating travel time, by reducing what’s called the “impedance” to the process of calculating trip generation and modal split, can readily lead to overestimation of ridership. In addition, slow travel speeds also raise the possible need for additional rolling stock to fulfill train frequency and passenger capacity requirements.

Bottom line: Project Connect planners may be estimating faster train travel speeds and shorter travel times than is realistically plausible, and the implications may be lower ridership, greater rolling stock requirements, and possibly higher operating costs than they’ve originally projected. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Design and cost issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Project Connect methodology issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Baker: Connecting some dots on Austin’s urban rail planning

24 August 2014
Graphic by ARN.

Graphic by ARN.

♦

By Roger Baker

Roger Baker is a longtime Austin transportation, energy, and urban issues researcher and community activist. The following commentary has been adapted and slightly edited from his comments posted by E-mail to multiple recipients in June.

How did Project Connect come up with their $1.4 billion rail plan? Let’s take some known facts, and connect the dots. The dots in this case were partly the political momentum behind a new hospital district, combined with a new Opportunity Austin/Chamber-of-Commerce-recommended Austin growth policy.

We know that in 2008, a city consultant, ROMA, recommended that the proposed light rail corridor be moved east to the San Jacinto Corridor (ultimately connecting several years later to the Red River corridor), as opposed to the previously-assumed Lamar Corridor alignment. See, for example:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2008-04-25/616178/

Original urban rail "circulator" system in 2008 map of ROMA consulting team plan, contracted by City of Austin.

ROMA streetcar circulator map from 2008, precursor of urban rail (light rail transit) plan. Map: ROMA, via Austin Chronicle. (Click to enlarge.)

Next, we know that State Sen. Kirk Watson in 2012 announced a plan to develop about $4 billion of future medical facilities and training in the area of Brackenridge and the newly announced Dell medical training center, which would be along this same San Jacinto-Red River corridor. It is pretty obvious that to meet this ambitious goal, to handle this scale of future anticipated development, the existing roads along this corridor could not meet the projected travel demand. I pointed that out in an earlier article here:

http://www.theragblog.com/metro-roger-baker-the-proposed-austin-light-rail-plan-as-i-see-it/

How did the urban rail plan get to Riverside? Here is a downloadable audio clip with Project Connect personnel pointing out that the city sees itself as having an unfunded mandate to provide rail on the Riverside alignment in order to meet the city’s future growth goals in that area:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9kg5NdhKh8RYTM0dzQ4ampmeWs/edit

East Riverside development plan, promoted by City, is a bonanza for powerful real estate development interests. Gentrification is replacing lower-cost affordable apartments with expensive condos and upscale commercial and office developments, many with premium river views. Map: City of Austin via Goodlife Realty.

East Riverside development plan, promoted by City, is a bonanza for powerful real estate development interests. Gentrification is replacing lower-cost affordable apartments with expensive condos and upscale commercial and office developments, many with premium river views. Map: City of Austin via Goodlife Realty. (Click to enlarge.)

Another problem for the medical district was that Texas state funding could not pay for the medical center without a big boost from local Travis taxpayers. This demanded the promotion of a hospital district tax. See, for example:

http://www.kirkwatson.com/the-med-school-solution/

…Ever since Austin state Sen. Kirk Wat­son first unveiled the idea at a Real Estate Council of Austin event last September, regional agencies and governments have scrambled to find funding possibilities for the massive project, which could run the involved parties (all told) as much as $4.1 billion over 12 years. At last check, the University of Texas is on board for at least a $25 million annual contribution that would climb to $30 million over the first eight years of the school’s existence. Central Health, according to the Statesman, would cough up about $35 million annually over 12 years – or a total of $420 million. The Seton Healthcare Family expects to provide nearly $2 billion, including $250 million that would ultimately result in a replacement of its aging but centrally located Brackenridge hospital facility…

But to make it all work, Central Health is asking for a tax increase, to be placed before voters on Nov. 6. Watson asked for a raise of five cents per $100 of property valuation; Central Health’s board obliged, endorsing that increase, which would bring the district’s rate to just over 12 cents for every $100 of property valuation. In dollar figures, that would mean (if voters approve) that someone who lives in a home valued at $200,000 would see an increase of $100 on their annual tax bill…

Simulation of future UT medical school development, providing expansion opportunities for University of Texas, Seton medical interests, and other real estate development investors. Graphic via KUT.org.

Simulation of future UT medical school development, providing expansion opportunities for University of Texas, Seton medical interests, and other real estate development investors. Graphic via KUT.org. (Click to enlarge.)

We know from the following document that the city of Austin is bending over backwards to maximize Austin area growth through relocation, and jobs recruitment to the Austin area.

http://www.austintexas.gov/news/city-releases-report-economic-incentives

As we can see, the City has a very well-developed industrial recruitment policy outlined in this document, which coordinates with the Chamber of Commerce, targets key industries to recruit, and gives tax breaks when certain criteria are met. The city takes its lead from the “Council Special Committee on Economic Incentives”, which in turn takes its lead from Opportunity Austin, and the Austin Chamber of Commerce, as we see in this lengthy presentation. It begins by lamenting Austin’s slow growth!

http://austintx.swagit.com/play/08272012-504

We now see unsigned blogs promoting the same maximum Austin growth recruitment as official policy:

http://www.austintexas.gov/department/about-imagine-austin

What are the specifics of Austin growth recruitment policy? The policy is to prefer that at least 25% of the jobs recruited into this area go to Austin residents, but if not, it is no deal breaker. Jobs that pay at least $11 an hour would be nice, but this too is considered optional. This is taken from page 9.

http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/EGRSO/EGRSO_Report_on_ED_Policy_Final.pdf

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE COA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POLICY

Motion #5:

Change the Threshold for Extraordinary Economic Impact within the Firm-Based Matrix to include other items

The Threshold for Extraordinary Economic Impact has been used within the Firm-Based Incentive Matrix as a means for providing additional economic incentives for significant economic development projects.

Currently, if a company meets one of the four criteria within this section of the matrix, then the company is eligible for an economic incentive of up to 100% of the property tax generated by the project (see Exhibit A, Section 3 and Section 4).

Current threshold criteria include these four items:

• The firm is in a targeted industry;
• The firm is involved in leading edge technology;
• State economic development funds are available for the firm; or
• The firm will generate 500 jobs or more.

The threshold criteria allow flexibility for various economic incentive options to be considered for projects that have an extraordinary economic impact. The flexibility allows Austin to remain competitive for highly sought after projects. Examples of prior significant economic development projects include Samsung and Apple. In both cases, the Austin City Council approved 100% property tax rebates for a prescribed number of initial years…

This is all predicated on the perpetuation of the Austin tech bubble, which is really a regional manifestation of a national tech bubble. Continuing Federal Reserve stimulus is leading to asset bubbles, which are reflected in the NASDAQ’s mostly-tech growth in particular. How long before the tech bubble driving Austin’s current feverish growth and gentrification deflates is anyone’s guess, as Fortune recently pointed out:

http://fortune.com/2014/05/08/yes-were-in-a-tech-bubble-heres-how-i-know-it/

I have recently pointed out and discussed in detail the unsustainable nature of Austin’s currently-booming growth here:

http://www.theragblog.com/metro-roger-baker-the-rise-and-rise-of-austin/

This accumulation of material may help to provide a plausible political basis behind Project Connect’s rail plan. I personally have little doubt that Austin is in the midst of an unsustainable high tech growth bubble, and that the future travel demand numbers that Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) feeds Project Connect to justify its rail corridors are largely wishful thinking. Demographic forecasting, like economic forecasting, exists to make astrology look good by comparison. ■

Posted in Austin urban development issues, Austin urban rail issues, City of Austin issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect planning issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Roger Baker's postings, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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Why Project Connect’s urban rail plan would remove just 1,800 cars a day — not 10,000

22 August 2014
Project Connect's Highland-Riverside alignment would have negligible impact on I-35 congestion. Photo via Austin.CultureMap.com.

Congested I-35 traffic has Austinites desperate for a solution, but Project Connect’s Highland-Riverside alignment would have negligible impact. Photo via Austin.CultureMap.com.

♦

Project Connect representatives have been claiming an array of hypothetical benefits they say would result from their proposed Highland-Riverside urban rail project. Among these is “congestion relief”.

For the most part, this sweeping claim has been blurry, undefined, unquantified, and widely dismissed as ridiculous. (See Why Project Connect’s “Highland” urban rail would do nothing for I-35 congestion.)

But in promotional presentations, Project Connect personnel and supporters have repeatedly touted one specific, numerically quantified purported benefit — the claim that their urban rail project “takes 10,000 cars off the road every weekday”.

Screenshot from Project Connect slide presentation claiming Highland-Riverside rail plan would remove "10,000 cars" a day.

Screenshot from Project Connect slide presentation claiming Highland-Riverside rail plan would remove “10,000 cars” a day. (Click to enlarge.)

This figure invites scrutiny. Project Connect has also been touting a 2030 ridership projection of “18,000 a day” — although this appears to rely on flawed methodology. (See our recent analysis Project Connect’s urban rail forecasting methodology — Inflating ridership with “fudge factor”? which, adjusting for apparent methodological errors, suggests that total ridership of 12,000 per weekday is more plausible.)

In any case, of its projected total weekday ridership, Project Connect also claims that only 6,500 are “new transit riders” for the urban rail line. (Project Connect also claims “10,000 new transit riders to system” — but typically these new “system” boardings represent the combination of the new rail rider-trips plus the same passengers using feeder bus routes to access the rail.) This is consistent with industry experience, since a sizable proportion of the ridership of new rail services consists of passengers that had previously been bus transit riders.

