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“Highland” sector favored by Project Connect — but where’s the travel demand?

19 November 2013

Closeup of data visualization of 2035 travel demand projection focusing on “Highland” sector. Snip by L. Henry of Project Connect infographic.

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As this blog recently reported, on Nov. 15th, Project Connect — newly empowered by Austin’s Mayor Lee Leffingwell to make the de facto final decision on urban rail — selected the “ERC” sector (with the somewhat daunting East Riverside corridor) in South Austin and the “Highland” sector (suspected to be a proxy for the western “Mueller” sector) in central Austin.

Project Connect’s anointed sectors (“sub-corridors”) for urban rail, selected on Nov. 15th. Map: Project Connect.

While the significant and growing Highland campus of Austin Community College (ACC) has been profusely brandished as a major activity center justifying “Highland” (in effect, a “gerrymandered” sector fabricated from pieces of the actual Highland and several other core-city neighborhoods), there seems very little likelihood that a rail route in the “Highland” sector itself would actually reach Highland ACC anytime soon or possibly even … ever.

It’s likely that urban rail is intended only to reach Hancock Center (per the previous Mueller plan), then to take the same previously planned northeasterly route (through the Hancock property, then crossing Red Line tracks, then under I-35 via Airport, and into Mueller via Aldrich). Very daunting right-of-way constraints almost certainly will remain an obstacle to extending urban rail to Highland ACC.

Besides the physical constraint of virtually no clear street right-of-way for an urban rail alignment to the core area, Project Connect’s chosen “Highland” sector presents another serious problem: extremely weak travel demand!

This is revealed in the data visualization of travel demand forecast for 2035 by sector and displayed in Project Connect’s Map Book (v.5), p. 43, based on projections from CAMPO’s own travel demand model. Two JPG snips of this visualization (showing travel demand activity as vectors and intra-zonal travel as bubbles) are shown below, one for the study area as a whole, and the other a closer focus on the central core city.

Travel demand in 2035 shows zero (or very weak) travel activity involving “Highland” sector. Infographic: CAMPO and Project Connect.

Closeup of projected travel demand in central core city.

In comparison with “Highland”, the infographics shown above seem to indicate significantly more projected travel demand not just in the rather large “Lamar” sector but all along the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor specifically. There’s also significant travel to what seems to represent a centroid just northwest of the boundaries of the “Lamar” sector, which it’s arguable is logically in the ridership catchment area for an urban rail line on Guadalupe-Lamar.

A closeup of this visualization for a portion of the “Highland” sector (including the Highland ACC area) is shown at the top of this posting. In contrast to the seemingly intense travel demand involving the Guadalupe-Lamar, the “Highland” sector seems to have zero travel demand centroids or origin-destination points indicated, and there’s a total absence of “data bubbles” represent intra-zonal trips.

This seemingly total lack of projected transit demand in for the “Highland” sector is actually rather puzzling. It’s reasonable to assume some degree of future travel demand between this area bordering the west side of I-35 and the core area. In any case, the data visualization suggests a projection by the CAMPO model that that this area is astoundingly weak in this respect compared to Guadalupe-Lamar — certainly contradicting the claims and conclusions of Project Connect’s top decisionmakers, including Kyle Keahey, who have emphasized the greater travel demand potential of “Highland” (and “ERC”) over the “Lamar” sector (and, implicitly, the actual Guadalupe-Lamar corridor). Basically, the evidence for this — in this presentation of CAMPO 2035 projection results — is simply not there.

In fact, on the basis of this infographic, both the “Highland” and “MLK” sectors appear to have the weakest travel demand projected in the CAMPO travel demand model — possibly suggesting a deficiency in the model. In any case, since Project Connect based its assessment significantly on this data, the results presented, and the contrary evidence of very strong travel demand in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, contradicting Project Connect’s own stated conclusions, should at the very least raise questions about the competency and integrity of the study process.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Project Connect planning issues, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Lamar-Guadalupe, Project Connect, urban rail | 1 Comment »

Surprise! Mayor and Project Connect select same routes they wanted in the first place

17 November 2013

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By Lyndon Henry

This past Friday, Nov. 15th, to a meeting of the Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG), the Project Connect (ProCon) team presented their “recommendation” of sectors (misnamed “sub-corridors”) for the first urban rail route(s) — a combination of “Highland” (a proxy to facilitate city officials’ desired route to Mueller) and “ERC” (containing the East Riverside Corridor, which the City has been heavily promoting as a development district).

Tilting the playing field

It should be noted that the “Highland” sector bears very little resemblance to the actual Highland neighborhood, delineated by both the Highland Neighborhood Association (see Highland Neighborhood Association endorses Guadalupe-Lamar for urban rail) and the Highland Neighborhood Planning Area defined by the City of Austin (COA). While the actual Highland neighborhood and planning district includes North Lamar Blvd. (mostly as its western boundary) all the way from Denson Drive to U.S. 183, ProCon’s “Highland” sector studiously avoids Lamar, and never reaches U.S. 183; instead, the sector incorporates I-35 (never even touched by the real Highland), and droops down far south of the actual neighborhood to include Hancock Center and the northern edge of the UT campus — thus overlapping the long-proposed Mueller route for urban rail. In this sense, “Highland” appears to be manipulated here as a kind of “proxy” for the COA’s original plan, functioning as a precursor of a full route to Mueller.

Project Connect’s “recommendation” revealed on Nov. 15th. Photo: ProCon.

Just a few days prior to Friday’s meeting, COA Mayor Lee Leffingwell cancelled plans to bring the selection of a sector for urban rail to both the Capital Metro board and the entire City Council for a vote. Instead, in what’s being portrayed by critics as a kind of “palace coup”, the mayor has ditched plans for such votes and authorized Project Connect to make its own decision about a sector (which in effect clinches the basic route decision). Thus, ProCon’s Nov. 15th “recommendation” amounts to the actual decision to start planning urban rail routes — lo and behold, the same basic routes the city administration, Project Connect, and an assortment of real estate development interests have wanted all along.

And all from a process that repeatedly seems to have rigged the game, and tilted the playing field.

Data flaw: Garbage In, Garbage Out

Kyle Keahey presented ProCon’s justification to the CCAG and the audience in the classic maneuver of a “data blitz” — a rapid PowerPoint barrage of tables of values, bar graphs, and bullet points almost guaranteed to dazzle and overwhelm. Assuring the CCAG attendees that his team had been busy slicing, dicing, and splicing the data approximately six different ways, including subjecting all that abundant data to a “sensitivity analysis”, Keahey wrapped up his case for basically the original official route plan (a line leading from downtown through UT’s East Campus to Hancock Center and eventually to the Mueller site, plus a route to bolster real estate and other commercial development along East Riverside).

But this picture of a fair, balanced, scrupulously diligent evaluation process is being greeted with considerable skepticism in the community. ProCon’s study has numerous hallmarks of having been rigged, from a peculiarly contrived methodology that departs from longstanding professional practice, to cherry-picking of a highly questionable set of data elements and the exclusion of data indicators far more appropriate for such an ostensible “corridor study”. (And, one might add, a highly secretive and insular process that immunized the ProCon team and their study procedures from public scrutiny and oversight.)

Thus the basic flaw in ProCon’s data analysis can be boiled down to one word: GIGO (“Garbage In, Garbage Out”). In effect, this appears to have been a process that involved limiting the focus to gerrymandered data sources, and then playing games with gerrymandered data.

Along the way, from the rather soft-focus Map Book “data visualizations” made available, a wide array of serious data errors and omissions were identified by various stakeholders. See, for example:

• Huge problems cited with Project Connect’s urban rail study data

• Sub-Corridor Selection Scoreboard

• Three Suggestions for the Project Connect Sub-Corridor Survey

“Beauty contest”, not corridor analysis

But the core problems with ProCon’s exercise go far deeper. In addition to the numerous data anomalies (and the lack of public access to the raw data being used), there are serious methodological faults. Perhaps the most troubling involves the fundamental concept and approach of the study itself, discussed in Austin Rail Now’s article Project Connect’s “corridor” study — without corridors!

As the article cited above indicates, rather than performing a bona fide study of actual alternative corridors, ProCon embarked on what amounted to an inventory of highly filtered attributes of basically gerrymandered sectors, dubbed “sub-corridors”, devolving into a kind of “beauty contest” among sectors of the city, while distorting as well as ignoring the actual travel corridors that should have been the focus.

This involved the selection of a predominantly questionable array of data elements as the basis for “evaluation” of the various sectors. Leaving their “weighting” aside, in the aggregate the evaluatory elements themselves are inappropriate. Here’s why:

(1) Projections — ProCon relies very heavily on projections of future conditions for their basic measures. As the rail advocacy group AURA (Austinites for Urban Rail Action) has explained in its evaluation guide, projections themselves are basically unreliable, risky, flaky, whereas, in contrast, “We believe use of the real-world, recently-observed data gives the more accurate and reliable picture of potential ridership, as well as the greatest viability for federal funding.”

Snippet of ProCon’s evaluation matrix shows preponderant emphasis on hypothetical future projections rather than current factual data.

This is especially true in regard to locational projections, i.e., projections of future developments in specific geographical locations. Beyond a roughly five-year horizon, projections for specific neighborhoods and similar chunks of real estate basically become unreliably speculative — which seems to be what we’ve actually been dealing with … a significant dollop of real estate speculation, given a kind of veneer of “techniness” by CAMPO and their land use/travel demand model package.

For decades, public transportation advocates have warned repeatedly about the “self-fulfilling prophecy” syndrome in this kind of transportation planning process. In the past, it’s been applied mainly to highway development — justifying “future growth” in just the right places where developers want to build, so as to rationalize huge investments in new freeways and other roads. And, lo and behold, these very projections somehow materialize after the transportation facilities are built, thus “proving” the “validity” of the projections!

Today, in Austin, this process may be at work justifying speculative land development in certain areas of the central city (i.e., the central study area — “Central Corridor”), this time with the added drawback of ignoring or dismissing opportunities for redevelopment of areas in the heart of the core city, particularly centered along the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor.

(2) Percentages and growth rates — Obviously, percentages (of poverty, transit dependency, etc.) and growth rates can be somewhat useful indicators, but relying on them overwhelmingly, as ProCon’s methodology does, can skew the planning process. Neither actual population, nor actual transit ridership in an actual corridor between any sector and the core, is considered as a measure!

Percentages can be deceptive, especially when it comes to forecasting transit ridership. Area A may have a population of 100, of which 50 are transit-dependent — 50% transit dependency. Area B may have 10,000 population, of which 2,000 are transit-dependent — 20% transit dependency. If you have a rating system that awards the higher score to the higher rate, then you’re giving a higher score to an area that will yield you only 50 potential transit-dependent riders, vs. an area that will yield you 2000!

Likewise with growth rates. If Area A is projected to grow over 20 years from 100 to 1000 residents, that’s a 900% growth rate. Meanwhile, much larger Area B is projected to grow from 40,000 to 50,000 — a 25% growth rate. Again, if your rating system awards scores based on growth rate, Area A will get the overwhelmingly higher rating. Yet Area A provides only 1,000 residents as a market for your transit line, whereas Area B provides 50,000!

ProCon’s evaluation methodology measures have over a dozen of this type of potentially fallacious characteristic. And ProCon’s growth rates, by presuming the validity of 2030 projections of land use and travel demand, compound the possible errors associated with the first category discussed, Projections.

