_______________Austin Rail Now

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

3 November 2013

Central Austin Combined Planning Area. Map: CANPAC.

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On October 21st, the effort to designate the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor as the preferred route for urban rail (light rail transit, LRT) received a powerful boost with the endorsement of the Central Austin Combined Neighborhoods Planning Team (known as CANPAC), designated by the City of Austin to serve as the official neighborhood plan contact team for the Central Austin Combined Planning Area, involving seven major neighborhood associations:

West University Neighborhood Association
Hancock Neighborhood Association
Eastwoods Neighborhood Association
North University Neighborhood Association
Shoal Crest Neighborhood Association
Heritage Neighborhood Association
University Area Partners

These neighborhood associations are among the longest-established and most influential in the city.

The endorsement also emphasized that, unlike the G-L corridor, Red River St. — a link in the proposed semi-official route between downtown and the Mueller redevelopment site — lacks the projected future density necessary to adequately support light rail service. In contrast, density is considerably higher along the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor, especially in the West Campus neighborhood, which ranks variously as either the third or fourth-highest density residential area of major Texas cities.

CANPAC also notes that it is commissioned both by City ordinance and its own bylaws to implement Ordinance No. 040826-56, the Central Austin Combined Plan.

As CANPAC reported in an October 29th memo to Austin Mayor Lee Leffinwell, on October 21st the Central Austin Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee passed the following resolution:

The Plan Team for the Central Austin Combined Neighborhoods Planning Area (CANPAC) has reviewed the two routes under consideration for the proposed light rail system through Central Austin, both of which pass through our combined planning area. We urge that placement of the routes be made where density already exists, along the Guadalupe-Lamar Corridor, as stated in our 2004 Central Austin Combined Neighborhoods Plan, and not along Red River, which is a residential area not projected for future density adequate to support light rail.

Image of memo conveying G-L endorsement from CANPAC to Austin Mayor Leffingwell.

This is an extremely important endorsement of central Austin’s most important potential corridor for urban rail, and G-L supporters are strongly urged to convey news of this and other major endorsements to the Austin City Council and other important political and civic leaders.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Community endorsements, Guadalupe-Lamar corridor | Tagged alternative plan, Austin Texas, demographics, Lamar-Guadalupe, light rail transit, urban rail | 1 Comment »

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 »

Meetings, “open houses”, workshops … and democratic process

1 October 2013

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In ARN’s previous blog entry, Back to “art galleries”! Project Connect reneges on community meetings, we noted that “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 (the current ongoing rail planning consortium) had abruptly changed its forthcoming Urban Rail Central Corridor public involvement events from meetings into so-called “Open Houses”.

Our commentary went on to point out that

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.

It should be noted that Project Connect is also deploying other means of communication with the public, in addition to “open house” events — a webinar was held this past Friday, and project staff are also considering workshop-style small-group activities. Plus the team are outreaching through individual meetings with various community groups.

However, while these are worthy activities, they still don’t substitute for the fully democratic process inherent in full, multi-group, diverse community meetings. To repeat our previous observations: Community meetings enable community interactive input; 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.”

Project Connect, the City of Austin, Capital Metro, and other public agencies have a crucial responsibility to facilitate these kinds of cross-community, cross-demographic, cross-organizational, fully diverse, fully democratic public meetings. So far, they seem to be trying to avoid them like the flu.

Austin Rail Now will continue to support efforts to reinstate the truly democratic public meeting process as Project Connect moves forward with its planning activities.

Posted in Public involvement process | Tagged community meeting, open house, Project Connect, public involvement | 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 »

Why MetroRapid bus service is NOT “bus rapid transit”

22 September 2013

Capital Metro MetroRapid bus. Photo: CMTA blog.