But this “new transit riders” figure, while plausible, immediately diminishes the plausibility of the claim of “taking 10,000 cars off the road”. How could 6,500 riders, boarding trains, eliminate 10,000 cars from the road?

Furthermore, the estimate of 6,500 rider-trips (i.e., boarding passengers) actually doesn’t equal 6,500 individual passengers, i.e., persons. Why? Because (as is commonly known and accepted in the industry) a very large percentage of those trips are made by the same, individual passengers — mainly round trips, or extra trips during lunch hour, and so on.

The count of daily “boardings”, or rider trips — i.e., ridership — is actually a tally, in U.S. industry parlance, of unlinked trips. These are the string of trips on transit made over a day by the same individual person; they might include trips on a feeder or connector bus to a rail transit train, possibly other trips during the day by transit, and perhaps that person’s return trips back home by the same modes.

So, how to figure how many individual passengers (persons) are actually involved in a given ridership figure? The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) suggests a conversion factor: “APTA estimates that the number of people riding transit on an average weekday is 45% of the number of unlinked transit passenger trips.”

Thus, applying that 45% factor to those 6,500 “new rider” trips, we realize that figure represents roughly 2,925 actual passengers projected to ride the proposed urban rail line, new to the transit system.

However, we cannot assume that every one of those new passengers would have used a motor vehicle rather than riding transit. On average, about 75% have access to a car. So 2,925 passengers X 75% = 2,194 passengers that could be assumed to leave their cars off the road to ride transit. (It’s pretty much a cinch that these hypothetical transit passengers wouldn’t be driving, on average, more than four cars a day!)

To estimate more realistically how many cars would be affected, we need to factor in average car occupancy of 1.2 persons per car (to account for some carpooling). That final calculation yields 1,828 — or (by rounding for level of confidence) roughly 1,800 cars removed from the road by Project Connect’s proposed urban rail plan.

That 1,800 is an all-day figure. Using an industry rule-of-thumb of 20%, about 400 of those cars would be operated during a peak period, or roughly 100, on average, during each peak hour. As our article on I-35 congestion, cited above, indicates, the impact on I-35 traffic would be very minimal. Most of the effect of that vehicle traffic elimination would be spread among a number of major arterials — particularly Airport Blvd., Red River St., San Jacinto Blvd., Trinity St., and Riverside Drive. This impact on local arterial congestion would be small — but every little bit helps.

While the removal of 1,800 cars from central Austin roads is a far cry from 10,000, once again, every incremental bit helps. And there’s also the decreased demand for 1,800 parking spaces in the city center.

But the point is that $1.4 billion (about $1.2 billion in 2014 dollars) is a huge investment to achieve so little. For many cities, ridership at the level of 12,000 a day typically isn’t so bad, but when you’re missing the potential of 35,000-45,000 a day, plus incurring such a high cost for this level of payoff, you need to reconsider the deal. (For example, see Austin’s 2000 light rail plan — Key documents detail costs, ridership of Lamar-Guadalupe-SoCo route.)

For less than half of Project Connect’s urban rail investment cost, a “backbone” urban rail line on Guadalupe-Lamar (with a branch to the Seaholm-Amtrak area) could plausibly be expected to generate at least three times as much ridership — and eliminate roughly 5,600 cars a day from central-city streets and arterials.

Summary chart compares Project Connect's claim of taking "10,000 cars off the road every weekday" vs. (1) ARN's analysis of probable actual number of cars removed by Highland-Riverside line and (2) projected number of cars that would be removed from Austin's roadways by alternative Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail plan.

Summary chart compares Project Connect’s claim of taking “10,000 cars off the road every weekday” vs. (1) ARN’s analysis of probable actual number of cars removed by Highland-Riverside line and (2) projected number of cars that would be removed from Austin’s roadways by alternative Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail plan. (Click to enlarge.)

Now, that’s some “congestion relief” worth paying for. ■

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin urban rail issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect methodology issues, Project Connect planning issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail, Urban rail ridership issues | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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Project Connect’s gold-plated Austin urban rail plan shows planning process way off course

15 August 2014
Graphic: GG2.net

Graphic: GG2.net

♦

By Lyndon Henry

The following comments were made during Citizen Communications to the City of Austin’s Urban Transportation Commission on 10 June 2014 regarding Project Connect’s proposed 9.5-mile, $1.4 billion urban rail starter line connecting East Riverside (southeast) with the Highland ACC site now under development (north). In the end, the commission voted, with minor amendments, to recommend Project Connect’s proposal to the City Council.

There are three huge problems with Project Connect’s proposal:

(1) It spends $1.4 billion to put urban rail in the wrong place.

(2) It will hinder and constrain future rail development.

(3) A vote for this flawed plan is also a vote to permanentize lower-capacity MetroRapid bus service in our strongest, densest travel corridor, Guadalupe-Lamar.

Guadalupe-Lamar is the outstanding corridor to start urban rail — among the top heavy travel corridors in Texas, a long-established commercial district, with major activity centers, the city’s core neighborhoods, and the West Campus, having the 3rd-highest residential density in Texas.

In contrast, Project Connect proposes to forsake the central city’s heaviest and densest local corridor and instead connect a weak corridor, East Riverside, with a non-existent travel corridor through the East Campus, Hancock, and Highland. By wasting over a billion dollars on urban rail in this meandering, misguided route, Project Connect will divert scarce funds from future rail development.

Project Connect’s Riverside-East Campus-Hancock-Highland plan comes “gold-plated” with a new $130 million “signature bridge” over the river and a $230 million tunnel at Hancock. But it runs in mixed street traffic from UT to Hancock. This is a proposal that costs too way much for too little value.

And it’s the third most pricey urban rail starter line, by cost per mile, in U.S. history. City officials now routinely propose a major property tax increase to finance the local share of Project Connect’s plan.

Per mile of route, proposed Highland-Riverside urban rail plan would be second most expensive light rail starter line since 1990, and third most expensive in U.S. history.

Per mile of route, proposed Highland-Riverside urban rail plan would be second most expensive light rail starter line since 1990, and third most expensive in U.S. history. Graph: ARN. (Click to enlarge.)

Voting for Project Connect’s urban rail plan for East Riverside to Highland also means voting to pour concrete for bus lanes and other bus facilities on Guadalupe and Lamar that will prevent an urban rail alternative in our heaviest, neediest corridor for decades. The current MetroRapid bus service on Guadalupe, Lamar and South Congress carries 6,000 daily riders, less than one-eighth of the 51,000 forecast for light rail in that same corridor.

According to a report yesterday from a private meeting of urban rail “stakeholders” at Capital Metro, representatives of both Project Connect and Capital Metro admitted that Phase 1 of this project, which conjured up Looney-Tunes voodoo and passed it off as “scientific” projections, was “too fast and not at a pace they would typically have proceeded.”

In contrast to major rail planning in the past, the public has basically been cut out of this process. Now Mayor Leffingwell and his administration announce they’re tossing in a dollop of road projects that even some councilmembers criticize as failing to fit into the Imagine Austin concept of a walkable, dense city. In effect, they’re packaging a dubious, wasteful rail project with questionable road projects, and wrapping a “congestion relief” ribbon around it.

This is a planning process that’s gone off course and out of control. This commission needs to do the right thing, and say as much to the city council. ■

Related links:
Project Connect’s $500 million plan for bus infrastructure — The Elephant in the Road on Guadalupe-Lamar that could block urban rail
Project Connect’s Austin urban rail would be 3rd-most-pricey LRT starter line in U.S. history
Roger Baker: Austin’s ‘Strategic Mobility Plan’ — smart planning or a billion dollar boondoggle?

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, City of Austin issues, Design and cost issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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Project Connect gets it wrong — Urban rail starter lines are much cheaper than extensions

14 August 2014
LEFT: Denver's starter LRT line, a 5.3-mile line opened in 1994, was routed and designed as a simple, surface-routed project to minimize construction time and cost. All-surface alignment avoided heavy, expensive civil works and kept design as simple as possible. Photo: Peter Ehrlich. RIGHT: Subsequent extensions, such as this West line opened in 2013, have required bridges, grade separations, and other major civil works, resulting in a unit cost 61% higher than that of the starter line. Photo: WUNC.org.

LEFT: Denver’s starter LRT line, a 5.3-mile line opened in 1994, was routed and designed as a simple, surface-routed project to minimize construction time and cost. All-surface alignment avoided heavy, expensive civil works and kept design as simple as possible. Photo: Peter Ehrlich. RIGHT: Subsequent extensions, such as this West line opened in 2013, have required bridges, grade separations, and other major civil works, resulting in a unit cost 61% higher than that of the starter line. Photo: WUNC.org.

♦

Since Project Connect released the cost estimates for their proposed 9.5-mile Highland-Riverside urban rail starter line last spring, agency representatives have tried to argue that the line’s projected cost of $144.8 per mile (2020 dollars) is comparable to that of other recent light rail transit (LRT) projects, citing new extensions in Houston, Portland, and Minneapolis.

Project Connect's chart comparing their proposed Highland-Riverside "Austin Urban Rail" starter line cost to costs of extensions of several other mature light rail transit systems.

Project Connect’s chart comparing their proposed Highland-Riverside “Austin Urban Rail” starter line cost to costs of extensions of several other mature light rail transit systems. (Click to enlarge.)

Austin Rail Now challenged this comparison In our recent analysis, Project Connect’s Austin urban rail would be 3rd-most-pricey LRT starter line in U.S. history. We argued that comparing the high cost of extensions of other, mature systems, was invalid, because urban rail starter lines tend to be much lower in cost than subsequent extension projects.

That’s because, in designing a starter line — the first line of a brand-new system for a city — the usual practice is to maximize ridership while minimizing costs through avoiding more difficult design and construction challenges, often deferring these other corridors for later extensions. In this way, the new system can demonstrate sufficient ridership and other measures of performance sufficient to convince both local officials and the public that it’s a success from the standpoint of being a worthwhile investment.