(3) Black Box — For all their assurances of “transparency”, ProCon’s methodology for integrating and manipulating all these evaluation measures, and merging them into a model to render ratings, remains totally mysterious. Here and there are other occult items, such as the “Transit Orientation Index” (whazzat?), which seems to be rendering ratings for 2010 and 2030. If documentation of these model processes is available on the ProCon website, they sure have it well-concealed. So far, it’s either absurdly difficult or impossible to find anything either on their website or through Google searches.

Botched analysis

How could a study, from fallacious basic concept to botched data analysis, go so wrong?

• Rush, rush, rush — From the outset, the ProCon team, apparently goaded by an impatient COA administration, has been puzzling both participants and observers of the study by their unprecedented breakneck race to wrap up an exceptionally complicated study — on an inordinately brief timeframe — and jump to a conclusion.

• De facto objective — Suspicions are now rampant that the real aim, all along, behind the scenes, has been to find a way to deploy data “truthiness” (i.e., creatively selective collection and manipulation of data and advantageous “projections”) to justify the original rail route preferences of a small clique of powerful local political leaders and real estate interests to bolster and enhance somewhat speculative real estate investments in certain sectors of Austin.

• Muzzling the public — As I said in my own Citizen Communication remarks, the ProCon team have pretty much operated in a kind of bell jar, insulating and isolating themselves from effective interaction and cooperation with the public, so I’ve really never had an opportunity for a substantive discussion of these issues.

Among some critics, ProCon’s ostensible selection of East Riverside and the so-called “Highland” sector is seen as basically camouflage for a stratagem focused on developing the desired line from downtown to Hancock Center, which was being considered by ProCon anyway for months prior to the start of the “study”. The expensive East Riverside line (requiring heavy investment in a new bridge across the Colorado as well as a rebuilding of the grade separation with I-35) would likely be put on hold until the Mueller line as far as Hancock is completed; the final Mueller link could be added later.

Both critics and many community observers, favoring urban rail but increasingly skeptical of ProCon and their methods, are planning to ratchet up their opposition to this ill-conceived plan. In effect, Project Connect seems to be preparing to push Austin toward a vote for an expensive rail investment in what would typically be an uphill struggle, but now with the added challenge of having made enemies out of its strongest pro-rail allies in the heart of the core city.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Lyndon Henry's postings, Project Connect planning issues, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, Lamar-Guadalupe, Project Connect, public involvement, urban rail | 2 Comments »

Highland Neighborhood Association endorses Guadalupe-Lamar for urban rail

15 November 2013

Highland Neighborhood Association bundaries. Map: HNA.

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On November 4th, the effort to designate the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor as the preferred route for urban rail (light rail transit, LRT) received yet another powerful surge of support with the endorsement of the Highland Neighborhood Association (HNA). As the map at top shows, the western boundary of the Highland Neighborhood is mostly North Lamar Boulevard and Midtown Commons; its northern boundary is U.S. 183; and its southern boundary includes both Denson Drive and a segment of Airport Boulevard encompassing the Highland campus of Austin Community College.

Highland is an important component of the ridership “watershed” for public transportation on the east side of North Lamar, and this would include the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) route proposed for urban rail (light rail transit). The Highland neighborhood should not be confused with Project Connect’s “Highland” sector (“sub-corridor”), which usurps the name but has only a very minimal geographical relationship.

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Images of HNA resolution endorsing Guadalupe-Lamar corridor for urban rail.

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The HNA’s endorsement resolution includes a number of “whereas” clauses that spell out the case for endorsing the G-L corridor as the priority route for urban rail. For example, it states, “residents of the Highland Neighborhood are often deprived of access to the employment, cultural, and educational centers along the Guadalupe – North Lamar Corridor due to traffic congestion ….”

The resolution goes on to document the HNA’s legal and regulatory authority for taking its position on urban rail:

… the Highland Neighborhood Association is a signatory of the Brentwood-Highland Combined Neighborhood Plan, City of Austin Ordinance 040513-30, a planning area with a population of 11,738, in which Highland residents took part in extensive light rail planning for specific alignment and station placement along North Lamar Blvd. up to the North Lamar Transit Center and providing for light-rail to commuter rail transfers at Crestview station;

… several other neighborhood plans have planned light rail along the Guadalupe-North Lamar corridor such as the Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan, City of Austin Ordinance 040826-56, Crestview-Wooten Combined Neighborhood Plan, City of Austin Ordinance 040513-30, Hyde Park Neighborhood Plan, City of Austin Ordinance 000413-63, and the North Loop Neighborhood Plan,
City of Austin Ordinance 020523-30

… the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan, City of Austin Ordinance 20120614-058 incorporates the aforementioned existing neighborhood plans and designates North Lamar Blvd and Guadalupe Street as High Capacity Transit Corridors in its Growth Concept Map …

HNA presents as its justification for officially endorsing Guadalupe-Lamar “a poll taken of Highland residents on the HNA website on September 22…” posing the question, “Should Urban Rail hit the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor or Mueller?” The resolution notes that the results were “a 97% response for Guadalupe Lamar and 3% for Mueller ….”

With this background of procedural and factual substantiation, the HNA board comes down irmly on the side of a “first investment in light rail” that “must serve as an expandable backbone of rapid transit”, which means “an alignment is most suited along North Lamar Blvd. and Guadalupe Street” with a northern terminus “terminated at or near the North Lamar Transit Center….” This, the resolution makes clear, definitely means “a phase one locally preferred alternative” with light rail service connecting “the densely populated and diverse communities of North Central Austin to the cultural, residential, and employment centers of the University of Texas, the Capitol Complex, and Downtown Austin”:

BE IT RESOLVED, the Highland Neighborhood Association believes that any first investment in light rail must serve as an expandable backbone of rapid transit, and such an alignment is most suited along North Lamar Blvd. and Guadalupe Street and terminated at or near the North Lamar Transit Center; and,

BE IT RESOLVED, the Highland Neighborhood Association supports a phase one locally preferred alternative to include light rail service that connects the densely populated and diverse communities of North Central Austin to the cultural, residential, and employment centers of the University of Texas, the Capitol Complex, and Downtown Austin; and,

BE IT RESOLVED, the Highland Neighborhood Association supports light rail planning to utilize the area under elevated 183 for transit purposes including and not limited to the maintenance of a park and ride, and to stimulate Transit Oriented Development along its service roads.

This extremely significant endorsement of central Austin’s most important potential corridor for urban rail by one of the city’s most important neighborhood associations also has political implications that hopefully will not go unnoticed by local officials and decisionmakers.

The full resolution can be found here:

Highland Neighborhood Association Resolution in Support of Light Rail on North Lamar Boulevard

Related endorsements:

Central Austin Combined Neighborhoods Planning Team endorses Guadalupe-Lamar for urban rail

UT Student Government backs West Campus, Guadalupe-Lamar route for first phase of urban rail

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Community endorsements, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, austin urban rail, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, public involvement, urban rail | Leave a Comment »

Project Connect’s “corridor” study — without corridors!

11 November 2013

Project Connect’s central Austin study area (so-called “Central Corridor”)

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Coming soon, on November 15th, is the momentous day when the Project Connect (ProCon) “team” (however that’s defined) is scheduled to make its recommendation for an inner-city sector (“sub-corridor”) for urban rail — i.e., a light rail transit (LRT) starter line. This is supposed to be the result of a study purportedly aimed at identifying just the right “corridor” for an urban rail line connecting to the core area of the city. However that recommendation may go, the fact remains that ProCon’s urban rail study has been fundamentally flawed by disastrous faults, weaknesses, and errors.

Even leaving aside all the data errors and anomalies (see Huge problems cited with Project Connect’s urban rail study data), what seems to be the program’s really catastrophic conceptual fault is its approach in (1) defining a huge Central study area (“Central Corridor” — see map above) and then (2) because this huge “Central Corridor” is so unwieldy, subdividing it into sectors (which they must call “sub-corridors”) that are effectively treated in isolation from one another.

Project Connect’s “Central Corridor” (study area) with “sub-corridors” (i.e., sectors). (Click to enlarge.)

In effect, this subdivision of the study area has created an array of balkanized sectors that are analyzed more as autonomous geographic-demographic “islands” than as components essential to work together as a whole. As a result, actual, realistic, workable travel corridors have been obscured by all this.

What’s a travel corridor, anyway?

So, what exactly is an urban travel corridor? Until now, there’s usually been no dispute in Austin — as per widely accepted transportation planning practice, travel corridors in Austin (and virtually all other metro areas) have typically been laid out as fairly narrow swaths following travel patterns (and, almost always, some kind of existing transportation right-of-way) and encompassing population and employment in fairly long, narrow strips of the urban area. Wikipedia provides a particularly succinct and useful definition:

A transportation corridor is a generally linear tract of land that contains lines of transportation like highways, railroads, or canals. Often, new transport lines are built alongside existing ones to minimize pollution.

A possibly even better idea of urban travel corridors can be derived from how they’re depicted in maps. Below are several examples of corridor planning maps from several other communities.

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LEFT: Houston urban corridor planning map (City of Houston). RIGHT: Portland high-capacity transit (HCT) planning map (Transport Politic).

Both of these maps (Houston left, Portland right) show urban travel corridors as very elongated bands following major transportation features such as arterials and rail lines.

Note that in each case, the core is not designated as a “corridor” — in Houston, it’s the Core Pedestrian District; in Portland it’s simply the Central City.

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LEFT: Travel corridor in Cleveland (FHWA). RIGHT: Travel corridor in Loveland, Colorado (City of Loveland).

Multiple urban corridors can be designated for study, or the focus can be on individual corridors. In these cases, individual corridors have been selected for more intensive study — one in Cleveland, left, and one in Loveland, Colorado, right. But note that these corridors are still elongated, narrow, and shaped to comform to predominant travel flow patterns.

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LEFT: Denver — planned transit corridors (RTD). RIGHT: Kansas City — Proposed streetcar expansion corridors (NextRail-KC).

Once again, transit corridors are typically designated as fairly narrow, often shaped around existing travel facilities (roadways or railways). They do this because they are designed to designate travel movement patterns, i.e., traffic flows. The adjacent areas are often regarded as “watershed” for ridership, i.e., the “travel market” from which ridership to the proposed transit services could be attracted. It’s the demographics and other characteristics in these corridors that are important, not areas of huge urban sectors remote from these corridors.

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LEFT: Washington — potential transit study corridors (WMATA). RIGHT: Sacramento — Designated commercial corridors (City of Sacramento).

What’s significant in these cases (Washington, DC left, Sacramento right) is the addition of arrows to the corridor designations on the maps to emphasize that these are travel corridors.

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ProCon’s “sub-corridors” = isolated enclaves

Yet Project Connect’s “sub-corridors” resemble none of these actual case examples — maybe because they’re actually urban districts or sectors, not true travel corridors. Indeed, these sectors have virtually nothing to do with actual travel corridors following traffic patterns. Instead, in the way they’re used by ProCon, they resemble, to some extent, rather large travel analysis zones (TAZs, also called traffic analysis zones or transportation analysis zones).

LEFT: Baltimore TAZ map (Baltimore Metropolitan Council). RIGHT: Minneapolis TAZ map (Metropolitan Council).

But ProCon’s sectors (“sub-corridors” — see map at beginning of post) weren’t intended to be TAZs, and they don’t function that way at all. TAZs (typically based on small geographic units such as census tracts or electoral precincts) are designed to be the basic geographic components to provide data inputs for a coordinated, integrated, metro-area-wide transportation network.

Project Connect’s sectors, in contrast, seem more designed to pit one part of the city against another — to function more as neighborhood enclaves to be assessed for their isolated demographics and “level of misery” (poverty, congestion, etc.) in a competitive showdown within a game of “Which sector deserves the urban rail prize?” It’s astounding that this charade is presented as a form of officially sponsored urban transportation planning.