♦

Capital Metro’s MetroRapid bus project received its $38 million of Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding through its designation as a “Bus Rapid Transit” project under the FTA’s Small Starts program. But calling a bus operation “rapid transit” that will run predominantly in mixed motor vehicle traffic seems either rather fraudulent, self-deceptive, or a branding effort that has descended to the ridiculous. Yet some local officials, planners, and enthusiasts of the officially promoted downtown-to-Mueller Urban Rail route have been vigorously singing the praises of MetroRapid as a viable and equivalent substitute for light rail transit (LRT) in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor.

Even LRT, which typically runs entirely or predominantly in reserved or exclusive alignments, and (for comparable levels of service) is faster than so-called “BRT”, isn’t called “rapid transit”.

The un-rapid drawbacks of CapMetro’s MetroRapid have been cited by other analyses. For example, Austin American-Statesman transportation reporter Ben Wear, in a February 2012 article titled MetroRapid bus service not so rapid, not expected until 2014, noted:

Despite an agency goal of offering time savings of 10 percent, in hopes of attracting more people to buses, the two lines would mostly offer minimal time savings, according to a Capital Metro presentation on the MetroRapid bus system, now scheduled to start operating in 2014.

In one case, a MetroRapid bus running from Howard Lane in North Austin to downtown would make the trip in 47 minutes — the same as an existing limited-stop bus that runs the same route. Trips between South Austin and downtown on that same line would offer time savings of just two to three minutes.

Community public transit activist Mike Dahmus, in a blog entry titled Rapid Bus Ain’t Rapid, 2011 Confirmation, provided schedule evidence from CapMetro’s own website indicating that travel time differentials between the proposed Route 801 service (North Lamar-Guadalupe-South Congress) for atypically long trip lengths were minimal — time savings of 0 to perhaps 3 minutes even for such unusually lengthy trips as journeys between far-flung transit centers.

And in another article titled Rapid [sic] Bus Fact Check: Will It Improve Frequency? Dahmus offered a cogent argument that headways (thus waiting times for passengers) would be increased, not decreased, with MetroRapid service in the Route 801 corridor. Assuming the most likely operating scenario, Dahmus figures the number of scheduled bus trips in an average hour would be reduced from 9 to 8 — i.e., an increase in service headways and concomitant increase in waiting time for passengers.

Wikipedia provides a useful definition/description of Rapid Transit:

A rapid transit system is a public transport system in an urban area with high capacity, high frequency not needing timetables, is fast and is segregated from other traffic…. Operating on an exclusive right of way, rapid transit systems are typically grade separated and located either in underground tunnels (subways) or elevated above street level (elevated transit line). … Modern services on rapid transit systems are provided on designated lines between stations typically using electric multiple units on rail tracks, although some systems use guided rubber tyres, magnetic levitation, or monorail.

Numbered citations were omitted from the quotation above, but the Wikipedia article’s references included:

• “Rapid transit”. Merriam-Webster.
• “Metro”. International Association of Public Transport.
• “Glossary of Transit Terminology”. American Public Transportation Association.
• “Rapid Transit”. Encyclopedia Britannica.

In the USA, the term “rail rapid transit” has a de facto meaning of such an urban electric metro or subway/elevated system, running entirely (with rare exceptions) on its own, exclusive right-of-way, with no grade crossings or other interference with street traffic or pedestrians.

It would seem reasonable that the public, political and civic leaders, and transportation professionals should hold “bus rapid transit” to the same standard. Certainly, “bus rapid transit” should not be applied to bus operations running merely in reserved traffic lanes, or in and out of mixed and reserved or exclusive lanes, etc. — yet these are precisely the kinds of operating applications that FTA, and several major BRT advocacy organizations, have been blithely characterizing as “BRT”.

To call a modestly enhanced bus operation “rapid transit” while denying this designation to a streetcar/light rail operation with much or most of its alignment in exclusive or reserved ROW seems like branding gone haywire — particularly so when the buses depart from the totally exclusive alignment and meander on routes in mixed traffic. Why should a bus coming down the street, waiting in traffic jams, etc., be called “rapid transit”? This would seem to make a mockery of the term.