In contrast with starter lines, where officials and planners usually strive to keep design minimal and hold costs down in order to get an initial system up and running with the least demand on resources (and public tolerance), extension projects more often are deferred to later opportunities, mainly because they frequently contend with “the much more difficult urban and terrain conditions that are typically avoided and deferred in the process of selecting routes for original starter systems.” Deferring more difficult and expensive alignments till later also allows time for public acceptance, and even enthusiasm, for the new rail transit system to take root and grow.

Austin’s case provides an illustration. As our article, Austin’s 2000 light rail plan — Key documents detail costs, ridership of Lamar-Guadalupe-SoCo route, describes, Capital Metro’s original 2000 LRT plan envisioned a “Phase 1” 20-mile system consisting of a 14.6-mile line from McNeil to downtown, plus a short branch to East Austin and a longer extension down South Congress to Ben White Blvd. In Year of Expenditure (YOE) 2010 dollars, that full system was projected to cost $1,085.8 million (about $1,198 million in today’s dollars). But a billion-dollar project was deemed too hefty a bite for the city’s first foray into rail, so decisionmakers and planners designated the shorter 14.6-mile northern section as a Minimum Operable Segment (MOS), with a more affordable (and, hopefully, more politically palatable)pricetag of $739.0 million in 2007 YOE dollars (roughly $878 million in current dollars).

After an initial starter line is established, for most subsequent extension projects the unit cost — per mile — tends to increase because, as previously indicated, officials and designers are willing to tackle more daunting corridors and alignments. Denver is a useful example.

In 1994 Denver established basic LRT service with a comparatively simple 5.3-mile starter line, running entirely on the surface in both dedicated street lanes and an available, abandoned center-city railway alignment, with an installation cost of $37.3 million per mile (2014 dollars). From that beginning, the system has been gradually expanded with increasingly more ambitious and more costly extensions. In 2013, Denver opened its West Line (the W line) to Golden; constructed over much more daunting terrain and obstacles, with multiple grade separations, bridges, and long elevated sections, plus more complex signal and communications systems and more elaborate station facilities. The West line was finished at a cost in 2014 dollars of about $59.9 million per mile — a unit cost about 61% higher than that of the original starter line.

Despite such evidence, at an Aug. 5th urban rail forum sponsored by the Highland Neighborhood Association, Project Connect’s Urban Rail Lead, Kyle Keahey, dismissed the assertion that starter lines were lower in cost per mile than extensions. Instead, he insisted, “the reverse is true.”

Really? But this claim is refuted even by the same cases that Project Connect has presented as peer projects for comparing the estimated $144.8-million-per-mile cost (2020) of its Highland-Riverside proposal.

In the following comparative analysis, we use Project Connect’s own year-2020 cost-per-mile figures for their selected “peer” projects. For each of those we use the starter line cost-per-mile data from our earlier May 8th article (cited above), plus data for Portland’s original starter line (a 15.1-mile line opened in 1986 from central Portland to the suburb of Gresham). These unit costs, in 2014 dollars, were then escalated to year-2020 values via the 3% annual factor specified by Project connect for their own table data.

The resulting comparison is shown below:

Using Project Connect's selected LRT systems, this comparison shows that the cost per mile of new starter lines tends to be significantly less than the cost of later extensions. Graph: ARN.

Using Project Connect’s selected LRT systems, this comparison shows that the cost per mile of new starter lines tends to be significantly less than the cost of later extensions. Graph: ARN. (Click to enlarge.)

Clearly, this analysis corroborates our original assertion — based on these cases, the unit costs of LRT starter lines tend to be considerably lower than the unit cost of later extensions when these have developed into more mature systems. And, at $144.8 million per mile, the unit cost of Project Connect’s proposed 9.5-mile Highland-Riverside urban rail starter line is certainly far higher than the cost of any of the original starter lines of these selected systems — all using Project Connect’s own cases and criteria.

Q.E.D., perhaps? ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Denver, Design and cost issues, Project Connect methodology issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail, Urban rail ridership issues | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Official urban rail plan bulldozed to ballot — in bulging bundle

11 August 2014
City Council's Aug. 7th urban rail ballot measure was included in massive bundle with other disparate items. Graphic: Glogster.com.

City Council’s Aug. 7th urban rail ballot measure was included in massive bundle with other disparate items. Graphic: Glogster.com.

♦

With about as much suspense and excitement as, well, making sausage, the Austin City Council this past Thursday, Aug. 7th, finally rammed through the official (and seriously flawed) Highland-Riverside urban rail plan to the next big step — a ballot item placed up for voters’ approval (or rejection) this coming Nov. 4th.

While Austin transportation officials and some Project Connect representatives have tried to radiate a public image of “openness”, “transparency”, “fairness”, sweetness, and cooperation in their pursuit of their urban rail agenda, the machinations, subterfuges, and intrigues involved with this Council vote expose a more troubling reality. This consistently ruthless, damn-the-torpedoes, bulldoze-the-opposition functional style for well over a year has dismayed, outraged, disgusted, and angered a wide swath of the Austin community who have consistently felt shut out of bona fide participation in the public transportation planning process. (See, for example: City Council to Austin community: Shut Up; Will Project Connect continue to gag the public?; City Council to Central Austin: Drop Dead; Meetings, “open houses”, workshops … and democratic process.)

Another move to gag public criticism

The Council’s Aug. 7th vote shenanigans seemed to draw from this same playbook. Perhaps the most salient indication of this is the City administration’s bundling of the urban rail bond measure in a single ordinance with the totally unrelated authorization of the vote for the new “10-1” Council. Item #17 on the council’s Aug. 7th agenda proposed to

Approve an ordinance ordering a general municipal election to be held in the City of Austin on November 4, 2014, for the purpose of electing a Mayor (at large) and City Council Members (single member districts) for District 1, District 2, District 3, District 4, District 5, District 6, District 7, District 8, District 9, and District 10; ordering a special election for the purpose of authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds; providing for the conduct of the election; authorizing the City Clerk to enter into joint election agreements with other local political subdivisions as may be necessary for the orderly conduct of the election; and declaring an emergency.

By packaging all this — in effect, the basic election of the new Council itself — in a single “kitchen sink” ordinance, the smooth operators of the current administration thus set up the ordinance so that if a current councilmember would vote against the urban rail/transportation proposals (highly unlikely in any case, given all the strong-arming behind the scenes), he/she would also be voting against calling the election for the new council. Most likely, the real intent of this maneuver was probably to place community opponents of the urban rail bond plan in the awkward position of calling for a No vote to the election of the new council if they called for a No vote against putting the bonds on the ballot. Thus, the tactic seemed yet another method of suppressing criticism and opposition. Machiavelli would surely be proud.

But the urban rail ballot ordinance wasn’t just “bulging” with the entire new Council vote authorization thrown into the package. The Aug. 7th ordinance also includes authorization for Capital Metro — the sales tax-supported transit authority — to allocate its own funds to an urban rail project with lots of amorphous pieces and blurry edges:

As contemplated by the Locally Preferred Alternative contained in the 2014 Strategic Mobility Plan approved by Council on June 26, 2014, the fixed rail transit system is expected to consist of a 9.5 mile urban rail double-tracked, electrified route in mostly dedicated guideways. The general location of the proposed route of the fixed rail transit system is expected to run along a route that will serve the East Riverside Corridor, downtown Austin, the State Capitol complex, the Medical School complex, the University of Texas, Hancock Center, Austin Community College Highland campus, and surrounding neighborhoods. The general description of the form of the fixed rail transit system, including the general location of the proposed route, is provided herein pursuant to Section 451.071, Texas Transportation Code, to authorize Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority to participate and to spend its funds in building, operating and maintaining the fixed rail transit system. The final alignment of the route may be adjusted to accommodate any required governmental approvals and to maximize service characteristics, including stop spacing, speed, frequency, and reliability. Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority shall participate in building, operating and maintaining the fixed rail transit system to the extent and pursuant to such terms and conditions as shall be mutually acceptable to the City and Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Road projects potentially dwarf rail

However, the really huge, disjointed component of this ballot package has been the focus of leaks, news reports, and small dollops of information for weeks. As is now widely known, a hefty assortment of major roadway projects were included in a cumbersome, disparate hodgepodge hastily contrived and christened the “2014 Strategic Mobility Plan”.

According to leaks and hints in news reports, bundling hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of road projects with the rail proposal had been demanded by major pro-highway business interests as a condition for their support and the contribution of a million dollars to the prospective war chest for Project Connect’s ballot initiative campaign. The result was the “2014 Strategic Mobility Plan” (SMP), reportedly designed to appease the prevailing leadership of groups such the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Real Estate Council of Austin with $400 million of politically selected road project sweeteners.

Council's ballot measure makes urban rail funding contingent on road construction projects potentially more expensive than rail. Photo: Robert Miller, via TexasFreeway.com.

Council’s ballot measure makes urban rail funding contingent on road construction projects potentially more expensive than rail. Photo: Robert Miller, via TexasFreeway.com.

Another “sweetening” factor: Federal funding match for road projects is typically far higher than for transit; for Interstate highway system projects, the nominal Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) match is 90%. Thus, the $240 million of I-35 projects listed in the SMP could well facilitate projects of $2.4 billion in actual magnitude. And the other federal-system road projects in the SMP could also receive outsized FHWA matching grants. Plus contributions by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

In contrast, the rail project is expected, at best, to qualify for just 50% Federal Transit Administration match, implying a maximum project of about $1.2 billion. Thus, under the “green” facade of “urban rail”, the SMP package is a rubber-and-asphalt-oriented concoction in which the potential highway projects grotesquely dwarf the rail component.