Rather than tracking existing, logical corridors, almost all of these sectors sprawl over vast stretches of the inner city. The “Lamar” sector, for example, extends westward as far as Shoal Creek — approximately 1.5 miles from the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor, and up to two miles wide — and encompasses over 2,900 acres, about 4.6 square miles. It includes both Shoal Creek Blvd. and Burnet Rd. as well as Guadalupe-Lamar. Yet, curiously, despite all this stretching of the corridor, ProCon planners have stopped the boundaries of the “Lamar” sector short of Loop 1 (MoPac Freeway) and, even worse, they’ve ruled out a logical extension as far as U.S. 183.

The “Mueller” sector, widening to approximately 2.5 miles in girth, sprawls even further, encompassing a chunk of the Hancock neighborhood, north of UT, and then most of northeast Austin, as well as the relatively small Mueller development site, in almost 4,000 acres, more than 6.2 square miles.

Not only have the sectors been gerrymandered, the data Project Connect is attributing to them has been gerrymandered as well. The “study” purports to be focused on getting the proper routes (through the proper sectors, of course) to the “Core” sector (from which all other sectors are banned) … yet in not one single sector have the actual travel-related conditions of a major potential transit route corridor been even mentioned, much less tallied, examined, or analyzed.

The existence of corridor travel patterns, and particularly of available physical corridors (e.g., fairly wide arterials in sectors such as “Lamar”, “ERC”, and “MLK”), are critical factors that nevertheless seem immaterial to ProCon planners. Thus, rather than assessing corridors to the core, the Map Book provides (for each sector in the study area map) a chaotic riot of “congested” streets (using dark and bright red colors designating “congested” and very congested” conditions), in virtually every direction. It doesn’t matter if a roadway heads the wrong way — everything counts in registering a sector’s score in the “congestion” misery index.

LEFT: Congestion by sector in 2015. RIGHT: Congestion by sector in 2035.

Some of this demographic and “misery” data could be relevant — if it were focused on actual travel corridors. The walking-distance “ridership watershed” of an inner-city transit corridor is usually about a mile either side of the the center of the corridor (which is usually a likely right-of-way for the proposed transit facility); this assumes an average pedestrian access of a half-mile to stations (within a 0 to one-mile range). Total population, density, employment, transit-dependency, income level, poverty, traffic congestion (especially in the directional flow pattern), and other indicators are all relevant within this travel corridor for assessing its potential.

Catastrophic methodological fault

However, there’s a much more fundamental (and disastrous) problem than either the configuration or the function of Project Connect’s designated sectors. Perhaps the most serious flaw in ProCon’s urban rail study methodology — actually, catastrophic, because it fundamentally impairs the integrity of the whole process — is that the actual travel corridors are not only basically ignored as workable corridors, but also are truncated and segmented by ProCon’s arbitrary slicing up of the urban area.

If you’re evaluating a travel corridor, you must evaluate the corridor as a whole — what it connects from, to, and in between; what the populations and densities along the corridor are; what activity centers it connects; and so on. All those are important, because they’re critical to what makes a transit line in that corridor actually feasible and worth investing in. For example, relevant to the “ERC” (“East Riverside Corridor”) sector is the eventual potential of an urban rail route to extend further east to the ABIA airport — but that’s not considered in this study.

Likewise, the possibility of extensions of a proposed Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail line further north on Lamar and northwest on the Capital Metro railway (i.e., converting MetroRail to electric urban light rail transit) would be crucial ingredients to the evaluation of a basic inner-city starter line. But this is prohibited by ProCon’s arbitrary sectionalization of the city (areas north of the “Central Corridor” belong to other “corridors”).

Similarly, the Guadalupe-Lamar route is severed just north of the UT-West Campus area at W. 29th St. In other words, most of this potential route is cut off from its highest-density population district as well as its most productive destinations in the core of the city!

What’s left is a “rump” route, from a few blocks south of U.S. 183 to W. 29th St., that seems to have little purpose beyond perhaps some kind of “shuttle” along this isolated route segment. If there were a prize for idiotic public transport planning, surely Project Connect would be very high on the candidate list.

Added to this seemingly heedless route segmentation is ProCon’s treatment of adjacent sectors as insular, isolated enclaves, whose demographics and other characteristics apply only to themselves. Likewise travel characteristics are treated in isolation, as if the population in all these different “enclaves” confine themselves to the sector boundaries that ProConn planners have established for them. Is it realistic to believe that residents of the “Highland” sector wouldn’t be allowed to hop a train on a Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail line, or that residents in the “West Austin” sector would be prohibited from catching a G-L train north to the Triangle area or Crestview?

Project Connect’s deformed “study”

Some of the most egregious problems with ProCon’s planning approach are summarized in the infographic below.

This inforgraphic summarized numerous major problems with Project connect's methodology.

This infographic summarizes numerous major problems with Project connect’s methodology. (Click to enlarge.)

As Austin Rail Now has noted previously, on Nov. 15th, the ProCon planning team are scheduled to recommend a sector (“sub-corridor”) as the basis for further urban rail planning. Given the dubious and even bizarre aspects of their methodology (and the occult nature of their process), predicting what their conclusion will be is somewhat like trying to predict whom the College of Cardinals would elect as a new pope.

In any case, this small analysis underscores that a truly realistic, rational urban rail study would want to look at the population, density, and other key indicators along Guadalupe-Lamar and other entire corridors. And furthermore, that a far more effective methodology for transportation corridor analysis needs to be implemented. So far, Project Connect seems to have made a mess of this process.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect planning issues, Urban Rail | Tagged Austin Texas, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, Project Connect, urban rail | 1 Comment »

Guadalupe-Lamar is highest-density corridor in Austin — according to Project Connect’s own data!

9 November 2013

Closeup of Project Connect’s central Austin map of population density for 2010 shows intense clusters of density in West Campus, along Guadalupe above W. 29th St., and in Triangle area. Map: Rev. by LH from Project Connect.

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Even from the peculiarly selective and distorted data exhibited visually in Project Connect’s Map Books, it’s clear that the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor currently has by far the highest concentration of population density within Austin central study area (and almost certainly the highest in the entire metro area). And this density appears predicted to persist in ProCon’s projection for 2030!

This density (pointed out decades ago by Lyndon Henry and Dave Dobbs as a pre-eminent justification for rail transit in this corridor) is shown in the following map graphics excerpted from the latest version (v. 5) of ProCon’s Map Book.

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Central study area view

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Population density in 2010 (G-L corridor spine in yellow). Map: Rev. by LH from Project Connect.

The map above shows the central-city study area (mislabeled by ProCon as a “Central Corridor”) with various sectors (mislabeled as “sub-corridors”) in 2010. The arterial spine of the G-L corridor (the most likely alignment for urban rail) is shown by a yellow line. Notice that heavy concentrations of high population density are clustered around the G-L corridor, particularly in the West Campus area, and just north of the campus, bordered by Guadalupe on the west and W. 29th St. on the south.

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Population density projected for 2030 (G-L corridor spine in yellow). Map: Rev. by LH from Project Connect.

The map above shows the same study area and sectors, with population density concentrations projected for 2030. While these projections are far more subjective and tentative than actual current reality-based data, they do reflect speculation that extremely high density will not only intensify in 2030 in the same areas as it was located in 2010, but is expected to expand to other segments of the G-L corridor.

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Guadalupe-Lamar focus

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Composite of zoomed-in snips of Project Connect maps of population density. LEFT: 2010. RIGHT: 2030. Rev. by LH from Project Connect.

This composite focuses on population density the G-L corridor, showing density concentrations in 2010 on the left, and in 2030 on the right. Again, the probable alignment for urban rail is shown by a yellow line. This makes both the existing density and its projected intensification in the future even more obvious.

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Conclusion

These data visualization maps clearly indicate that not only does the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor currently have extremely high levels of population density (as much as 30,000 persons per square mile in the West Campus) sufficient to support urban rail, but it surpasses all other corridors in the city! Furthermore, even in ProCon’s flawed analysis, this density is projected to intensify by 2030.

But this kind of bona fide corridor analysis counts for absolutely nothing in Project Connect’s “study”, because they’re not evaluating travel corridors such as Guadalupe-Lamar! They’ve been wasting taxpayer money on largely irrelevant studies of demographics and other conditions in isolated sectors while largely ignoring actual travel patterns in corridors into the core area, along with the demographics and other critical features along these actual corridors, such as G-L.

On Nov. 15th, the ProCon team are due to announce their “recommendation” for a sector (“sub-corridor”) as the location for urban rail … and it’s anybody’s guess as to what is the basis for their evaluation. But this small analysis we’ve just presented illustrates the actual kind of analysis of a travel corridor that official planners should be performing, and we suggest it as a far more effective model for the type of urban rail study this community actually should be supporting.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect planning issues, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, austin urban rail, demographics, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, Project Connect, urban rail | 2 Comments »

Huge problems cited with Project Connect’s urban rail study data

3 November 2013

Cover of Project Connect’s Map Book version 4. Screen capture: L. Henry.

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One of the most serious flaws in Project connect’s urban rail study process — in which top-level officials and planners are trying to rush to a selection of an Austin city sector for an urban rail starter line on or about November 15th — is problems with data inaccuracy and outright omissions. Focused on designated alternative city sectors (misnamed “sub-corridors”), the study team has been compiling purported data on demographic and transportation features of each sector (such as population, density, transit ridership, etc.) in a series of data-visualization “Map Books” (each new one an update of the previous one).

Map Books rife with data problems

Meanwhile, as this blog reported in a previous posting, Scott Morris, head of the Central Austin Community Development Corporation (CACDC) has been relentlessly and tediously scrutinizing each volume of Map Book data. As we’ve noted “Scott has performed amazingly detailed and well-supported research into these data issues, and he has found and pointed to a lengthy array of dozens of mostly serious errors. A handful of these have been quietly rectified.”

By far, as the Oct. 27th article Project Connect admits major data error in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor study highlighted, “One of the most serious data anomalies that Scott has recently detected is the “disappearance” of virtually all the ridership for Capital Metro’s routes #1M/L and #101, the heaviest-ridership transit routes in the system, serving the G-L corridor as well as South Congress.” As the article reports, Project Connect has publicly admitted that error and corrected it in the next Map Book edition.

Map Book errors go uncorrected

However, an unacceptable large number of similar errors — predominantly erroneous data or outright omissions — remain. The following are just some of the most egregious problems in Map Book v. 2, still carried into v. 4, that Scott has found and cited in a listing submitted by CACDC to the Project Connect urban rail study team:

Partial listing of major errors in Project Connect Map Book and other material identified by CACDC. Screen image: L. Henry.

New error problems with Map Book 4

Scott has appended a listing of major new problems appearing in Map Book Version 4; here’s a summary:

• All “B” Pages and Definition Packages
West University NPA/University Neighborhood Overlay Removed From Defined Sub-Corridors A large, dense city area to the west of the UT campus and Guadalupe Street was moved out of the North Lamar and Mopac Sub-Corridors by the Project Team in response to a request to include UT in the core. This change was made in the current map. We understand the reasoning in placing UT in the core, however the manner in which surrounding non-UT areas were moved with it will create large, unintended impacts on the sub-corridor evaluation process. That area is not a part of UT, nor in the opinion of West Campus residents, can it be adequately served by a San Jacinto alignment on the UT Campus. West University is the densest planning area of our city that also employs over 5,000 people (Non-UT). The area west of Guadalupe anchors the Guadalupe-North Lamar Sub-Corridor and includes the University Neighborhood Overlay and 3 residential neighborhoods that are components of a City of Austin Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Planning Area. West Campus is the largest population differentiator in our city for the purposes of sub-corridor analysis. In our opinion, it should not be considered a common element to the core joining the CBD, UT, and the Capitol Complex, unless it receives a similar commitment to service. In the end, if it is desired to count West Campus as part of the core, we should also count on serving it directly as part of the definition of the core.