In effect, the term Bus Rapid Transit is being applied to service/capacity mode configurations that are significantly inferior not just to Rail Rapid Transit but to Light Rail Transit — and that would seem highly misleading, especially to the general public. For these modestly improved bus services, a term such as Bus Premium Transit would appear more accurate and appropriate.

The section below provides a brief photo-summary distinguishing among bona fide rail rapid transit and bus rapid transit, and Bus Premium Transit operations erroneously (and widely) characterized as “BRT”.

♦ This is rail rapid transit (RRT)

Baltimore Metro. Photo: Doug Grotjahn.

Miami MetroRail. Photo: L. Henry.

♦ This is bus rapid transit (BRT)

Miami-Dade County Busway. Photo: Jon Bell.

Brisbane (Australia) busway. Photo: That Jesus Bloke.

Boston Waterfront Silver Line. Photo: Massachusetts Government blog.

♦ This is NOT “bus rapid transit”

Los Angeles MetroRapid Route 720. Photo: Sopas EJ.

Kansas City MAX premium bus service (branded as “BRT”). Photo: Metro Jacksonville.

Bottom Line: With MetroRapid bus service, Capital Metro does seem to be modestly upgrading current bus service in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor and elsewhere with spiffier station facilities and newer buses — improvements that most bus riders, and probably the public in general, would welcome.

But an acceptable substitute for urban rail … it ain’t.

Posted in Baltimore, Boston, Bus rapid transit (BRT), Bus upgraded transit (BUT), Light rail transit (LRT), Los Angeles, MetroRapid bus service, Miami, Rail rapid transit, Sydney | Tagged Austin, baltimore, boston, bus rapid transit, bus upgraded transit, light rail transit, los angeles, metrorapid bus, miami, sydney, urban rail | 1 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 »

MetroRapid bus service should be a precursor to urban rail, not an obstacle!

18 September 2013

View of part of MetroRapid fleet.

♦

Some local officials, favoring the City’s long-preferred Urban Rail plan from downtown through the UT East Campus to the Mueller development site, have been presenting Capital Metro’s MetroRapid juiced-up-bus-service project as a barrier to alternative proposals for implementing urban rail in the Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L) corridor.

As Austin Rail Now will discuss in subsequent analyses, this argument is fatuous and fallacious. Instead, MetroRapid can and should be re-purposed and re-branded as a precursor to urban rail, not a competitor and obstacle.

This concept of MetroRapid as a precursor to rail was first presented in a 27 April 2012 commentary by Lyndon Henry (technical consultant for Light Rail Now) to the Transit Working Group:

Rapid Bus can be a precursor to Urban Rail in Lamar-Guadalupe corridor!

Here are excerpts (adapted for Webpage format) from that commentary that may be useful to the discussion of such a possible role for MetroRapid as a precursor to urban rail (using light rail transit technology) in the G-L corridor:

♦ Useful reference: BRT as a Precursor of LRT? (TRB conference paper, 2009)

Paper presented by Dave Dobbs and [Lyndon Henry] to 2009 Joint International Light Rail Conference sponsored by Transportation Research Board [TRB] provides research and guidelines for BRT as rail precursor:

Cover of TRB conference proceedings.

Title and author lines from published paper.

[Link to proceedings]

http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec145.pdf

♦ Examples where “BRT” has been precursor to rail – including with FTA approval

Various U.S. examples exist where both technically and policy-wise, a RapidBus or BRT-type system can function as a precursor to rail transit service – and with Federal Transit Administration (FTA) approval!

• Dallas – BRT-like express bus service, operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) on North Central Expressway, served as a precursor to DART’s LRT extension to Plano.
• Miami – Miami-Dade Busway has been serving as precursor to extensions of MetroRail rapid transit.
• Los Angeles – Wilshire Boulevard MetroRapid service, operated by Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), has served as precursor to extension of MTA’s rail rapid transit metro system, a project now under way.
• Seattle – In Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, BRT-type bus service functioned as precursor to Link light rail (now operating jointly with buses – see photos below).