City's "2014 Strategic Mobility Plan" is packed with road projects that must be funded before urban rail bonds can be issued. Potential cost dwarfs cost of rail. ("Future Phases of Urban Rail" dashed lines on map are likely just sucker bait to lure support from gullible voters; fine print specifies merely "high-capacity transit" which could mean "bus rapid transit", term used to describe MetroRapid bus service.) Map: Screenshot from SMP.

City’s “2014 Strategic Mobility Plan” is packed with road projects that must be funded before urban rail bonds can be issued. Potential cost (including federal and state match) dwarfs cost of rail. (“Future Phases of Urban Rail” dashed lines on map are likely just sucker bait to lure support from gullible voters; fine print specifies merely “high-capacity transit” which could mean “bus rapid transit”, term used to describe MetroRapid bus service.) Map: Screenshot from SMP. (Click to enlarge.)

As City of Austin officials endeavored to craft the ballot language for the “roads + rail” bond package, they at first envisioned a combined $1 billion package ($600 million rail + $400 million roads). However, they hit a snag: Texas law forbids the bundling of such bonds. To avoid a deal-killer with the pro-road interests, a peculiar work-around was conceived — zap the bond proposal for the roads component, but make the rail bonds contingent on “providing” $400 million of unspecified road works funding! We’re not kidding!

At first most news media reporters and journalists were fooled, reporting the Council’s Aug. 7th ordinance as placing “a one-billion-dollar bond package” on the ballot. But their stories were quickly revised to report a $600 million rail bond package, plus the cumbersome, contingent road funding component, as they read the actual ballot language more closely:

The issuance of $600,000,000 bonds and notes for rail systems, facilities and infrastructure, including a fixed rail transit system to be operated by Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which may spend its funds to build, operate and maintain such system) servicing the East Riverside Corridor, downtown Austin, the State Capitol complex, the Medical School complex, the University of Texas, Hancock Center, Austin Community College Highland campus, and surrounding neighborhoods, and roadway improvements related to such rail systems, facilities, and infrastructure; provided that the City may not issue bonds or notes to pay costs of the fixed rail transit system (other than expenditures for planning, designing and engineering) unless (i) the City obtains grant or match funding for the cost of the fixed rail transit system from the Federal Transit Administration or one or more other federal or state sources and (ii) the City provides funding in an amount not less than $400,000,000 to pay costs of roadway improvement projects of regional significance that are designed to relieve congestion, enhance mobility and manage traffic in the I-35, US 183, SH 71, RM 620, RM 1826, RM 2222, FM 734 (Parmer), Lamar Boulevard, and Loop 360 corridors; and the levy of a tax sufficient to pay for the bonds and notes.

More debt, but without public vote?

So where might this mysterious $400 million in road funding come from? Unless the City has a hidden cache of $400 million tucked away somewhere, almost surely this would require some form of debt financing. One option could be to place another bond measure on a future ballot asking voters to approve $400 million in additional City debt for these road projects.

However, as Austin community transportation activist and researcher Roger Baker has pointed out, other debt financing options are available that don’t require public votes, as do bonds. For example, there are Certificates of Obligation (COs), Anticipation Notes, and Time Warrants. Useful descriptions of such public funding alternatives can be found online in a “Public Finance Handbook” published by the Texas Association of Counties and a “Public Finance Issues” guide posted by Thomas M. Pollan with Austin-based Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP.

Of these alternatives, COs may be the leading choice for City of Austin and Project Connect leaders in their quest for a $400 million road project funding solution that avoids a risky and awkward public vote. As the Handbook cited above relates, “Unlike G.O. Bonds that always require an election, the CO’s do not require an election unless at least 5% of the registered voters in the county submit a valid petition protesting the issuance.” (Emphasis added.)

Often, the public entity may desire to sell the COs for cash “in order to have funds to pay contractors, equipment suppliers, and costs of issuance.” But there’s a catch — “The list for which CO’s may be sold for cash with only a tax pledge is limited…”, including fairly extraordinary situations such as “it is necessary to preserve or protect the public health of the residents” of the district holding the COs. (Emphasis added.)

Well, whaddaya know — lo and behold, the Austin City Council’s humongous hodgepodge ordinance, authorizing the new Council election, the urban rail bond election, and the kitchen sink, just happens to contain a Part 13 that — hold on to your chair — stipulates the following:

The Council finds that the need to immediately begin required preparations for this election constitutes an emergency. Because of this emergency, this ordinance takes effect immediately on its passage for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety. [Emphasis added.]

Hefty property tax rate increase

So how much would all this debt to preserve our “peace, health, and safety” cost us? Part 7 of the ordinance itself details the bad news:

As reported in the 2014 Strategic Mobility Plan, applying the assumptions used in the General Obligation Bond Capacity Analysis dated April 29, 2014, which includes forecasted growth in taxable assessed values, City financial staff has determined that, if the bonds and notes are issued, the City’s total tax rate would increase by $0.0625 per $100 of taxable assessed valuation (as compared to the City’s total tax rate as of the date of adoption of this ordinance) …

Even for fairly lower-middle-income and low-income homeowners, that implies an annual property tax bill increase of at least over $100. For average-income and homeowners and those at higher levels, it almost surely means an additional tax bite of at least several hundred dollars — an additional body-blow to taxpayers already seriously financially stressed with steep home valuation hikes, other prospective property tax increases, and hikes in electric and water service rates. Meanwhile, local officials continue to dispense seemingly endless giveaways from the public treasury to corporate interests (in exchange for dubious and largely undefined and untracked benefits).

Austin homeowners and other residents are steadily burdened with higher taxes and utility rates, with the rationale of vague "projections" of local "new jobs" and other benefits whose validity is never reliably tracked. Are massive subsidies to real estate developers, projects like the F1 racetrack, UT's East Campus expansion plans, the Medical Center development, a largely "showpiece" urban rail line, and other ventures worth this sacrifice?

Austin homeowners and other residents are steadily burdened with higher taxes and utility rates, with the rationale of vague “projections” of local “new jobs” and other benefits whose validity is never reliably tracked. Are massive subsidies to real estate developers, projects like the F1 racetrack, UT’s East Campus expansion plans, the Medical Center development, a largely “showpiece” urban rail line, and other ventures worth this sacrifice? Graphic: Active Rain website.

If what’s proposed were a worthwhile new urban rail line, cautiously implemented and cost-effective, that actually addressed true mobility problems, would local voters consider that a beneficial project worth paying for? Maybe.

But it may be hard for many voters to perceive any way the Highland-Riverside alignment proposed by the City of Austin on November’s forthcoming ballot solves, or even addresses, any real mobility needs or congestion problems. Particularly since it misses the city’s densest, most heavily traveled central corridor (Guadalupe-Lamar), with its string of major activity and employment centers plus the West Campus.

So, Austin voters need to ask themselves: Is this proposed line useful enough, and beneficial enough, to justify the cost to us? Are the land development goals of local real estate interests, and the East Campus expansion aims of the University of Texas, worthy of this much taxpayer subsidy?

The answer to those questions will come on November 4th. ■

Posted in Austin 2014 urban rail bond campaign, Austin urban rail issues, City of Austin issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Project Connect urban rail plan, Public involvement process, Road and highway issues, Urban Rail | 5 Comments »

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Legal, ethical questions persist over Project Connect’s ad blitz for urban rail plan

6 August 2014
Project Connect campaign ad as seen on a Yahoo.com news page in July 2014. Screenshot by ARN.

Project Connect campaign ad as seen on a Yahoo.com news page in July 2014. Screenshot by ARN.

♦

More questions continue to be raised about Project Connect’s tax-funded ad blitz promoting its urban rail plan, almost certainly destined to be placed on the ballot for a vote this November. While this media campaign has intensified into a vigorous television barrage in recent weeks, Project Connect’s online ads — such as the example from a Yahoo.com News page at the top of this post — have been peppering webpages on the Internet for months

As we’ve noted in our previous article on this controversy (Project Connect’s tax-funded urban-rail-campaign ad blitz raises red flags), on July 11th, the pro-rail group Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA) issued a public statement, addressed to the board of Capital Metro (Austin’s public transportation authority), that questioned the agency’s “aggressive marketing campaign”. The stated noted that “While some advertisements seem intended to convey basic information, others (such as the radio campaign) seem like political advocacy on behalf of the Regional Mobility Plan’s controversial recommendations.”

As taxpayers and transit advocates, we are concerned about the expenditure of public money for this campaign-related advertising. While the words “vote for the bond package” are not included in any of the advertisements, this sort of technicality prioritizes form over substance: since the rest of the content makes no mention of opposing viewpoints or data, this advertising campaign is public relations, not genuine engagement.

Kyle Keahey, Project Lead for Project Connect’s “Central Corridor”, responded that the ads were ” educational materials” that “are fully compliant with election laws”. He also disclosed that the ads were supported by a budget of more than $157,000. Perhaps small by the mega-million standards of a public transport project, but far more than is available to community organizations questioning Project Connect’s program. And it’s money derived from public tax revenues.

In response, AURA, in a letter from the co-chair officers of its Urban Rail Working Group, reiterated its criticism and concern, particularly “the ethics of spending taxpayer dollars on the political campaign for Project Connect’s urban rail proposal.” AURA focused on the rather suspicious timing for the ad campaign to end:

You also note that the ad buy will conclude on August 5th, two days before City Council is expected to place Project Connect’s road-rail bond measure on the November ballot, at which point the ads would presumably become subject to Texas law regulating the use of public funds for political advertising (Tex. Election Code § 255.003). This information appears to confirm our impression that this is a political advertising campaign, not an “educational and project awareness effort.”