• Page 13 Employment Density with Major Employers
The State of Texas in the North Austin Complex has been omitted. It is the center of over 16,000 jobs within a 1/2 mile radius of 49th and N. Lamar. There is no purple symbol. Girling Healthcare is a small office, yet shows 2,225 employees in place of the TX Dept of Health.

• Page 28 Poverty, Vehicles, Affordable Housing
Hundreds of units of affordable housing in West Campus is not identified with the correctly-sized circle.

• Pages 36-37 Bus Ridership 2011
The North Lamar Transit Center has been cropped out of the frame. Much of the bus system for the northern half of the city has boardings there.

• Pages 55-59 Sub-Corridor Definition Package Lamar
Population Studies are not provided for North Lamar sub-corridor definition package.

• Pages 15-16. Employment Growth
Austin State Hospital should show >100% Growth. This is an identified P3.

• Pages 18-19 2010 Retail Employment Density
The Triangle is not identified as retail density.

• Pages 18-19 2010 Retail Employment Density
Koenig and N Lamar is not identified as retail employment density.

• Page 26 Population Growth 2010-2030
The growth projections that occur in an area north of 32nd St. South of 45th St east of Waller Creek, and west of Red River are too high. Per that neighborhood plan and numbers reflected in the zoning capacity studies, population growth should be a more modest 41% for the described area. This includes SF-3 zoning and the Hancock Golf Course, a dedicated park. http://centralaustincdc.org/land_use/Zoning_and_Capacity_Redev_Analysis_v11.pdf

• Page 30 Selected Land Use 2010
Adams Hemphill Park straddling 30th not identified as open space.

CACDC also provides data references as the basis for these corrections.

Summary

It’s understandable that some data problems will be encountered in almost any major study of this kind. What’s astounding, however, is the high number of problems in Project Connect’s urban rail study. Even worse is that almost all of them — even when identified — seem to be going uncorrected!

This seriously compromises the competency of this entire study process (and there are even more fundamental issues involved, as this blog will address). The data problem is especially threatening because data analysis is supposedly the foundation for decisionmaking to select an urban rail corridor; the Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG, whose recommendation is a key part of the process) is being led through a process of data scrutiny and analysis by Project Connect staff. Yet the Project Connect team — under duress from high-level local officials eager to force a quick decision on urban rail, and apparently overwhelmed by the need to rush to an imminent recommendation for the Austin City Council — seem merely to be “dumping” volumes of data with little regard for its reliability or relevance to the basic goal of selecting an urban rail route.

All of this calls into question just how “fair and balanced” — and accurate, reliable, and truly data-based — the process of comparatively evaluating alternative urban rail corridors and plans actually is.

What the final outcome will be, and whether its integrity will be accepted by the Austin public and voters in particular, remains to be seen.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Project Connect planning issues, Public involvement process, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, coa plan, demographics, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, Project Connect, public involvement, urban rail | 9 Comments »

Houston’s MetroRail shows the way — How to fit urban rail into Austin’s Guadalupe and Lamar

30 October 2013

Two-car Houston MetroRail light rail train glides northbound in reservation along Main St. Notice landscaping in median, where station platforms are also placed. Photo: Mike Harrington.

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It’s pretty amazing.

While the so-called “People’s Republic of Austin” has agonized, dillied, dallied, and dawdled for years over whether or not to give priority to transit, or to preserve sacred traffic lanes for cars, Houston — long assumed to be a poster child of motor vehicle dependency — already took the plunge over a decade ago, carving dedicated transit reservations out of some of its busiest central-city arterials for its MetroRail light rail transit (LRT) line.

Opened in 2004, Houston’s MetroRail runs 7.5 miles with 16 stations through the heart of the city, from University of Houston–Downtown to Fannin South, using well-separated reservations created by re-allocating former traffic lanes and turning (“chicken”) lanes to rail transit. It’s highly successful, carrying 37,500 rider-trips per average weekday (second quarter 2013) at about 8% lower cost per passenger-mile than Houston’s bus system average (National Transit Database, 2011).

MetroRail is routed almost entirely on major arterials through central-city Houston. Map: Light Rail Now.

From the standpoint of the engineering design of its alignment, MetroRail presents a model of what could be possible in Austin’s Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor. Facing the constrained street right-of-way available, Houston’s local decisionmakers and planners bit the bullet, opting to re-allocate entire street lanes away from motor vehicle traffic, and allot the space to the much higher carrying-capacity of the planned new LRT line.

The most drastic re-allocation occurred on Main St., which in its most constrained section was originally a four-lane street with a center turning lane. About 40% (northern section) of the route runs in Main; there’s a short section of several blocks with the line split between Fannin and San Jacinto Streets; then the remaining southern portion of the route runs in Fannin.

Photo-essay: Houston MetroRail

The remainder of this post is mostly a photo-essay on selected street alignment features of Houston’s MetroRail, particularly showing how previous traffic lanes have been re-allocated to transit in route sections most closely resembling the conditions of Guadalupe St. and Lamar Blvd. in Austin.

Main St. alignment

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

The MetroRail LRT system was installed in Main Street as part of a massive overhaul of Houston’s downtown streets beginning in the late 1990s. The objective was to emphasize pedestrian and transit access while reducing motor vehicle traffic.

In the photo above, you can see how LRT tracks and stations — and widened sidewalks — have replaced what was once several traffic lanes. Traffic has been reduced to one lane in each direction, with occasional parking space, mainly so adjacent stores and offices can be accessed by commercial services.

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Main St. without MetroRail. Photo: Wikipedia.

Further south from downtown, near the Medical Center, the MetroRail alignment leaves Main St., and continues in Fannin and San Jacinto Streets. However, Main continues south.

In the photo above, Main St. is a bit wider than it is in the more constrained section downtown, but you can still get an idea of how the street looked before MetroRail.

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Main St., 2 views of MetroRail alignment. LEFT: Train near Preston (photo: L. Henry). RIGHT: Train near Gray (photo: Frank Hicks).

The two photos above illustrate the MetroRail alignment from ground level — the left photo in the heart of downtown, the right photo further south on the edge of downtown. Notice the use of large traffic buttons to emphasize segregation of LRT tracks. Also notice how the median area between tracks is used for both stations and landscaping.

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MetroRail passengers deboarding at Downtown Transit Center station. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

This view, showing passengers deboarding a MetroRail train at the Downtown Transit Center station, provides another ground-level view of a station fitted into the Main St. streetscape.

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MetroRail passing under I-45. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

Houston’s MetroRail passes under a couple of freeways as it heads south from downtown. No reconstruction of the grade separations was necessary — track and overhead contact system (OCS) wires were simply installed through the underpass. Here, a train on Main St. passes under the I-45 freeway not far from the Downtown Transit Center station. This may offer design hints for solving similar underpass LRT needs in Austin, such as the proposed extension of the Guadalupe-Lamar line under the US 183 underpass.

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Aerial view of MetroRail on Main St. at Ensemble-HCC station. Photo: Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps.

This aerial view of the alignment in Main St. at the Ensemble-HCC station gives another perspective on how MetroRail has been fitted into the streetscape south of central downtown. Stations are staggered, with separate platforms and shelters to serve either northbound or southbound trains (thus not requiring extra street width).

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Double-track to single tracks on Fannin-San Jacinto

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Map showing MetroRail transition from Main St to Fannin-San-Jacinto (Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps).

The map above shows where the double-track MetroRail alignment leaves Main St. (at Richmond and Wheeler Ave.), runs diagonally southward, and then splits (just after passing under the Southwest Freeway), with the southbound track following Fannin St. and the northbound track following San Jacinto St.

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Aerial view of 2 tracks splitting into single tracks on Fannin and San Jacinto. Photo: Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps.

In the aerial view above, the double-track MetroRail alignment can be seen running diagonally, passing beneath the Southwest Freeway, and then splitting into single tracks on Fannin St. and San Jacinto St., where the tracks are laid in curbside alignments.

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MetroRail Museum District station. Photo: Houston Metro.

The photo above shows the curbside MetroRail alignment and a curbside platform at the Museum District station. Note how light rail station platform is raised approximately 14 inches above track level (which is also street level) to permit level boarding into each car. The woman will be able to roll her baby carriage directly onto the train, with no lifting or need for a ramp.

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Double-track alignment in Fannin and Braeswood

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Aerial photo of Fannin-San Jacinto single tracks merging into double-track on Fannin. Photo: Photo: Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps.

This aerial view shows how the single-track alignments on Fannin and San Jacinto are merged south of Hermann Drive into a double-track alignment on Fannin St.

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MetroRail Hermann Park-Rice University station on Fannin St. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

Somewhat further on south on Fannin St. is the Hermann Park-Rice University station. This cross-sectional view shows how the median island-type station, serving both directional tracks, is fitted into the roadway, with trackage separated by traffic buttons.

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Aerial view of Hermann Park-Rice University station. Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps.

The photo above provides an aerial perspective of the Hermann Park-Rice University station.

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Train serving Memorial Hermann Hospital-Houston Zoo station. Photo: Panoramio.com.

This ground-level photo of a train stopped at the Memorial Hermann Hospital-Houston Zoo station illustrates how (to accommodate the narrower roadway width) station design has reverted to the staggered-platform layout, with separate platforms and shelters for each direction .

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Passengers waiting to board train at Dryden/TMC station Photo: Brian Flint.

Because of the tight street constraint, the Dryden/TMC station has a staggered-platform profile similar to the Memorial Hermann Hospital-Houston Zoo station.

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Aerial view of Dryden/TMC station. Screen capture by L. Henry from Google Maps.

This aerial view of the Dryden/TMC station illustrates how left turn lanes are handled. Notice that there are left-turn channelization arrows painted in the trackway. Cars are allowed access into these turning lanes (i.e., sharing the LRT tracks) via the traffic signal system. Notice cars in the upper right photo queued in the lane and preparing to turn left.

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MetroRail train on S. Braeswood Blvd. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

For a short “dogleg”, the MetroRail alignment departs from the Fannin route and runs in S. Braeswood Blvd. and Greenbriar Drive before returning to Fannin. This photo shows how the trackage is aligned in that section of the route.

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Conclusion

Certainly, Houston’s MetroRail doesn’t represent a design “blueprint” for Austin (or any other community) that can simply be replicated — every city has its own challenges and needs in terms of streetscape and transit requirements. However, MetroRail does demonstrate an excellent Best Practices guide as to how this major auto-centric and asphalt-centric city has found the will and the way to incorporate workable, efficient, and attractive urban rail into a fairly constrained streetscape environment.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Houston, Light rail transit (LRT), Transit priority lanes, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, urban rail | 6 Comments »

Project Connect admits major data error in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor study

27 October 2013

Snippet of Project Connect’s much larger “Central Corridor” map (actually, the central-city study area) shows “Lamar” sector (in orange, dubbed a “sub-corridor” in Project Connect’s peculiar nomenclature) plus several adjacent sectors. Actual Guadalupe-Lamar travel corridor includes both the Lamar and Core sectors, but each sector is being evaluated in isolation.