♦ In 2009, Capital Metro’s MetroRapid was envisioned as precursor to rail

As recently as 2009, MetroRapid project was being designed for eventual conversion to light rail:

Excerpt from section of paper.

♦ Conclusion: BRT or RapidBus must be originally designed as light rail precursor!

Paper concludes that best-practices approach to plan for BRT or RapidBus as precursor to rail is to design it for eventual conversion from the start. This means keeping infrastructure investment minimal and designing for modularity (i.e., designing station components, communications, etc. so they can be easily relocated or reconfigured for the rail mode during conversion).

Excerpt from Conclusion of paper.

If the transit agency can demonstrate that the BRT or RapidBus investment won’t be lost, but can be upgraded into a higher and more effective use (e.g., Urban Rail), FTA has approved such conversion.

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Bus rapid transit (BRT), Light rail transit (LRT), MetroRapid bus service, Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin, bus rapid transit, light rail transit, metrorapid bus, precursor, urban rail | Leave a Comment »

If you support urban rail for Guadalupe-Lamar, attend these community meetings!

17 September 2013

Map of so-called “Central Corridor” study area.

♦
Project Connect, the consortium of the City of Austin, Capital Metro, and other public entities to pursue coordinated transit planning for Central Texas and the Austin metro region, has ostensibly pulled back somewhat from the previous emphasis on urban rail in the downtown-East Campus-Mueller corridor, and has a project under way to vigorously study (at least nominally) alternative corridors for a Phase 1 urban rail starter line — and one of those corridors is Guadalupe-Lamar (G-L).

There’s some debate over just how serious local officials and planners are about breaking from their fixation on the previous Mueller route (which would install urban rail in a very weak non-corridor), but in any case, 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.

So Austin Rail Now strongly encourages supporters of an urban rail Phase 1 starter line in the G-L corridor to attend these meetings (and participate in the “webinar”) — and voice their support for the G-L corridor.

The current project is specifically focused on a so-called “Central Corridor” — actually, a huge square study area extending as far west as Loop 1 (MoPac Expressway), east to roughly Springdale Rd., north to Crestview and the Highland/ACC area, and south to roughly Oltorf St. (see map above).

Since it’s not really a “corridor”, but an entire city sector with potential routes running in all directions, Project Connect planners have had to rename the actual travel corridors under study as “sub-corridors”. While the downtown-East Campus-Mueller route is designated as one of these “sub-corridors”, so is Guadalupe-Lamar, as well as a route out Riverside to the ABIA Airport, a route south on South Congress, and routes out Lake Austin Blvd. and West 38th St. to the Seton-Medical Center area.

While just about all these routes might make sense for urban rail at some point, obviously there must be a prioritization process that can select one for the first line to start with. Austin Rail Now believes a line in the G-L corridor makes by far the most sense in every way, and has the best chance of attracting community-wide voter support for bonds to help fund installation.

Here’s a screen capture from the City’s Austin Mobility website giving details — dates, times, locations — of the upcoming community meetings and the “webinar”:

If you want urban rail to go where it makes the most sense, and will have the best chance to win voter support — i.e., the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor — you have a major stake in this. Please plan to attend at least one of these meetings (or participate in the “webinar”)!

Posted in Alternative Urban Rail Plan, Light rail transit (LRT), Urban Rail | Tagged alternative plan, Austin, light rail transit, Project Connect, urban rail | 1 Comment »

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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

♦ This is rail rapid transit (RRT)

♦ This is bus rapid transit (BRT)

♦ This is NOT “bus rapid transit”

• Buses and LRT trains share transitway

• LRT routes cross

• LRT train leaving station

• LRT train passing bus

• Bus bunching

♦ Useful reference: BRT as a Precursor of LRT? (TRB conference paper, 2009)

♦ Examples where “BRT” has been precursor to rail – including with FTA approval

♦ In 2009, Capital Metro’s MetroRapid was envisioned as precursor to rail

♦ Conclusion: BRT or RapidBus must be originally designed as light rail precursor!

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