AURA’s letter concludes with a stinging rebuke that seems to convey much of the anger simmering in the Austin community:

You explain that your legal counsel has verified that the advertising campaign is “fully compliant with election laws.” We are confident in your attorneys’ legal opinion on this matter. Unfortunately, we are much less confident that you understand that spending taxpayer dollars promoting a controversial urban rail proposal is unethical and erodes public trust.

We appreciate that Project Connect is “committed to conducting an open, transparent, and legally compliant process.” In the future, we hope you will commit to an ethical one as well.

At least one major media outlet has taken note of the controversy. Time-Warner Cable News, in an Aug. 2nd story titled Urban Rail Ad Campaign Under Fire, noted that, after two months on “Austin airwaves”, the ads promoting urban rail were “wrapping up” … “just as city leaders are about to ask voters to support a tax increase that would help pay for the billion-dollar rail.”

And the reporter turned to AURA for comment:

“It’s very clear that this is a political campaign,” AURA’s Marcus Denton said.

Denton questions the timing of the ads, which all end Wednesday.

“The fact that they are pulling the ads off the air immediately before they’d be subject to election law about ballot measures is very suspicious,” he said.

Denton is with a group that supports urban rail, but not the route leaders chose. He said going to Austin Community College’s Highland Campus will not guarantee the riders needed to support the system.

The report further noted that “Capital Metro and the city of Austin are paying for a combined 20 percent, while the other 80 percent is coming from a federal grant.” It also quoted a representative of the rightwing Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), criticizing the channeling of public funds for the “media blitz”.

“Taxpayers are paying money to the federal government, which is then turning around and lobbying Austinites to support more taxpayer spending” said the TPPF spokesman. “That’s not appropriate.”

In effect, in what seems a somewhat desperate attempt to push the envelope of what’s permissible “educational” activity by a public transit agency, Project Connect may be poisoning the well, so to speak, for more legitimate informational and educational efforts on behalf of more worthy urban rail projects in the future. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Ballot measure campaign and issues, Project Connect urban rail plan | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Three “incontrovertible facts” about urban rail proposals in Austin

2 August 2014
ACC's map from its own website (annotated by Austin Rail Now) shows ACC campus (marked with inverted blue "teardrop" with MetroRail's Highland station at its northwest corner.

ACC’s map from its own website (annotated by Austin Rail Now) shows ACC campus (marked with inverted blue “teardrop”) with MetroRail’s Highland station at its northwest corner.

♦

By Andrew Clements

The following commentary has been slightly adapted from an original Letter to the Editor published July 21st by the Austin Chronicle.

On June 26th, the City Council endorsed Project Connect’s urban rail line route. Public testimony was limited, but I would have pointed out three incontrovertible facts.

(1) The first is that the approved route terminates at the old Highland Mall, with no plans to extend any further. Every initial line, as part of any transit system, should have plans to be extended, but this one isn’t. Terminating Austin’s initial urban rail line there is proven illogical by no plans to extend it.

(2) And doubly illogical because, second, the entire proposed redevelopment is already served by passenger rail. As shown in ACC’s own map at the top of this post (with annotations by ARN), the Highland station on the MetroRail Red Line is within a half-mile of the entire Highland Mall site – the distance passengers are willing to walk in a transit trip.

Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a tunnel, and placing new rail on Airport Boulevard (paralleling, only a few feet away, the already existing Red Line passenger rail) to reach a planned redevelopment already served by voter-approved (and funded) passenger rail is a very expensive double service.

Closeup of Highland ACC segment of Project Connect's proposed urban rail map shows how the proposed urban rail line (orange) would effectively duplicate the existing MetroRail Red Line paralleling Airport Blvd. (MetroRail drawn as red line, with Highland station shown as red dot near top of map). Project Connect line would terminate at ACC administration building on far east side of campus, with no plans for extension, and no available corridor for extension. Map: Screenshot by ARN, from Project Connect map.

Closeup of Highland ACC segment of Project Connect’s proposed urban rail map shows how the proposed urban rail line (orange) would effectively duplicate the existing MetroRail Red Line paralleling Airport Blvd. (MetroRail drawn as red line, with Highland station shown as red dot near top of map). Project Connect line would terminate at ACC administration building on far east side of campus, with no plans for extension, and no available corridor for extension. Map: Screenshot by ARN, from Project Connect map.

(3) Third, the projected ridership for the Guadalupe/North Lamar light rail route, considered by voters in 2000, was twice what is proposed now. Higher ridership indicates overall success of a rail line, which means federal funding is more likely, with a likelihood of more voter support of the next urban rail line. Guadalupe and North Lamar is where millions of dollars were spent, in 1999-2000, in an already approved federal study determining where rail should be.

Screenshot from Federal Transit Administration's New Start summary table of Capital Metro's 2000 urban rail (light rail transit) plan. Projected daily ridership (circled in red) of 37,400 is more than double the 18,000 Project Connect claims for its current Highland-Riverside proposal — and more than triple a more realistic figure of 12,000. Annotation: ARN.

Screenshot from Federal Transit Administration’s New Start summary table of Capital Metro’s 2000 Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail (light rail transit) plan. Projected daily ridership (circled in red) of 37,400 is more than double the 18,000 Project Connect claims for its current Highland-Riverside proposal — and more than triple a more realistic figure of 12,000. Annotation: ARN.

Mayor Leffingwell has coined the phrase “rail or fail”. A November referendum will likely fail, because the mayor has unfortunately led a special-interest-dominated effort that has not considered neighborhood and rail advocate voices, but instead a process where the data has been manipulated to a point where the result is anything but objective. Rail advocates like me hope that following a likely November referendum failure, we can immediately begin planning, and achieving, rail on Guadalupe/North Lamar. ■

Posted in Andrew Clements's postings, Austin urban rail issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail, Urban rail ridership issues | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments »

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Project Connect’s urban rail plan is “worse than nothing”

21 July 2014
Project Connect's "urban rail" plan would not only absorb vast local financial resources, but would install "dedicated bus lanes" as an obstacle to urban rail where it's actually most needed — in Guadalupe-Lamar. Graphic: Adaptation by ARN from Project Connect map.

Project Connect’s “urban rail” plan would not only absorb vast local financial resources, but would install “dedicated bus lanes” as an obstacle to urban rail where it’s actually most needed — in Guadalupe-Lamar. Graphic: Adaptation by ARN from Project Connect map. (Click to enlarge.)

♦

By Dave Dobbs and Lyndon Henry

For weeks now, Project Connect (with public tax money) has been carrying out a “saturation bombing” ad campaign promoting its $1.4 billion urban rail plan, primarily aimed at bolstering development plans and centered on the interests of private developers and the East Campus expansion appetites of the University of Texas administration.

It’s a “Pinocchio-style” campaign (and plan) packed with exaggerations contrived to try to sucker voter support. Perhaps the worst problem is the “city-wide system” deception that Project Connect is pushing in its ad blitz — the make-believe that an urban rail line on East Riverside through the East Campus to Highland will lead to rail in other parts of the city.

In fact, just the opposite will happen. The staggering cost will soak up available local funding for years to come — and that in itself will impede future rail transit development.

Not only will future voters see the resulting Highland-Riverside ridership as not worth the cost — a future political challenge — but, even worse, Project Connect’s plans to convert automobile travel lanes on the MetroRapid routes to dedicated bus lanes by 2025 will essentially block any expansion of rail in the crucial, high-travel, dense Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. (See our recent article Project Connect’s $500 million plan for bus infrastructure — The Elephant in the Road on Guadalupe-Lamar that could block urban rail.)

Graphic: Panoramio.com

The “Elephant in the Road” — a vote for Project Connect’s Highland-Riverside “urban rail” project is also a vote for a bus project on Guadalupe-Lamar that will block urban rail where it’s most needed. Image: ARN library.

Once they spend $28 million a mile for bus lanes using 80% federal grants (as stated in official plans) we’ll have to live with that investment for two to three decades. Essentially Guadalupe-Lamar, South Congress, and South Lamar, streets that need rail to handle the potential passenger volumes, will end up with MetroRapid in dedicated right-of-way with an automobile lane and perhaps a bike lane in each direction. Instead of buses being seen as shuttles to good city-wide train service, buses will continue to be seen, as former State Highway Engineer DeWitt Greer once expressed it, as suitable only for “a certain class of people” and a nuisance “in the way of my car.”

Austin has waited a long time for an urban rail system — but it’s far better to wait a bit longer to do it right than to rush into a plan (which includes flawed roadway projects as well) just because it’s “rail”. A plan that impedes good transit development and future system expansion is worse than nothing. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Bus rapid transit (BRT), Bus upgraded transit (BUT), Dave Dobbs's postings, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect urban rail plan, Transit priority lanes | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Project Connect’s tax-funded urban-rail-campaign ad blitz raises red flags

14 July 2014
Graphic excerpted from Project Connect's ad blitz currently running on local TV outlets. Graphic: Screenshot.

Graphic excerpted from Project Connect’s ad blitz currently running on local TV outlets. Graphic: Screenshot.

♦

For months, Project Connect (with public tax-based funding largely funneled through Capital Metro) has been conducting an ad blitz with the clear de facto objective of soliciting voters’ support for the widely discussed urban rail bond funding measure expected to be placed on the ballot this coming November.

Within the last couple of weeks, this political ad campaign has been expanded to include television advertising and, this past Friday (July 11th), a front-page ad in the Austin American Statesman. For example, here’s one of Project Connect’s 30-second TV commercials, titled Learn more about Project Connect: Urban Rail.

Here’s the text of this obviously promotional TV pitch:

110 people a day move to Central Texas, making Austin traffic even worse.

But urban rail could help. The newest proposal from Project Connect, urban rail will arrive every 10 to 15 minutes, seven days a week and feature 16 stations and four park & rides.