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The Project Connect urban rail planning team has been conducting a nominal study of designated alternative “sub-corridors” for urban rail (they’re actually not “corridors”, but sectors of the central-city study area). In the process, the agency has been compiling purported data (covering key indicators for each “corridor”, or study sector, such as population, density, transit ridership, etc.) in a series of so-called Map Books (each one an update of the previous one).

Meanwhile, tirelessly and tediously scrutinizing each volume of Map Book data has been the self-appointed task of Scott Morris, head of the Central Austin Community Development Corporation (CACDC), which, together with Texas Association for Public Transportation, has been advancing the case for the Guadalupe-Lamar travel corridor as the most effective alignment for Austin’s proposed urban rail starter line. Scott has performed amazingly detailed and well-supported research into these data issues, and he has found and pointed to a lengthy array of dozens of mostly serious errors. A handful of these have been quietly rectified.

One of the most serious data anomalies that Scott has recently detected is the “disappearance” of virtually all the ridership for Capital Metro’s routes #1M/L and #101, the heaviest-ridership transit routes in the system, serving the G-L corridor as well as South Congress. This was cited in a listing of nearly three dozen data problems submitted by CACDC to the Project Connect urban rail study team:

v4 Comment 29 High
Pages 36-37 Bus Ridership 2011
According to the 2020 service plan in January 2010, the #1 North Lamar and the #101 had over 17,000 daily boardings combined. But, this chart seems to omit nearly all boardings for the Guadalupe-North Lamar Corridor.

At last, Project Connect has publicly admitted at least one of the numerous errors that have been published in the series of Map Books. Responding mainly to criticism by Jace Deloney, one of the leaders of Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA, which supports a transparent, open, and fair route evaluation process), on October 22nd Project Connect issued a statement acknowledging the erroneous ridership data, which it says resulted from “populating” the map (data visualization graphic) with the “wrong data field”. A screen capture of the statement is shown below.

Project Connect statement admits major error in transit ridership data for Lamar-Guadalupe corridor.

Project Connect statement admits major error in transit ridership data for Guadalupe-Lamar corridor.

Data errors, in particular large ones like this, are especially serious because the selection of a “corridor” (actually, a sector of the huge central-city study area) depends critically on key data factors, including existing transit ridership in a given corridor.

Posted in Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Project Connect planning issues, Public involvement process, Urban Rail | Tagged Austin Texas, Lamar-Guadalupe, Project Connect, public involvement, urban rail | 1 Comment »

Guadalupe-Lamar urban rail line would serve 31% of all Austin jobs

24 October 2013

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An urban rail line installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor (plus a short extension to the Seaholm area) would provide high-quality, high-capacity transit service to nearly one-third of all Austin jobs, according to a study based on 2011 U.S. Census data by the Central Austin Community Development Corporation (CACDC), led by Scott Morris.

The CACDC’s Austin Urban Rail website presents a map of a possible alignment on Guadalupe-Lamar, including 14 stations with locations optimized by the census employment data. The CACDC study says that that the On The Map online census utility “was used to measure jobs located within one quarter mile and one half mile of each proposed station point.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies 2011 Current Employment Statistics, the Guadalupe-North Lamar Sub-Corridor contains the highest density of jobs in the city. … The results speak for themselves. If built, the Guadalupe North Lamar alignment would put tracks within a ten minute walk of over 31% of all jobs in the city.

One can infer that, if the G-L corridor route were combined with the proposed conversion of the eastside Red Line to electric urban rail (light rail transit) as proposed by Texas Association for Public Transportation — a proposal which includes a spur line into the Mueller site and Northeast Austin — it’s plausible to speculate that the total system would possibly provide access to as many as 40 to 50% of city jobs. And, in addition, serve the huge ACC campus developing at Highland.

TAPT proposes "loop" line, with routes on both Guadalupe-Lamar and eastide through converting the MetroRail line to electric light rail — plus a spur to Mueller.

TAPT proposes “loop” line, with routes on both Guadalupe-Lamar and eastside through converting the MetroRail line to electric light rail — plus a spur to Mueller.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, urban rail | 1 Comment »

Why the MetroRapid bus project currently is NOT an obstacle to urban rail in Guadalupe-Lamar

19 October 2013

New MetroRapid buses, representing about 53% of total project cost, could readily be redeployed to other routes or new premium-bus services. In the meantime, MetroRapid service on Guadalupe-Lamar could be re-purposed and presented as precursor to urban rail. (Photo: Filipa Rodrigues, KUT News)

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by Lyndon Henry

The question of which route to choose for an initial urban rail line — the officially preferred downtown-East Campus-Mueller plan or the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) plan — is linked to the related issue of the $47.6 million MetroRapid bus project currently under way in this and other corridors and due to open for service in 2014. However, as this blog has noted, as currently intended, designed, and funded, MetroRapid — 80% funded from a $37.6 million grant under the Small Starts program of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) — is about as minimalist as a bus upgrade project can get, involving little more than the following:

• Rolling stock — A fleet of new buses, intended to run almost entirely in mixed general traffic with private motor vehicles. These could readily be redployed into other transit routes or entirely new corridors.

• Upgraded bus stops — Mostly modular in design (i.e., shelters, benches, etc. could be relocated to other locations). These will be equipped with digital cellular-based schedule information systems that are also modular.

• Downtown transit priority lanes — A project to install these (i.e., restripe a lane on each of Guadalupe and Lavaca St. and relocate bus stops) is currently under way. However, as we noted in a previous posting (referring to Portland as a model for transit priority lanes),

there are legitimate questions as to whether these two lanes could simultaneously and effectively accommodate the two MetroRapid bus routes (10-minute headways each) plus all other Capital Metro routes (various headways) as well as urban rail (10-minute headway), all running in both directions.

• Rebranding and marketing — Rechristening limited-stop buses on G-L (a service configuration basically replicating the #101) as a “rapid” service (although the schedule time difference is minuscule to zero). See: Why MetroRapid bus service is NOT “bus rapid transit”.

MetroRapid bus route (black line) planned for the G-L corridor. Red line denotes MetroRapid in the Burnet-South Lamar corridor. (Map: Capital Metro)

Besides all the rebranding and marketing hype, one can legitimately ask: What’s really different about MetroRapid?

• Buses, including limited-stop (even with special branding) have been running in the G-L corridor for decades…

• Capital Metro has repeatedly upgraded both rolling stock and bus stop facilities using federal grant funding…

You could say … Well, there are those downtown transit priority lanes. But Capital Metro and City of Austin planners have long intended to use those also for urban rail! As we hinted in the article on Portland cited above, crowding all downtown bus operations plus MetroRapid plus urban rail into those two lanes does seem to present a problem … but that’s an issue we’ll deal with in a subsequent article. (For urban rail, our remedy is to allocate two more separate lanes.)

So, we have this very minimalist FTA-funded Small Starts bus project (MetroRapid), simply running buses in the street with traffic, and yet, to support their case for Mueller and dismiss the case for urban rail on G-L, some local planners and Project Connect officials have been claiming that the FTA will bar funding of an urban rail project because it would disrupt this small-scale project. Despite the fact that:

• The MetroRapid project was never intended to become an immutable obstacle to rail in the G-L corridor…

• The new buses could be redeployed to other uses — including to urban rail stations in the same streets…

• The modular bus stop facilities (including the cellular information system) could be relocated and redeployed, or simply left in place for use by passengers for the other local bus services…

• MetroRapid in the G-L could simply be re-purposed and rebranded as a precursor to urban rail in the same corridor…

MetroRapid bus stations are minimalist, low-cost, modular (movable). LEFT: Completed station at North Lamar Transit Center (Photo: Downtown Austin Alliance) • RIGHT: Bus stop on Guadalupe at 39th St. being upgraded for MetroRapid (Photo: Mike Dahmus)

The heaviest artillery brought to bear for this has not been testimony from any FTA official, nor FTA policies, but a major Washington lobbyist, hired by the City of Austin, and brought to a work session of the Austin City Council in May 2012 to proclaim that the MetroRapid project represents a barrier to rail in the G-L corridor for the next 20 years! (His opinion has subsequently been repeatedly cited as evidence to support the “MetroRapid barrier” contention.)

It’s legitimate to ask: On what basis, and with what actual evidence, are these claims made? Where have other major rail investments been denied because of this supposed justification? Where has FTA explicitly stated that they resolutely forbid altering a portion of an FTA-funded project and substituting a different project for that section prior to the fulfillment of a defined “minimum life cycle”?

The Official (City + Project Connect) position might as well be: We’re already running buses in this corridor, so there’s no role for rail. That, of course, is absurd — existing bus service means you’ve already got well-established transit ridership, a huge plus for rail.

The same holds true of MetroRapid. The argument that this somehow, in its present form, makes it a daunting barrier to urban rail is also nonsense. (They’d like to make it an authentic barrier, by installing special bus lanes … but that’s another issue — see No urban rail on Guadalupe-Lamar? Then get ready for bus lanes….)

Let’s look at several scenarios:

• Worst-case scenario — Austin would have to reimburse FTA the $38 million grant in full. Not really likely, but possible. If so, this $38 million would be a relatively small penalty added to the cost of a project of hundreds of millions. Actually, FTA would probably deduct it from the grant for any urban rail FFGA (Full Funding Grant Agreement) that would be submitted in the future.

• Acceptable scenario — Austin would be required to reimburse FTA for just the portion from downtown to some point on North Lamar. This seemingly amounts to about 20% or less of the total. It’s also arguable that reimbursement need be based solely on the cost of all or portions the stations and other fixed facilities, but not the rolling stock (which was the preponderance of the grant).

On a route-length basis, the affected G-L portion of the MetroRapid project represents about 20% of the total length. Rolling stock procurement represents about 53% of the total project cost, fixed facilities about 47%. So altogether Austin would be looking at reimbursing 20% X 47% X $37.6 million (FTA grant), which equals … about $3.5 million. And that’s assuming that FTA would not credit the city for re-purposing and re-using these fixed facilities for urban rail or other bus services.

• Best-case scenario — No reimbursement needed. Instead, Austin would just re-deploy the buses in other corridors (including further north on Lamar), and be authorized to relocate fixed facilities or re-purpose them (e.g., the traffic-signal-preemption systems would simply be reconfigured for the rail system).

Also note that FTA is accustomed to changes in FFGAs and other contractual elements all the time and doesn’t just blacklist the agency when that happens. Remember — we’d be dealing with just a portion of this total project, and a small portion of just a very small project at that. So we’re not suggesting here a total cancellation of the entire MetroRapid contract.

In dealing with FTA, there are bureaucratic protocols involved, and the need to adhere to stated rules and regulations, but there’s also a lot of politics. The crucial issue for supporters of urban rail in G-L is to influence overall community desire, intent, and policy to re-focus urban rail into the G-L corridor. Once we accomplish that, there’s a very high probability that local civic and political leadership will climb aboard the reoriented urban rail project and work hard to forge the necessary political clout at the federal level.

Also keep in mind that final design and engineering of any rail system will take a fair chunk of a decade. So the MetroRapid system (which should be re-purposed and re-branded as a precursor to rail) will be operating for several years, anyway, before even construction gets under way. Austin could argue that amortization of fixed facilities (and the “BRT” system) should be accounted for in any reimbursement demanded by FTA.

So how is any of the above a real impediment to installing urban rail properly in the right corridor, i.e., the one which should logically continue to be the city’s highest-priority corridor? The contention that the MetroRapid project represents some kind of insurmountable barrier to moving ahead with urban rail in the G-L corridor seems implausible to the point of absurdity.

