AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[electricron]

Originally Posted by M1EK

The route move to Red River is only north of UT, as a better way to get to Mueller (and have a maintenance site / barn in phase 1).

Yes, that's probably true. If they did move the shops here, they wouldn't need to cross Lady Bird Lake in phase 1.
Just wanted to ask, how many times do city planners have to overlook South Austin before it rebels? Golly, even Dallas' planners recognize the politics that new expensive projects need to initially include both sides of the Trinity River.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

Only one...UT Southwestern in Dallas, is concidered as a "top" medical school. The others would be in the category of "good" to "very good."

Let's be more specific...the proposed HSC in Austin is intended to be a "research" institution. So, let's compare the current rankings of other Texas med schools in this category:

2012 US News ranks UT Southwestern (Dallas) as the #22 research medical school in the U.S.

Others which were ranked in this category:
Tied #22 = Baylor College of Medicine-Houston
Tied #56 = UTHSC-Houston
Tied #56 = UTMB Galveston
#60 = UTHSC-San Antonio
#84 = TAMUHSC-Bryan

And having a top notch research oriented medical school attracts the best and most distinguished faculty members, the brightest students, big bucks from research grants, spin off private enterprise focused on medical technology, and excellent publicity for the community that houses such an institution. People in Austin would be well advised to get behind any effort to make this thing happen.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by M1EK

The route move to Red River is only north of UT, as a better way to get to Mueller (and have a maintenance site / barn in phase 1).

Oh, ok. Thank you.

That does make some sense. From what I can recall the bridge was like half the cost of the first phase. So this way they could wait for the federal money before doing the bridge?

I also kinda remember the fact that the location on S Congress and Riverside was the only place they could put the barn. Where are they thinking of putting the barn now? And is the plan to use San Jacinto to Medical Arts to Red River? from UT to RR and up to Mueller?

[Myomi]

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...d-2134914.html

MoPac toll lane project finally gaining speed

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 9:49 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012
E-mail Print Share Larger Type
The move to expand MoPac Boulevard, which for several years has crawled along like 5 p.m. traffic on that overloaded highway, is about to enter the express lane.

"I would characterize it as a green-light go," Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, said last week.

A federally required environmental study is in its final stages, with approval likely in the fall. The mobility authority, deputized by the Texas Department of Transportation to develop the project, has refined what it will do: add a fourth express toll lane on each side of MoPac (Loop 1) from just north of Lady Bird Lake to near Parmer Lane in far North Austin.

Alongside the road from West Sixth Street to north of RM 2222, at a cost of about $20 million, would be 7.1 miles of tan-and-white, concrete sound walls 8 to 20 feet high. This would complete a quest of more than a decade by neighborhoods alongside MoPac for some relief from the noisy highway.

Construction on the $250 million project should start by 2014, agency officials say. If so, those two express lanes would be open to traffic by 2016. A significant portion of the cost would cover the construction of new flyovers connecting the toll lanes and West Cesar Chavez Street. The new lanes from the river to RM 2222 would be created largely from the existing pavement by narrowing lanes slightly and reducing the width of shoulders. North of 2222, the project generally calls for adding pavement.

The toll lanes would be dynamic, meaning the tolls would fluctuate depending on the speed of the traffic — as the number of vehicles in the toll lanes increases and traffic slows, the tolls would rise to discourage more drivers from entering those lanes.

I know people on this forum are going to have a variety of thoughts on this so I am not even going to say anything...can't wait to see what you guys think.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by Myomi

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...d-2134914.html



I know people on this forum are going to have a variety of thoughts on this so I am not even going to say anything...can't wait to see what you guys think.

yeah toll lane.

Boo sound wall. Ugly eye sore. Can't imagine there are many people in that area anymore who didn;t know there was a big friggin expressway there when they moved in. ( and yes I have lived near an expressway before, and made sure I could deal with the noise before I moved in...)

[nixcity]

^Yea, I would definately prefer a wall of dense trees than an ugly concrete wall, that is what a lot of the highways have in Seattle.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by nixcity

^Yea, I would definately prefer a wall of dense trees than an ugly concrete wall, that is what a lot of the highways have in Seattle.

yup

[JAM]

Good to hear on both accounts (toll and wall). Its never good to see a neighborhood go to hell because of a freeway. Its just bad for a city. Its awesome that Austin can maintain its older neighborhoods.

I seldom think that "they should have known" is good argument for these sorts of things. You could have endless debate and never get anywhere using this argument. i.e. They should have never moved to the burbs and now expect wider roads, cheaper fuel, and more schools. Besides, those homes were there long before Mopac became a traffic nightmare.

A better discussion might be should there be a TIFF enacted to pay for the walls, higher real estate values enjoyed by putting them in place


or a Mopac toll charged to all motorist that forced the walls to go up in the first place. No cars means no walls needed.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by nixcity

^Yea, I would definately prefer a wall of dense trees than an ugly concrete wall, that is what a lot of the highways have in Seattle.