It will connect the Convention Center, downtown businesses, entertainment areas, the new medical school, UT, and lots of neighborhoods, and would be part of a growing system with connections to bus and commuter rail.

Urban rail could expand to serve even more of Austin in the future. Learn more at Project Connect dot com

As usual, Project Connect blithely bulldozes forward, willing to discard the decades of work and tens of millions of dollars that have been invested in identifying the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor as the pre-eminent candidate for Austin’s urban rail starter line. They continue to ignore the widespread barrage of community bafflement, criticism, and anger provoked by their arrogant, “damn-the-torpedoes” Blitzkrieg, aimed at rewarding real estate developer interests and the UT administration’s East Campus expansion aims, instead of addressing the true mobility needs of the Austin community.

With this ad initiative, Project Connect, Capital Metro, and possibly other members of the Project Connect consortium seem to be skating very close to the edge of what may be legally permissible (and definitely over the edge of what could be construed as political abuse of public tax funding). Here’s an excerpt relevant to “Unlawful Use Of Public Funds for Political Advertising”, quoted from the Texas Election Code, Title 15. Regulating Political Funds and Campaigns, Chapter 255. Regulating Political Advertising and Campaign Communications:

Sec. 255.003. UNLAWFUL USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS FOR POLITICAL ADVERTISING. (a) An officer or employee of a political subdivision may not knowingly spend or authorize the spending of public funds for political advertising.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a communication that factually describes the purposes of a measure if the communication does not advocate passage or defeat of the measure.
(b-1) An officer or employee of a political subdivision may not spend or authorize the spending of public funds for a communication describing a measure if the communication contains information that:
(1) the officer or employee knows is false; and
(2) is sufficiently substantial and important as to be reasonably likely to influence a voter to vote for or against the measure.
(c) A person who violates Subsection (a) or (b-1) commits an offense. An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
(d) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution for an offense under this section or the imposition of a civil penalty for conduct under this section that an officer or employee of a political subdivision reasonably relied on a court order or an interpretation of this section in a written opinion issued by:
(1) a court of record;
(2) the attorney general; or
(3) the commission.
(e) On written request of the governing body of a political subdivision that has ordered an election on a measure, the commission shall prepare an advance written advisory opinion as to whether a particular communication relating to the measure does or does not comply with this section.

Project Connect’s aggressive political campaigning — using taxpayers’ money to try to persuade voters to approve more taxpayer money to finance the highly controversial (and, in the view of many, flawed and wasteful) urban rail proposal — has disturbed and outraged many citizens within the Austin community. On July 11th, Austinites for United Rail Action (AURA) — a group mainly composed of young professionals that support urban rail but dislike Project Connect’s proposal — issued a public statement, addressed to the the Capital Metro board and titled “AURA Questions the Project Connect Marketing Campaign“.

Here’s the basic content of that statement:

As you know, Project Connect has been running — and continues to run — an aggressive marketing campaign on behalf of your policy efforts. While some advertisements seem intended to convey basic information, others (such as the radio campaign) seem like political advocacy on behalf of the Regional Mobility Plan’s controversial recommendations.

As taxpayers and transit advocates, we are concerned about the expenditure of public money for this campaign-related advertising. While the words “vote for the bond package” are not included in any of the advertisements, this sort of technicality prioritizes form over substance: since the rest of the content makes no mention of opposing viewpoints or data, this advertising campaign is public relations, not genuine engagement.

It is possible that we are misunderstanding these efforts. We are hoping that your body can answer the following questions:

1. What entity is paying for existing Project Connect-related advertising?
2. How large is the purchase and how long will it last?
3. Who determines the content and themes featured in the advertising?
4. What standards has the Board provided to ensure that advertisements do not cross over into advocacy and remain firmly within the engagement realm?

Thank you for your attention to the matter. While Austinites may disagree on the best path forward for transit, we all agree that using taxpayer funds for political campaigning is unethical.

While these questions deserve answers, Austin Rail Now fully expects that AURA’s objections will be met with claims by Capital Metro and Project Connect that, by their own interpretation, no laws are being violated by the ad campaign. But it’s one thing to split legal hairs over legal violations, and quite another to commit a breach of faith and violate public trust over such a fractious and contentious issue. The alibi that this is merely an “educational” campaign is evidently intended for (1) the Project Connect faithful and (2) the hopelessly stupid.

And, by heavily investing tax dollars in commercial media advertising buys to advance this ballot measure, is Project Connect attempting to cultivate friendly media attention and treatment?

Pouring tax dollars into this ad blitz, aimed at subsidizing the dreams of a small assortment of private developers and the UT administration, discredits Project Connect and legitimate public transport planning as well. Community leaders and activists concerned with the future of democratic and fair process in this city should demand a stop to it — now. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Ballot measure campaign and issues | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Why Project Connect’s “Highland” urban rail would do nothing for I-35 congestion

9 July 2014
I-35 is the most congested roadway in Texas. But is this really the main travel corridor for commuters from "Highland-Riverside" neighborhoods to the Core Area? And would Project Connect's proposed urban rail line have any perceptible impact? Photo source: KVUE-TV.

I-35 is the most congested roadway in Texas. But is this really the main travel corridor for commuters from “Highland-Riverside” neighborhoods to the Core Area? And would Project Connect’s proposed urban rail line have any perceptible impact? Photo source: KVUE-TV.

♦

By Dave Dobbs and Lyndon Henry

Lately, Project Connect representatives have been trying to claim that their meandering urban rail route proposed from Highland, through Red River and San Jacinto, to East Riverside, somehow addresses the problem of congestion on … I-35.

Really?

Leaving I-35 at the Highland site to ride a slow train to downtown doesn’t make any sense when, at Highland ACC, you are almost at the Core Area. By the time you leave the freeway, park your car, walk to the station, wait for the train, and ride downtown, you might as well have stayed on the freeway.

The I-35 traffic jam actually begins way north of Highland — at the confluence of Howard Lane, North Lamar, and I-35 — and that’s where people would park and ride a train if it were there. But first we have to build urban rail in the right place — up Guadalupe and North Lamar.

You have to put your transit station, with park & ride (P&R) access, near the outer end of the traffic jam. You don’t have to be a transportation savant to figure this out.

After all, as the public transit planning profession knows very well, P&R facilities need to be provided well upstream of the heavy congestion on a highway facility. There’s very little hope of attracting travelers off the highway if they already have to travel through severe congestion to access the transit station.

Project Connect’s claim of “congestion relief” is especially implausible when you further consider that they’re expecting prospective urban rail passengers to slog their way through the I-35 congestion, then, just a few minutes from their destination, to exit the freeway, hassle with parking, wait for a train, and then take a long, slow, sinuous train ride into the Core Area — a route that includes entering Airport Blvd., navigating through mixed traffic on Red River St., then winding through San Jacinto Blvd. and other streets comprising this tortuous “Highland” route.

What about the the hints from Project Connect that I-35 may be a major artery that neighborhood commuters themselves, along the proposed “Highland” rail route, supposedly use to reach the Core Area? To believe this speculation, you’d have to accept a vision of about 260 commuters per peak hour from these neighborhoods, currently driving, on average, about 6 blocks to then pack themselves onto a severely congested I-35 (#1 on TxDOT’s list of the state’s most congested roads) to then travel an average 28 blocks into the Core. And doing this when they have at least four other important but much less congested local arterials, including Guadalupe-Lamar, to use instead.

Commuters on I-35 would need to drive through miles of heavy congestion to reach Project Connect's proposed urban rail P&R at Highland ACC — thus, little potential for "congestion relief". In contrast, Capital Metro's Tech Ridge P&R is located upstream of I-35 congestion. Alternative Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail plan would have North Lamar Transit Center P&R at US 183, upstream of congestion. Future urban rail extension up North Lamar to Howard Lane could provide another P&R upstream of I-35 congestion. Infographic map by ARN based on Google Maps.

Commuters on I-35 would need to drive through miles of heavy congestion to reach Project Connect’s proposed urban rail P&R at Highland ACC — thus, little potential for “congestion relief”. In contrast, Capital Metro’s Tech Ridge P&R is located upstream of I-35 congestion. Alternative Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail plan would have North Lamar Transit Center P&R at US 183, upstream of congestion. Future urban rail extension up North Lamar to Howard Lane could provide another P&R upstream of I-35 congestion. Infographic map by ARN based on Google Maps. (Click to enlarge.)

Maybe, but this is a scenario that similarly invites powerful skepticism. And is it worth over a billion dollars for an urban rail alignment that would lure perhaps about 65 motorists off I-35 in a peak hour (assuming about 25% modal split for Project Connect’s urban rail)?

Instead, as an authentic urban rail alternative to either I-35 or MoPac into the Core Area, you have to travel through the actual heart of the central city and its core neighborhoods on an actual travel corridor where you actually travel to and get off close to your destination. And a lot more of those destinations are within walking distance of Guadalupe-Lamar. That’s why there are 23,000 bus riders daily in this corridor today.

Some transit planner a quarter century ago put it something like this at an Austin public meeting: “All transit studies show that people will climb high mountains and/or swim deep rivers to access good rail service if it’s far enough out and is easily accessible by another mode (i.e., beyond the traffic jam), providing that their final destinations are within a quarter mile of a stop.”

The MetroRail Red Line demonstrates this wisdom; after Howard Lane, for passengers riding inbound AM peak trains, it’s standing-room only. And don’t expect a seat outbound in the evening rush until Howard Lane.

However, the Red Line’s biggest fault is that while it’s quite long enough, it fails to “connect the dots”. It misses serving the heavy-traffic Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, and bypasses core central-city neighborhoods, the UT campus, the Capitol Complex, and most of downtown (while providing virtually useless service for East Austin en route).