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)

This posting has been revised since originally published. It originally reported that “a major Washington lobbyist, hired by the City of Austin” had been “brought to a meeting of the Transit Working Group (TWG) in May 2012….” The lobbyist actually presented his remarks to a work session of the Austin City Council.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Bus rapid transit (BRT), Bus upgraded transit (BUT), Light rail transit (LRT), Lyndon Henry's postings, MetroRapid bus service, Transit priority lanes, Urban Rail | 10 Comments »

Petition — “I want to ride LIGHT RAIL on Guadalupe/North Lamar!”

18 October 2013

TAPT plan (left) and CACDC plan (right) both propose Guadalupe-Lamar as the major focus of Austin’s Phase 1 urban rail starter line.

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Take your pick — the Texas Association for Public Transportation (TAPT) plan, or the Central Austin Community Development Corporation plan — or maybe even another plan for Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L)! — but be sure to sign the CACDC’s petition telling the Austin City Council and involved public transportation agencies you want a light rail transit (LRT) line on the G-L corridor where it belongs!

Wording:

Petitioning The Austin City Council, the boards of Capital Metro, Lone Star Rail, and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, and the Federal Transit Administration.

I want to ride LIGHT RAIL on Guadalupe/North Lamar!

Petition by Central Austin Community Development Corporation

Add your (digital) signature here:

https://www.change.org/petitions/i-want-to-ride-light-rail-on-guadalupe-north-lamar#share

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, light rail transit, urban rail | Leave a Comment »

Here’s what a real public meeting on rail transit looks like … in San Antonio

18 October 2013

Kyle Keahey, Project Connect’s Urban Rail Lead and a consultant to San Antonio’s VIA Metropolitan Transit, speaks during a VIA public meeting discussing San Antonio’s modern streetcar plans this past July.

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As this blog has been reporting, despite promises and assurances to local community leaders and activists who’ve been asking for bona fide public meetings to discuss local urban rail planning, Project Connect can’t seem to make one happen. Instead of real meetings, the Austin community has been offered “open houses”, which we’ve compared to “art galleries”, where people can walk through a room of “pretty pictures” (maps, charts, renderings, etc.), supposedly admiring and considering them and submitting comments or questions to the “guards” (planning personnel standing around). See: Back to “art galleries”! Project Connect reneges on community meetings and Meetings, “open houses”, workshops … and democratic process.

But while urban planners here in Austin haven’t been able to pull together a true public meeting, San Antonio has been holding real meetings — such as the one shown in the photo at the top of this post. And Kyle Keahey, Project Connect’s Urban Rail Lead, is also the lead rail planning consultant to San Antonio’s VIA Metropolitan Transit — and there he is, speaking to a San Antonio community meeting on urban rail!

San Antonio streetcar simulation. Graphic: VIA, from Rivard Report.

This was a meeting sponsored by VIA on 30 July 2013 at San Antonio’s Temple Beth-El to discuss the agency’s downtown modern streetcar project. According to a July 31st report in the San Antonio Express-News, “VIA officials gave more details about the possible streetcar routes, including two new ones ….” As the report noted, the two additional route alternatives “resulted from input from many directions — stakeholders along the route, movers-and-shakers and comment sheets from everyday citizens.” The paper also quotes VIA’s chief development officer’s assurance that “The process is to provide public input.”

And, in contrast to Austin, what has San Antonio got going for it — other than a far more realistic timeframe for decisionmaking, and an authentic official commitment to encouraging community participation?

Posted in Light rail transit (LRT), Public involvement process, Urban Rail | Tagged Austin Texas, light rail transit, public involvement, san antonio, streetcar | 1 Comment »

No urban rail on Guadalupe-Lamar? Then get ready for bus lanes…

18 October 2013

Ottawa’s “BRT” Transitway delivers a “conga line” of buses onto urban streets. Photo: Errol McGhion.

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by Dave Dobbs and Lyndon Henry

Which kind of transit — urban rail or buses in special lanes — do you want to see on Guadalupe-Lamar?

Not to decide is to decide.

It’s crucial that Austin’s first urban rail (starter) line be a whopping success. This means it must serve the heart of the city in its heaviest-traffic corridor, with its highest densities and employee and employment concentrations, and its most long-established neighborhoods. The Guadalupe-Lamar corridor offers the ideal alignment for an affordable, cost-effective surface light rail alignment.

It’s also important to understand that if we don’t get light rail transit (LRT) on Guadalupe and North Lamar, we most certainly will get dedicated bus lanes within the next 10 years. A major project to overhaul the corridor by installing infrastructure for battalions of MetroRapid buses is waiting in the wings if urban rail is not implemented. This alternative, not requiring a public vote, would produce a far less efficient, adequate, and attractive system, seriously degrade urban conditions, and result in a less livable environment compared with urban rail.

This package of so-called “Bus Rapid Transit” (“BRT”) projects — whereby MetroRapid buses would enter stretches of dedicated bus lanes, and then merge back and forth, into and out of mixed general traffic — was first raised publicly in a Project Connect/City of Austin Transportation Department presentation made in City Council chambers on 25 May 2012 to the CAMPO Transit Working Group (TWG). Shown below is page 10 of that presentation, with arrows pointing to the relevant information.

Excerpt from Project Connect presentation in May 2012 indicating planned $500 million package for MetroRapid “BRT” facilities, including Guadalupe-Lamar. Graphic: Project Connect.

These dedicated lanes will be built with 80% federal money, will not require an election, will be vetted publicly only at art gallery-style “open houses”, and approved by boards and commissions, the Capital Metro Board, and the Austin City Council, and then they will be built, unless we implement urban rail in the Guadalupe-North Lamar corridor. And keep in mind that — unlike the current minimalist MetroRapid project — this level of hefty physical investment in roadway infrastructure will become a de facto obstacle to any future rail project in the corridor.

These dedicated bus lanes are the official plan as things currently stand.

There are numerous drawbacks with premium buses, and even “BRT”, compared with LRT. Just to cite a couple:

• LRT on average is significantly more cost-effective than bus operations.

• Buses don’t attract nearly as much ridership as LRT, but as ridership starts to reach higher volumes, bus traffic and overwhelming “conga lines” of buses cause more problems … plus more queues of riders start to slow operations.

Another bus "conga line" leaving downtown Brisbane, Australia to enter busway.

Brisbane, Australia: More “conga lines” of buses travel on reserved lanes between the city’s downtown and a busway. Photo: James Saunders.

If you would prefer urban rail instead of a major bus lane project in Guadalupe-Lamar, it’s essential to speak up and act. Let neighborhood groups and other community organizations know what official plans have in store for this corridor. Sign petitions being circulated to support urban rail on G-L. Communicate to Project Connect and members of Austin City Council that you want to ride urban rail on Guadalupe-Lamar, running in reserved tracks, not just a souped-up bus service weaving in and out of special lanes.

Houston's MetroRail demonstrates that LRT can attract and carry more passengers faster, more effectitly and safely, more cost-effectively than high-capacity bus operations. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

Houston’s MetroRail demonstrates that LRT can attract and carry more passengers faster, more effectively and safely, and more cost-effectively than high-capacity bus operations. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Bus rapid transit (BRT), Bus upgraded transit (BUT), Dave Dobbs's postings, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Lyndon Henry's postings, MetroRapid bus service, Transit priority lanes, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, bus rapid transit, bus upgraded transit, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, metrorapid bus, Project Connect, reserved lanes, Urban rail transit | 6 Comments »

Amsterdam’s Leidsestraat shows how interlaced (gauntlet) track can help squeeze light rail into a narrow alignment

13 October 2013

Amsterdam’s Leidsestraat shows how gauntlet track allows bidrectional light rail operation in a very narrow alignment, even with very close headways. Also remarkable is how smoothly, efficiently, peacefully, and safely the tram line blends in with, complements, and serves all the pedestrians who walk alongside, behind, and even in front of the trams. Photo: Roeland Koning .

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by Dave Dobbs

In the recent posting How urban rail can be installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor (Oct. 10th), Lyndon Henry discussed how urban rail in the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor could deal with right-of-way constraints. For especially confined, narrow stretches, Lyndon suggested that interlaced, or gauntlet, track was an option.

Basically, gauntlet track works like a single-track section, but it doesn’t require movable switchpoints. Instead, it’s completely stationary, with one track in one direction overlapping, or interlacing, with the track in the opposite direction. Then, when the right-of-way becomes wider, the two tracks divide back into separate tracks in each direction again.

To expand on what Lyndon has explained about dealing with constrained rights-of-way (ROW) and the use of interlaced or gauntlet track, probably it’s helpful to focus on perhaps the most famous example — the Leidsestraat, a very narrow street in Amsterdam. This is a city filled with trams (aka streetcars, light rail).

Two views of the Leidsestraat. LEFT: A #1 tram, heading away from camera, has just left the interlaced section onto double track, passing a #5 tram headed toward the camera and the interlaced section. (Photo: Stefan Baguette) RIGHT: You can see the steady stream of trams, sometimes just a couple of minutes apart, passing the heavy flows of pedestrians on each side. (Photo: Mauritsvink)

In Europe, the tramway is basically surface electric urban rail (light rail transit) that can adapt like a chameleon — it is what it is, wherever it is. Flexibility is its trademark and it’s designed to fit within a budget.

The Leidsestraat is about a third of a mile long in the center of the city and is home to three GVB (transit agency) tram lines running bi-directionally two to three minutes apart (see map below). Trams run constantly back and forth, sharing the gauntlet (interlaced) sections one at a time, and passing one another where the tracks branch out into double-tracked sections, where the street appears to be less than 40 feet (12-13 meters) wide.

Leidsestraat alignment runs about 500 meters (0.31 mile) in length, passing over several canals. Map: Dave Dobbs (from Google Maps).

Light rail operation in the Leidsestraat is even more remarkable when you consider that it’s one of the busiest autofree streets in the world, teeming with pedestrians and bicyclists (as you can tell from the photos). Motor vehicles are allowed very limited access to serve retail stores, restaurants, and other businesses. Besides how well gauntlet track works with relatively close headways, allowing light rail trains to access this extremely narrow urban street, is how smoothly, efficiently, peacefully, and safely it blends in with, complements, and serves all the pedestrians who walk alongside, behind, and even in front of the trams.

The following are some additional photos of light rail tramway operation along this alignment

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Another photo showing crowds of pedestrians, an approaching tram, and a clearview of a transition from double-track to interlaced track. (Photo: Marc Sonnen.)

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Focus on interlaced track construction in the Leidsestraat. Notice how the two tracks Notice how the two tracks virtually merge to form what almost seems like a single track — but there are separate parallel rails for each direction, laid next to each other. Also, only one rail in each direction actually cross each other (this type of passive, stationary rail crossing is called a frog).

Focus on interlaced track construction in the Leidsestraat. Notice how the two tracks virtually merge to form what almost seems like a single track — but there are separate parallel rails for each direction, laid next to each other. Also, only one rail in each direction actually crosses the other (this type of passive, stationary rail crossing is called a frog). Photo: Revo Arka Giri Soekatno

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Interlaced track is also used in other narrow locations, some shared with motor vehicle traffic. Here a Route 10 tram leaves the interlaced track over the Hoge Sluis bridge, as an autombile waits to proceed over the same right-of-way. (Photo by TobyJ, via Wikipedia.)

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Here’s an excellent 2-minute video showing trams operating in both directions into and out of one of the interlaced sections through the Leidsestraat.

Original YouTube URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv9Vgo_W0HU

For further information, this link to Wikipedia’s article on Trams in Amsterdam may be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Amsterdam

Special thanks to Roeland Koning and his Studio Koning photography service for his kind permission to use his photo of the Leidsestraat at the top of this posting. Visit his website at:

http://www.studiokoning.nl

Posted in Amsterdam, Dave Dobbs's postings, European examples, Light rail transit (LRT), Transit-pedestrian malls, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, amsterdam, Austin Texas, Drag, Guadalupe, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, pedestrians, reserved lanes, streetcar, urban rail, Urban rail transit | 6 Comments »

UT Student Government backs West Campus, Guadalupe-Lamar route for first phase of urban rail

12 October 2013

West Campus neighborhood is area in light green just to west (left) of the Drag (Guadalupe, vertical white line just to right of center). UT campus shown in orange. Map: The Galileo, rev. by ARN.

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The effort to reset Austin’s urban rail planning focus onto the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor got a huge boost on October 1st with the University of Texas Student Government’s passage of a resolution endorsing a West Campus and Guadalupe-Lamar corridor alignment for the Phase 1 starter line of urban rail — thus implicitly rejecting the officially proposed East Campus alignment and route out to the Mueller redevelopment site.

Designated as AR 15, the resolution contains a number of “Whereas” clauses, with meticulous documentation of the facts and arguments underpinning the basic decisions. For example, the resolution notes that

…Future-use plans for neighborhoods that include significant student populations, including the Brentwood/Highland Combined Neighborhood Plan , the North Loop Neighborhood Plan, Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan, and Hyde Park Neighborhood Plan support urban rail and stations along the proposed Guadalupe-Lamar alignment; and,

… there has been over $30 million worth of studies that have looked at the feasibility of light rail transit along the Guadalupe-Lamar Corridor since the 1970s; and,

… A 2011 study at the University of California-Berkeley found that “light-rail systems need around 30 people per gross acre around stations and heavy rail systems need 50 percent higher densities than this to place them in the top one-quarter of cost-effective rail investments in the U.S.” and “the ridership gains from such increases…showed, would be substantial, especially when jobs are concentrated within ¼ mile of a station and housing within a half mile”; and,

… the largest concentration of students living off campus, West Campus, is the third-densest population district in the state of Texas with a density of over 25,000 people per square mile; and,

… a large majority of the student population along with a vast majority the Central Austin population lives along the proposed Guadalupe-Lamar alignment, totaling over 54,000 people within a quarter-mile to proposed stations ….

On the basis of this evidentiary background, declares the resolution,

BE IT RESOLVED, That the Student Government of the University of Texas at Austin is in full support of the first phase of light rail running through the Guadalupe-Lamar Sub-Corridor; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That Student Government will support any proposed urban rail line that prioritizes transportation access to where students are currently living….

The full resolution can be accessed as a DOC file:

UT-Stu-Govt_AR 15 – In Support of The Guadalupe-Lamar SubCorridor as Phase I of Austin Urban Rail

Certainly, if this vote by UT’s Student Government is any guide, the majority of UT students want an urban rail route to serve the West Campus, where they can most effectively use it.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Community endorsements, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, Light rail transit (LRT), Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, Drag, Guadalupe, Lamar-Guadalupe, Light rail, light rail transit, student government, university of texas | 1 Comment »

Strasbourg’s tram-pedestrian mall: How “transit priority” and “pedestrian-friendly” are blended in Europe

11 October 2013

As evening approaches, a tram glides through Strasbourg’s Place Kléber as pedestrians stroll along the other track. Photo: Franz Roski.

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Since urban rail supporters been discussing possible alignment designs for the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor, the need for transit-priority lanes, and other issues, it might be helpful and interesting to observe how Europeans address this issue — typically, by converting entire streets to transit-pedestrian malls.

In this case, these recent photos (taken late in the day on 25 Sep. 2013 and posted to the online Eurotrams list by Franz A. Roski) show the transit-pedestrian mall in the French city of Strasbourg.

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An A-Line tram approaches Homme de Fer (Iron Man) station as pedestrians stroll alongside the open track. Photo: Franz Roski.

An A-Line tram arrives at Homme de Fer station as a D-Line tram for the opposite direction waits at the in the opposite platform. Photo: Franz Roski.

Major crossing of different tram routes near Homme de Fer. Photo: Franz Roski.

Another view of the tram line crossing near Homme de Fer — trams coming, going, and crossing! Photo: Franz Roski.

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• Notice the crowds — street capacity for motor vehicles is gone … but look at all the people that have come there, mostly by transit. Where would they park all their cars, anyway?

• Notice the safety issue — pedestrians comfortably, safely walking around, next to, in back of, even in front the light rail trams.

• Notice the tram traffic — trams coming and going, trams crossing the tracks of other tram lines …

Food for thought.

Posted in European examples, Light rail transit (LRT), Transit priority lanes, Transit-pedestrian malls, Urban Rail | Tagged light rail transit, pedestrians, Strasbourg, urban rail, Urban rail transit | 2 Comments »

How urban rail can be installed in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor

10 October 2013

Except for the the somewhat clunkier styling of the railcars, this 2000 simulation of what light rail transit might look like on the Drag is not that different from one of the options today. Graphic: Light Rail Now collection.

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by Lyndon Henry

Some supporters of the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor for Austin’s urban rail starter line have been seeking details about how urban rail (i.e., light rail transit, or LRT) would be installed in these thoroughfares — running in mixed traffic, in reserved lanes, or how? At about the same time, proponents of the Official (aka City of Austin-Capital Metro) proposal for an urban rail line from downtown to Mueller have recently begun raising the issue of right-of-way (ROW) constraints in this same G-L corridor.

It’s important to keep in mind that the Mueller proposal itself has its own ROW constraints and other challenges, but I think it would be helpful here to address some of the issues in the G-L corridor. One of the reasons for this is that I’m not convinced that all parties in the Project Connect team will necessarily make a good-faith effort to find a truly workable, affordable design for inserting urban rail into the G-L thoroughfare alignments — and advocates need to be prepared to insist that valid (and proven) alternatives be examined.

The basic idea is for urban rail (light rail transit, LRT) to operate totally, or almost entirely, in its own lanes. This would require some reconstruction of Lamar Blvd. and probably Guadalupe St. in sections, including slight narrowing of existing lanes, elimination of the turning (“chicken”) lane and replacement with transit-integrated traffic controls (such as left turn lanes), and other measures. Light rail systems in places like Portland, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, etc. are models for this.

Having crossed intersection, Houston LRT train accesses station on Fannin St. as traffic control system allows queue of motor vehicles to make left turn over track reservation behind it. Photo: Peter Ehrlich.

Also keep in mind that Project Connect’s longer-range plan for buses on Lamar-Guadalupe is to install tens of millions of dollars’ worth of reserved lanes — so official planners are already prepared to bite a bullet on this basic issue. What advocates of urban rail in the G-L corridor are saying is that it makes a lot more sense to install reserved lanes for rail rather than buses.

It’s possible that there might be a short section of LRT in mixed traffic (one or both tracks). Sacramento’s LRT operates with this kind of compromise (for about a mile along 12th St., approaching the city’s downtown from the northwest), and has done so for the past 26 years — see Advantages of Light Rail in Street Alignments.
https://austinrailnow.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/advantages-of-light-rail-in-street-alignments/

Sacramento’s LRT shares one lane with traffic along 12th St.

There’s a very narrow section on the Drag (especially in the 24th-29th St. area) that might require, totally or partially, something like an interlaced (“gauntlet”) track (i.e., two tracks overlapping each other). This would operate effectively like a single-track section but could be fitted into 5-minute headways and possible shorter. (In Amsterdam, interlaced track is even used with 2-minute headways. More on this rail design configuration in a subsequent posting.)

Further downtown, south of MLK Blvd., it would be logical for the double-track line on Guadalupe to split into two single-track lines — southbound on Guadalupe, northbound on Lavaca St. However, it’s likely that LRT would need its own priority lanes in these streets.

Here’s why: The “Transit Priority Lanes” now being installed on the Lavaca and Guadalupe street pair already seem to present major problems for MetroRapid bus, much less LRT. The reason: Official plans involve inserting MetroRapid into a single lane each way along with well over two dozen bus routes. The City’s own 2011 study of this warned that delays to transit might result. And that’s even before urban rail comes along.

It seems eminently reasonable that LRT would need its own reserved lanes on the opposite side of each street (Lavaca and Guadalupe) from the bus lanes. It’s possible that urban rail could perhaps share lane use with MetroRapid, but not with all those other routes.

Since MetroRapid buses can operate only on the righthand side of the street, these buses (with righthand-side doors) couldn’t share a “lefthand” lane with urban rail on the opposite side of each street. So the solution seems to come down to reserving an additional lane exclusively for urban rail on each street.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Lyndon Henry's postings, Transit priority lanes, Urban Rail | Tagged Austin Texas, Guadalupe, Lamar-Guadalupe, Light rail, LRT, Urban rail transit | 1 Comment »

Portland — Light rail in East Burnside Street

9 October 2013

Light rail train in East Burnside St. approaches intersection and station at NE 181st. Ave. Photo: Adam Benjamin.

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How might an urban rail line — in the form of light rail transit (LRT) — be fitted into four-lane roadways like North Lamar Blvd. and Guadalupe St.?

First, inserting any kind of transit-priority lanes (with or without tracks) requires tradeoffs, including an acceptance of the principle that public transport provides more mobility potential — and people-moving capacity — in the longer term, and needs to be emphasized.

Basically, Austin needs to start making realistic, sensible choices to expedite public transit over general motor vehicle traffic. Officials need to start replacing abstract platitudes about the “importance of alternative mobility” with action. This will require, one way or another, shifting more and more priority to transit.

Second, it’s crucial to keep in mind that there’s a fairly wide variety of options for addressing routing and design issues. Even fairly good consultants aren’t necessarily aware of all of them. There’s no “one and final answer” — community activists need to examine the assumptions and the design alternatives, and have an opportunity to input new ones and have them seriously considered.

Portland, Oregon’s MAX LRT system — operated by the TriMet regional transit agency and generally considered one of the finest models for surface urban rail in the USA — offers a useful example of how LRT can be workably and efficiently inserted into a four-lane roadway. Since 1986, MAX’s Blue Line (the original line that is routed east from downtown Portland to the suburb of Gresham) has run in the middle of East Burnside St. for most of its outer section to Gresham. The following photo-overview gives an idea of design details.

LRT train in E. Burnside St. crossing major arterial

Photo: Peter Ehrlich

The photo above shows a one-car MAX LRT train in East Burnside St. after it has just crossed a major intersection with SE Stark. TriMet did not feel it necessary to build expensive grade separations at such intersections.

Also notice that the LRT line in this case is installed with ballasted, not paved, track. This is cheaper (in both capital cost and ongoing maintenance) than paving embedded track, and also discourages incursions by both motor vehicles and pedestrians, thus enhancing safety.

Aerial view of East Burnside LRT alignment

Photo: Google Maps screen capture by L. Henry

The aerial view above shows a segment of East Burnside running east-west (from left to right in middle of photo), with the MAX LRT as a brown strip (because of the ballasted track). Here the Burnside LRT alignment crosses NE 181st Ave., a major arterial running north and south and the location of a major station-stop.

Notice how the LRT alignment is relatively narrow (far left and right in photo) but widens somewhat nearing the intersection and each station facility — to allow space for extra turning lanes and the station platforms. Also note how the stations are staggered on each side of the intersection so as to absorb the minimum of right-of-way width. Traffic engineers offset both tracks and traffic lanes slightly, and may add additional right-of-way, to maintain road capacity and even install the narrow turning lanes.

Also, it’s worth noting that, even on this major busy arterial, TriMet saw no need for a grade separation.