MetroRail Red Line (red) skirts entire heart of central Austin, illustrated by "Missing Link" through Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. Urban rail would provide the crucial connections to core neighborhoods, UT West Campus, and Capitol Complex missed by MetroRail. Infographic Map by Light Rail Now.

MetroRail Red Line (red) skirts entire heart of central Austin, illustrated by “Missing Link” through Guadalupe-Lamar corridor. Urban rail would provide the crucial connections to core neighborhoods, UT West Campus, and Capitol Complex missed by MetroRail. Infographic Map by Light Rail Now.

In bypassing the heart of the city and the Core Area, the Red Line does indeed miss the big dots, but people hate US 183. Before the freeway to Lakeway and beyond, the bumper sticker read: “Pray for me, I drive 183!” Nothing has changed except that we have a much bigger road, even more traffic, more stress. longer drive times, and only a glimmer of a solution around it.

And by far the biggest part of any solution is urban rail on Guadalupe-Lamar.

Summing up: Most I-35 travelers are not going to get off the freeway at the proposed Highland station when the real traffic jam starts to form at Howard Lane. The current bus park & ride, Tech Ridge Transfer Center, for AM commuters to the Core, is located where it makes most sense — much further north (upstream) from Highland, at Howard near I-35.

Again, it comes back to the real alternative: Urban rail on Guadalupe-Lamar, which could serve a P&R station at the North Lamar Transit Center (upstream of the congestion on North Lamar) — with a clear path for further extension north — and interface with train service to the northwest (initially MetroRail, eventually an extension of electric urban rail) serving outlying P&R facilities such as Howard and Lakeline.

We think that’s a “congestion relief” plan that actually makes sense. ■

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin urban rail issues, Dave Dobbs's postings, Design and cost issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect urban rail plan, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , | 41 Comments »

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City Council to Austin community: Shut Up

1 July 2014
After squelching public input, Austin City Council votes unanimously on June 26th to endorse Project Connect's Highland-Riverside urban rail plan as Locally Preferred Alternative. Photo: L. Henry.

After squelching public input, Austin City Council votes unanimously on June 26th to endorse Project Connect’s Highland-Riverside urban rail plan as Locally Preferred Alternative. Photo: L. Henry.

♦

The Austin City Council really doesn’t want to hear from you. They’re tired of having to listen to you at all, and want you to just keep your thoughts to yourself, and shut up.

They’re exhausted, they’re bored, they’re busy, and besides, they know what’s best for the city, and for the movers and shakers they deal with, and you’re just getting in the way.

This is the message that came across loud and clear at the last Council meeting on Thursday, June 26th, when the Council voted to cut off dozens of speakers prepared to criticize Project Connect’s Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, allowing only a relative few from “each side”.

Trouble is, the side opposing Project Connect’s plan is not a single “side”, but factions representing several major, different viewpoints, from virulent opponents of rail transit altogether, to strong urban rail supporters (such as the sponsors of this blog) who just think the Project Connect plan is a bad idea. No matter — Off With All Their Heads. Time to move on.

And “move on” they did, voting unanimously on June 26th to embrace the seriously corrupt and flawed Project Connect plan as the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) as a prerequisite for federal funding being sought. (In so doing, they actually re-designated the LPA from the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor to the current Highland-Riverside alignment.)

Prior to the final vote, several opponents of the measure among the handful allowed to speak ditched their prepared remarks and assailed the suppression of democratic speech.

Scott Morris, representing the Our Rail Political Action Committee (OurRail PAC), angrily noted that “This plan is opposed by groups that represent or serve over a hundred thousand Austinites, and you’re giving them 30 minutes of time.”

We have patiently waited through numerous — through scores — of work sessions where Project Connect has been given unfettered access to your attention. We have patiently waited through scores of briefings that have no citizen communication. And now we’re ready to say: Enough of this. We’re fed up. This plan does not fly. … You need to listen to the citizens of Austin ….

OurRail PAC leader Scott Morris denounces Council's action to constrict debate. Photo: COA video screenshot.

OurRail PAC leader Scott Morris denounces Council’s action to constrict debate. Photo: COA video screenshot.

Longtime rail transit supporter Mike Dahmus likewise expressed outrage at the Council’s squelching of citizen input:

You’ve chosen … to eliminate all meaningful opportunities for public input, as has Project Connect before you. We will make sure the FTA [Federal Transit Administration] is aware of this”

Also discarding his prepared comments, Lyndon Henry (a contributing editor to this blog) denounced the Council meeting as “a travesty”, adding:

This issue cries out for a public hearing. Instead, you subvert the democratic process and proceed with the agenda of special interests. … You should be ashamed.

Far from unique, the Council’s stifling of democratic process continues a pattern among various Austin public agencies in recent years of excluding community participation in planning major public projects. Public hearings have almost totally disappeared from the scene for at least a decade or more.

For over a decade, Austin public agencies have shut out and gagged the community from authentic participation in planning major projects.

For over a decade, Austin public agencies have shut out and gagged the community from authentic participation in planning major projects.

And not just the Austin City Council, but Capital Metro and Project Connect itself have been leading offenders. As this blog observed last December, in our post Will Project Connect continue to gag the public?

In response to community prodding, going into the recent “high-capacity transit” study process, Project Connect representatives gave seemingly earnest assurances of much greater “transparency” and “openness” in their “study” process. Instead, the Project Connect team made their closed-door activities more opaque and insulated from community interaction than ever. …

Instead of public participation, it’s been more like public prohibition — exclusion of the community at large from any real role in the process, with Project Connect instead delivering decisions as faits accomplis for public acquiescence rather than an authentic process of involving community members in a bona fide process of actually studying, analyzing, evaluating, and participating in decisions.

To present a semblance of “public input”, Project Connect has staged “open houses” (where individuals are allowed to view posters, maps, and other presentations of official decisions) and so-called “workshops” (where small groups clustered at tables are asked to approve predetermined choices via electronic “clickers”). Authentic community meetings, with discussions and comments from the public in a large-group setting, have been avoided like the threat of an infectious disease.

Following the Council’s action ramrodding of the urban rail plan on July 26th (strong-armed by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell), longtime local community affairs activist Bill Oakey warned:

The level of insensitivity and lack of respect for the citizen speakers displayed by Mayor Leffingwell marks the darkest day for this lame duck Council. His actions essentially guarantee the defeat of the bond proposition. Austin is a community that places high value on citizen involvement. The Council should have held a public hearing soon after Project Connect announced their final proposal. Today the promise of no limit on the number of speakers was broken, after two days of planning by several groups to come and speak. The resulting lack of trust will contribute to the failure of the bonds. We will look to the new Council with a spirit of hope for respect, transparency and inclusiveness.

Changing the LPA to identify the Highland-Riverside alignment is just one of the steps the Project Connect consortium must follow in moving the official urban rail project forward. In August, the Council is expected to consider — and likely approve — placing approximately $600 million of bond funding on the November ballot for a public vote. How Austin voters will weigh in on this issue remains to be seen. ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Public involvement process | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

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Project Connect’s urban rail forecasting methodology — Inflating ridership with “fudge factor”?

20 June 2014
Graphic: Watts Up With That blog

Graphic: Watts Up With That blog

♦

By Susan Pantell

Recently Project Connect posted a Technical Memorandum dated 13 June 2014 from Alliance Transportation Group discussing what it describes as “Central Corridor Initial LPA Transit Ridership Forecasting Methodology and Summary Ridership Forecasts”. In this posting, researcher Susan Pantell provides a critical analysis of this memo.
Screenshot of page 1 of Alliance Transportation Group's Technical Memorandum on Project Connect's ridership forecasting methodology.

Screenshot of page 1 of Alliance Transportation Group’s Technical Memorandum on Project Connect’s ridership forecasting methodology.

This memo does not really provide data on their methodology since the model is secret. Beyond that, their documentation is largely hand-waving.

1. Most importantly, they did analysis only for 2030. FTA now requires current year ridership analysis. “Current year” is the most recent year for which data on the existing system and demographic data are available. An applicant may choose to also evaluate a 10-year or 20-year horizon, and, in that case, the current-year and future-year estimates will each count 50%. Current year ridership would be a lot lower because there is not the development around Highland or the eastern side of UT, but they did not do it.

2. They estimate 15,580 daily trips using the model, which they round up to 16,000. Then they say that on game or event days, ridership could be 20,000 or higher. So they conclude “the project team believes that the median value of 18,000 is a reasonable preliminary estimate of 2030 ridership.” At the end of the memo they explain that this is not based on their calculations, but on their assumption of a 10-15% increase in ridership based on future development (18,000 is a 15% increase).

Lyndon Henry says that is a reasonable assumption, and it may be, but it is not based on data or adequately documented in this memo. They don’t say how many days they predict ridership will be 20,000 or over. There are a lot of events in Austin, but not a lot with high ridership — only 8-9 game days for football and about 10 days for SXSW. If I assume 40 days with 21,000 ridership and 15,600 on the other days, the average comes to 16,300.

They are also accounting for the special event days by adding 25 to the annualization factor of 300 that FTA uses. In addition, they add 103,000 to the annual ridership figure to account for special events.

3. Note that they estimate that total trips for the Capital Metro system will increase by 10,700 in 2030, which is lower than the ridership estimate above because bus ridership will be reduced along the route. Based on that figure, bus ridership will go down by almost 5,000 trips.

4. “Transit fares were set at the equivalent Capital Metro fares for premium transit modes discounted to 2005 model base year dollars.”

Why are they estimating 2030 ridership based on 2005 fares? Because ridership is higher with lower fares. They are assuming $1.50 fare. Using an online calculator, $1.50 is $2.78 in 2030 dollars for a 2.5% inflation rate. (For 2020 it would be $2.02 – $2.34.) That’s assuming they don’t raise the rates beyond the inflation rate.