LRT alignment showing track and lane offset

Photo: Peter Ehrlich

In the photo above, with a train approaching an intersection, you can see that the LRT track has gradually been offset to the right (from the alignment further back in the distance), and the road has been slightly widened, with a turning lane inserted.

Train passing station

Photo: Adam Benjamin

In the photo above a train on the opposite track passes the East 102nd Ave. station. Even with a platform width of only 10-12 feet, LRT stations have sufficient space for TVMs (ticket vending machines), a shelter, waiting bench, and other amenities.

Aerial view showing LRT line, intersection, stations

Photo: Google Maps screen capture by L. Henry

In this closer view of the intersection and stations at NE 188 Ave. you can see each of the two station platforms, offset on each side of the intersection. The beige color of each platform contrasts with the brown of the track alignment, and the green-tinted roof of each platform’s waiting shelter can be seen.

Also note the configuration of left-turning lanes. Motor vehicles queue up in these lanes, waiting their special signal to make a turn across the tracks. LRT train operation interfaces with the traffic signal system, and trains have their own special signals.

Train entering intersection, approaching station

Photo: L. Henry

Here a train passes a station on the other track as it enters the 181st Ave. intersection, approaching the waiting platform for its direction on the other side. On the opposite side of the street, next to the tracks, you can see a car is waiting to make a left turn.

Posted in Design and cost issues, Light rail transit (LRT), Portland, Transit priority lanes, Uncategorized, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, light rail transit, portland, reserved lanes, urban rail | Leave a Comment »

Back to “art galleries”! Project Connect reneges on community meetings

25 September 2013

Community meeting (left) vs. art gallery (right)

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In our article of Sep. 17th, If you support urban rail for Guadalupe-Lamar, attend these community meetings! Austin Rail Now reported that

… Project Connect has scheduled some upcoming meetings (and a “webinar”) between Sep. 4th and Oct. 2nd (details below) that seem to offer a bona fide opportunity for the public to meet in a community fashion, both discussing the issues and interacting with one another.

Unfortunately, the prospect of bona fide public meetings “for the public to meet in a community fashion, both discussing the issues and interacting with one another” no longer seems valid.

In a sudden reversal — and what appears to be a breach of trust and a breach of a de facto agreement with many in the Austin community — Project Connect has abruptly stopped describing the forthcoming Urban Rail Central Corridor public involvement events as meetings, and instead is now promoting them as so-called “Open Houses”.

The Sep. 23rd edition of the Austin Mobility Go! Email newsletter from the City of Austin’s Transportation Department now describes the activities this week as “open houses”, not meetings. This was confirmed in Email comments from Capital Metro/Project Connect community outreach specialist John-Michael Cortez:

It is labeled as an Open House because that connotes that people are free to show up at any time, unlike a public meeting or workshop, which usually has a set agenda and starting time, thus limiting full participation to those who are able to show up at the start of the meeting. These meetings will be more of a hybrid open house/workshop. Participants can come at whatever time they choose and be able to see exhibits and speak directly to agency staff to have their questions answered, and formal input will be gathered through questionnaires and encouraging participants to draw and make comments on sub-corridor maps.

This is a crucial point, and one that many community activists involved with the urban rail planning process thought had been settled — in favor of community meetings.

Meetings are fundamental to truly democratic process. They allow for community interactive input, i.e. community discussion along with the project personnel. They bring members of the entire community together, allow them to hear ideas and views from one another, allow them to interact on the public record (or at least with public witnesses) with officials present, force official representatives to deal with and respond to difficult questions and issues, and allow officials and participants to get a sense of community attitudes expressed in a community manner. One person’s question or comment may give ideas or motivation to other participants.

This community interactivity is lost in the individual, one-on-one format of “Open Houses”, which have no set agenda, no community public speaking, and involve agency personnel displaying graphics of their pre-determined plans and chatting individually with the occasional community members that might attend the event. Transportation consultant Lyndon Henry (an Austin Rail Now contributor) has compared these events to wandering through an art gallery, with the chance to chat individually with the gallery guards (agency personnel). There’s no opportunity for real interactive community involvement.

In the view of local Austin researcher and transportation activist Roger Baker,

The major problem I see is that while Open Houses usually have lots of big impressive maps, these meetings commonly tend to evolve toward little unstructured conversation clusters, with an official at their center, near a map, and with others standing around, trying to hear, waiting to ask their own questions. Every citizen can come in and ask the same question as those who came earlier, and these exchanges are essentially rambling private discussions that tend to go on and on without clearly answering certain important policy questions. Usually there is no record of the questions asked, nor the responses given. These events tend to become a succession of unrecorded one to one exchanges.

In a comprehensive explanation and analysis of public involvement, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) explains that

Meetings provide a time and place for face-to-face contact and two-way communication-dynamic components of public involvement that help break down barriers between people and the agencies that serve them. Through meetings, people learn that an agency is not a faceless, uncaring bureaucracy and that the individuals in charge are real people. Meetings give agencies a chance to respond directly to comments and dispel rumors or misinformation.

Far from being passive gatherings, meetings are interactive occasions when people discuss issues of consequence to them and their neighbors, listen to opposing viewpoints on the issues, and work together for the common good. Agency staff people who handle public meetings need to be trained in skills that encourage interaction and also keep the process focused and productive.

In contrast, says FHWA,

An open house is an informal setting in which people get information about a plan or project. It has no set, formal agenda. Unlike a meeting, no formal discussions and presentations take place, and there are no audience seats. Instead, people get information informally from exhibits and staff and are encouraged to give opinions, comments, and preferences to staff either orally or in writing.

Is the planning and decisionmaking process really that important to the kind of plan that emerges? You bet it is.

Vigorous, authentic community involvement is absolutely critical, particularly in injecting new ideas and perspectives, raising special concerns, scrutinizing and evaluating official approaches and decisions, safeguarding the project from the influence of special interests and extraneous political issues, and generally keeping the official planners and decisionmakers “honest”.

Furthermore, voters are far more inclined to support ballot measures for major rail projects if they have a sense of ownership through opportunities for bona fide participation in the process.

Project Connect’s seemingly abrupt decision to downgrade the format of these public events from meetings to “art galleries” (“open houses”) suggests more of a desire to minimize, or squelch, rather than maximize, public involvement and dialogue in the urban rail planning process. This would also appear corroborated by Project Connect’s rather puzzling lack of publicity for these public events.

As Lyndon Henry recently warned, in comments Emailed to a list of community transportation activists,

The consistent and steady pattern by local public agencies (particularly involved in public transportation issues) of degrading the bona fide democratic public participation process over the past period has been alarming, and I did speak out about this when I worked at Capital Metro. Individual chats between individual community members and official personnel do not represent a democratic process of community participation, and I’ve personally seen the level of such participation decline significantly over the past couple of decades. It’s very troubling to see this same policy now being carried forward and rationalized despite assurances made otherwise.

Despite these efforts by Project Connect to discourage public participation, Austin Rail Now continues to urge supporters of a Phase 1 urban rail starter line in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor to attend these events and vigorously express their views.

Posted in Light rail transit (LRT), Public involvement process, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin, coa plan, community meeting, light rail transit, open house, Project Connect, public involvement, urban rail | Leave a Comment »

How Portland’s light rail trains and buses share a transit mall

19 September 2013

LRT train on Portland’s 5th Ave. transit mall swings to the curbside station to pick up waiting passengers. Photo: L. Henry.

♦

Capital Metro and the City of Austin have a project under way to designate “Transit Priority Lanes” on Guadalupe and Lavaca Streets downtown between Cesar Chavez St. and MLK Jr. Blvd. It’s mainly to expedite operation of the planned new MetroRapid bus services (Routes 801 and 803), but virtually all bus routes running through downtown will also be shifted to these lanes, located on the far-righthand side of traffic on each street (i.e., the righthand curbside lanes).

According to a 2011 study funded by the City of Austin, the Official (City + Project Connect) Urban Rail route is also envisioned to use these lanes downtown. Alternatives to the Official plan have also assumed that these routes would be available for alternative urban rail lines serving the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor.

However, there are legitimate questions as to whether these two lanes could simultaneously and effectively accommodate the two MetroRapid bus routes (10-minute headways each) plus all other Capital Metro routes (various headways) as well as urban rail (10-minute headway), all running in both directions.

Experience with both light rail transit (LRT) trains and buses sharing the same running way is rare in the USA, but one of the best examples can be seen in Portland, Oregon. For years, 5th and 6th Avenues through the downtown have been used by multiple bus routes as a transit mall, with a single lane provided for general motor vehicle access. In September 2009 LRT was added with the opening of the new Green Line; see: Portland: New Green Line Light Rail Extension Opens.

The integration of LRT with bus service in the 5th and 6th Avenue transit malls has worked well. Here’s a brief photo-summary illustrating some of the configurational and operational details.

• Buses and LRT trains share transitway

This illustrates how both bus services and LRT trains share the mall. Tracks, embedded in the pavement, weave from curbside to the second lane over. A third lane is kept open for mixed motor vehicle traffic.

Portland 5th Ave. transit mall. Photo: Dave Dobbs.

• LRT routes cross

This photo shows how the Green and Yellow LRT lines on the 5th Ave. transit mall cross the Red and Blue LRT lines running on 5th St. You’re looking north on 5th Ave., and just across the tracks in the foreground, the LRT tracks on 5th Ave. weave from the middle of the street over to the curbside, where a station-stop is located. This allows LRT trains to access stations but otherwise pass buses stopped at bus stops on the same street.

Portland 5th Ave. transit mall. Photo: L. Henry.

• LRT train leaving station

Here an LRT train has just left the curbside station, following the tracks into the middle lane of the street. This track configuration allows the train to pass a bus boarding passengers at a stop.

Portland 5th Ave. transit mall. Photo: Dave Dobbs.

• LRT train passing bus

Another train moves to the street center lane and passes the bus stop. Meanwhile, other buses queue up at the street behind.

Portland 5th Ave. transit mall. Photo: Dave Dobbs.

• Bus bunching

Buses are prone to “bus bunching” (queuing) in high-volume situations because of their smaller capacity, slower operation, slower passenger boarding/deboarding, difficulty adhering to schedule, etc. However, notice how they’re channeled to queue up in a lane off the LRT track.

Portland 5th Ave. transit mall. Photo: L. Henry.

Can and will Austin and Project Connect planners learn anything about how to create workable Transit Priority Lanes from examples like this? Time will tell…

Posted in Light rail transit (LRT), Portland, Transit priority lanes, Urban Rail | Tagged light rail transit, metrorapid bus, reserved lanes, urban rail | 2 Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Urban Rail’ Category

Tilting the playing field

Data flaw: Garbage In, Garbage Out

“Beauty contest”, not corridor analysis

Botched analysis

What’s a travel corridor, anyway?

ProCon’s “sub-corridors” = isolated enclaves

Catastrophic methodological fault

Project Connect’s deformed “study”

Central study area view

Guadalupe-Lamar focus

Conclusion

Map Books rife with data problems

Map Book errors go uncorrected

New error problems with Map Book 4

Summary

Photo-essay: Houston MetroRail

Main St. alignment

Double-track to single tracks on Fannin-San Jacinto

Double-track alignment in Fannin and Braeswood

Conclusion

LRT train in E. Burnside St. crossing major arterial

Aerial view of East Burnside LRT alignment

LRT alignment showing track and lane offset

Train passing station

Aerial view showing LRT line, intersection, stations

Train entering intersection, approaching station

• Buses and LRT trains share transitway

• LRT routes cross

• LRT train leaving station

• LRT train passing bus

• Bus bunching

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