I calculated the ridership based on a 2030 fare of $2.78 and assuming a 0.4% decrease in transit ridership for every 1% fare increase [TCRP, Report 95, Transit Pricing and Fares, 2004, Chapter 12, p. 12-6. TCRP RRD #61, Traveler Response to Transportation System Changes, 2003, p.19]. I come up with a 2030 ridership of 12,300, as compared with their 15,580. If you add their 15% fudge factor, it comes out to 14,000. If you decrease the base ridership of 12,300 by the same percentage as they do to come up with the total system trips, it comes to 8,500 new trips for the system.

Is that worth $1.4 billion? ■

Posted in Austin urban rail issues, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect methodology issues, Project Connect planning issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Susan Pantell's postings, Urban Rail, Urban rail ridership issues | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments »

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Austin pro-rail group declares war on Project Connect urban rail plan

15 June 2014
Julie Montgomery, AURA leader, was sole member of Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) to vote against Project Connect's urban rail plan. Photo: L. Henry.

Julie Montgomery, AURA leader, was sole member of Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) to vote against Project Connect’s urban rail plan. Photo: L. Henry.

♦

In a 13-1 vote this past Friday (June 13th), a key mayor-appointed review committee, the Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG), approved recommending Project Connect’s urban rail proposal to the Austin City Council. If (as expected) the council endorses the plan as the city’s Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA) for urban rail, it could set the basis for approving, perhaps in August, a ballot measure for bond funding in the November 4th election.

The CCAG vote context on this controversial project was far from placid, with public comments criticizing the plan as well as supporting it (the usual speakers’ limit of five was obligingly expanded to allow two extra supporters, while an opponent was turned away). The first speaker, Marcus Denton, representing a major pro-rail group, Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA), announced the organization’s opposition. AURA’s constituency includes a significant segment of particularly influential and technologically savvy young professionals in the Austin community.

Lyndon Henry, a transportation planning consultant and former Capital Metro board member (and currently a contributing editor for Austin Rail Now), noted that the Project Connect plan fell short of serving the University of Texas West Campus, one of the densest neighborhoods in Texas. He suggested that a rail line in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor — backed by many community groups and individuals — could include branches serving both the West and East Campuses, but called for UT’s administration to take “responsibility for funding its fair share of what it wants.”

CCAG member Julie Montgomery, one of AURA’s top leaders (see photo at top), was the sole member of CCAG to vote against endorsing Project Connect’s urban rail plan, particularly questioning the validity of the data, methodology, and projections on which it’s based.

AURA immediately issued a media release (below), now posted on the AURA website.

Marcus Denton announces AURA's opposition to Project Connect plan at CCAG meeting. Screenshot from City of Austin video.

Marcus Denton announces AURA’s opposition to Project Connect plan at CCAG meeting. Screenshot from City of Austin video.

Following today’s vote by the Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) recommending a $1.4 billion Riverside-to-Highland urban rail line, AURA announced the route would act as a long-term barrier to a comprehensive, efficient transportation system and urged Austin City Council not to put it on the November ballot.

“We’ve worked for months – some of us years – trying to get an urban rail route we could support, but unfortunately this is worse than no rail,” AURA board member Steven Yarak said. “Squandering scarce funds on a second low-ridership rail line would set back public support for more effective public transit investments for decades.”

AURA’s Project Connect Central Corridor Committee co-chair Brad Absalom noted that, “While we’re supportive of the more cost-effective Riverside segment, we’re very worried the northern section will block rail on Guadalupe-Lamar, our most productive corridor, indefinitely, even as it drains funds from buses.”

AURA urged City Council not to place a Riverside-Highland urban rail bond proposition on the November ballot. Susan Somers, AURA board member, described AURA’s transportation agenda going forward: “Step one in building a better transportation system is preventing this urban rail bond from making the ballot, and defeating it if it does. As we continue lobbying for an urban rail line we can support, we’ll be pushing hard for improvements to Austin’s bus, cycling, and pedestrian infrastructure.”

AURA is a grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.

AURA leaders indicated they would actively campaign to defeat a bond measure for Project Connect’s rail plan, while striving to substitute a new urban rail plan, more effectively meeting community needs, together with broader public transport and other alternative mobility initiatives. ■

Majority of CCAG votes to endorse Project Connect urban rail plan. AURA leader Julie Montgomery, at table at left in photo, voted No. Photo: L. Henry. (Click to enlarge.)

Majority of CCAG votes to endorse Project Connect urban rail plan. AURA leader Julie Montgomery, at table at left in photo, voted No. Photo: L. Henry. (Click to enlarge.)

Posted in Austin 2014 urban rail bond campaign, Austin urban rail issues, Ballot measure campaign and issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Highland-Riverside urban rail proposal, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect planning issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Public involvement process, University of Texas issues, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Project Connect’s wasteful plan — Ultra-pricey urban rail “decoration” in the wrong route

17 May 2014
Lyndon Henry speaking to Central Corridor Advisory Group, 16 May 2014. Screenshot from City of Austin video.

Lyndon Henry speaking to Central Corridor Advisory Group, 16 May 2014. Screenshot from City of Austin video.

♦

By Lyndon Henry

The following comments were made during Citizen Communications to Project Connect’s Central Corridor Advisory Group on 16 May 2014. At the meeting, Project Connect’s Urban Rail Lead Kyle Keahey revealed the agency’s estimates and proposals regarding operating & maintenance costs, property valuation and tax revenue increases, funding, phasing issues, and “governance” (oversight and administration) the proposed 9.5-mile, $1.4 billion line connecting East Riverside (southeast) with the old Highland Mall site (north), currently under development as a new Austin Community College campus.

For months, Project Connect and Austin civic leaders have been considering subways, elevated lines, and other extravagant investments way out of scale for an urban rail starter line in a city of Austin’s size and density. The result is a $1.4 billion plan for urban rail linking a weak corridor, East Riverside, with a non-existent corridor, so-called “Highland”.

Meanwhile, Project Connect and the city’s leadership appear to have virtually abandoned the core neighborhoods, and heaviest local travel corridor, in the central city – Guadalupe-Lamar, where urban rail is desperately needed. The problem isn’t $1.4 billion for urban rail, it’s investing this money on what amounts to a very pricey decoration instead of addressing congestion with essential mobility.

At $119 million per mile in current dollars, Project Connect’s urban rail plan for Austin would be the third most costly light rail starter line in U.S. history, in terms of cost per mile. Compared with the previous Guadalupe-Lamar light rail project, planned until 2003, Project Connect’s plan costs 29% more than what that project would cost today, yet provides 35% less route length, and 47% fewer riders.

LEFT: Capital Metro 2000 urban rail plan included initial minimum operable segment (MOS) running 14.6 miles down Capital Metro railway, Lamar, and Guadalupe to CBD, plus 5.4 miles of extension down South Congress to Ben White and branch into East Austin. Total 20.0 miles surface route (with adaptation of existing river bridge) would cost $1.2 million in current dollars ($60 million/mile). RIGHT: Project Connect plan proposes a 9.5-mile route from East Riverside, crossing river on new "signature" bridge, proceeding through east side of CBD, East Campus, along Dean Keaton and Red River to Hancock Center, then into open cut and tunnel, then along Airport Blvd. into Highland site. Total cost: $1.1 billion ($119 million/mile) in current dollars.

LEFT: Capital Metro 2000 urban rail plan included initial minimum operable segment (MOS) running 14.6 miles down Capital Metro railway, Lamar, and Guadalupe to CBD, plus 5.4 miles of extension down South Congress to Ben White and branch into East Austin. Total 20.0 miles of surface route (with adaptation of existing river bridge) would cost $1.2 million in current dollars ($60 million/mile). RIGHT: Project Connect plan proposes a 9.5-mile route from East Riverside, crossing river on new “signature” bridge, proceeding through east side of CBD, East Campus, along Dean Keaton and Red River to Hancock Center, then into open cut and tunnel, then along Airport Blvd. into Highland site. Total cost: $1.1 billion ($119 million/mile) in current dollars.

Stretching over 14 miles from McNeil along what’s now the MetroRail corridor, then down Lamar and Guadalupe to the CBD, that original starter line in today’s dollars would cost roughly $878 million, or about $60 million per mile, for 54% more miles of route. Ridership for 2025 was projected at 37,400 per day – 87% higher than the “high” 20,000 for Project Connect’s plan.

The next phase involved expanding into a larger 20-mile urban rail system for roughly $320 million more in today’s dollars, also amounting to about $60 million per mile. But that’s through the heart of central and south Austin, with over twice as much rail as Project Connect’s plan. By serving Austin’s highest-traffic, most populated, densest inner-city corridors, ridership was projected at 51,000 a day.

Project Connect and Austin’s leadership seem to have abandoned all thought of cost-effectiveness and seeking the best value for spending taxpayers’ money. Now they’re playing a game of magic tricks with operating-maintenance costs and dreams of a bonanza of real estate valuation increases.

But many Austin voters realize that lower ridership means higher operating subsidies from taxpayers. And while a tax rate increase is real, projections of future tax revenues are just projections — in other words, hopes and dreams.

Judging from Project Connect’s flawed, fairytale projections from last fall’s study process, Austin voters should view these hopes and dreams with strong skepticism.

Lyndon Henry, a transportation planning consultant, is a technical consultant for the Light Rail Now Project, and a former board member and data analyst for Capital Metro. He also writes an online column for Railway Age magazine.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Austin 2000 light rail plan, Austin urban rail issues, Design and cost issues, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect planning issues, Project Connect urban rail plan, Public involvement process, Urban Rail | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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