I'll agree, trees look far better than walls, BUT walls work far better than trees at stopping noise. The walls aren't being installed to look pretty, they're being installed to remediate noise from traffic.

[Jdawgboy]

If they have some space between the walls and the road they could easily plant trees and bushes to cover the wall up. I don't see why they can't do both. Now if there will be no room between the road and the walls then obviously that cant happen.

[austlar1]

I now live two blocks away from Mopac down near Wm. Cannon and Brodie. It is surprisingly noisy 24 hours a day, but, of course, I moved there from the Lost Pines in Bastrop which was deliciously silent most of the time.

I think the reason that neighborhoods adjacent to Mopac have maintained their value and much of their charm is directly related to the fact that there are no service roads along most of the route, especially in central Austin. Sound walls would be nice though, providing they actually work.

[BevoLJ]

Considering how many trees we lost with this drought they would have to find something native that takes little water. And while I am born and raised in Austin so don't have any allergies, lots of people do. God help us if they tried ceder trees. lol. I can't think of what else would be good for stopping noise plus is native and takes little water. Seattle just gets a lot more rain so I image they have lots of options for trees. Oaks are great. But I have lost many of them at my house in Austin and my ranch east of Austin this past two years. It is really sad seeing all the dead oaks that used to stand so beautiful.

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Considering how many trees we lost with this drought they would have to find something native that takes little water. And while I am born and raised in Austin so don't have any allergies, lots of people do. God help us if they tried ceder trees. lol. I can't think of what else would be good for stopping noise plus is native and takes little water. Seattle just gets a lot more rain so I image they have lots of options for trees. Oaks are great. But I have lost many of them at my house in Austin and my ranch east of Austin this past two years. It is really sad seeing all the dead oaks that used to stand so beautiful.

whats interesting is while Seattle gets more rain average its not a whole lot more their average is 36 to 37 inches of rain while Austin gets roughly 32 to 34 inches. Difference is Seattle has long wet periods of slow steady rain while Austin gets heavier rain with longer dry spells in between. Of course we are in a really horrible drought so that is not helping at all. There are several native varieties that would do just fine along Mopac. Cedar Elms, Pecans, Oaks, ect. This has been a bad time for the trees here of course and many of died. what is scary is this likely the new norm due to climate change becaue of human pollution. (I am over debate, we know what it is its time to do something about it). But good news is we are getting more rain and this pattern looks to continue into mid Febuary.

[M1EK]

How much are we subsidizing passengers on the Red Line now?



Who is riding the Red Line?


Posted on February 6, 2012 by m1ek




Well, we don’t know who, but we do know how many are getting on at each station. Thanks to Erica McKewen at Capital Metro for quickly supplying the following information (excerpted from a longer spreadsheet).


Morning boardings, AM peak:


Leander
154


Lakeline
211


Howard
154


Kramer
47


Crestview
26


Highland
12


MLK
8


Saltillo
3




Data from October 2011.


Analysis:


The stations where almost every passenger likely comes from the city of Austin are Kramer on down. Those stations account for (47+26+12+8+3 =) 97 boardings each morning.


The station where perhaps half the passengers come from the city of Leander (pays Cap Metro taxes, but not COA taxes – this is an important distinction for later in this post) accounts for 154 boardings each morning. So say 77 passengers here do not pay Capital Metro taxes.


The stations where most passengers likely come from places that are not the city of Austin and do not pay Capital Metro taxes are Lakeline and Howard, which account for (211+154 =) 365 boardings each morning. Say 10% of these boardings come from the city of Austin, and another 10% from other jursidictions that pay Cap Metro taxes (Leander, part of unincorporated county). This means 37 people from Austin, and 37 more that also pay Cap Metro taxes. If correct, 291 people that boarded here do not pay Cap Metro taxes.


(More on that last paragraph in another later post – suffice to say that rail stations on the edge of city limits are not going to attract most of their passengers from within that city as those people would be backtracking to board the train).


Combine those and you get a reasonable estimate that of the 615 AM peak boardings in October in this sample, about 368 are from places that do not pay any Capital Metro taxes and about 134 are from the city of Austin.


Put another way, 60% of the riders of MetroRail do not pay any taxes to support MetroRail, and 78% of the riders of MetroRail are from outside the city of Austin. If we assume the weekend ridership will be roughly the same as the in-week ridership (and this is a big assumption), these numbers would hold there too. More on that as details become more clear, but I think that even if the line terminates at Lakeline, the numbers would stay roughly the same, since some of the Leander riders would still ride, and far fewer of the people getting on in-town will (since weekend connecting bus service is far less likely).


In other words, if the city does what it is rumored to be doing and decides to pay for weekend MetroRail service, they’ll be paying 20 bucks a ride (collected from Austin taxpayers) to carry mostly non-Austinites downtown in the hopes of collecting a quarter (25 cents) or so of sales tax from each of them (that sales tax only being ‘extra’ if those people wouldn’t have driven downtown anyways – to say nothing of lost parking revenue if they would have paid to park).

[M1EK]

How much are we subsidizing passengers on the Red Line now?


Posted on February 7, 2012 by m1ek




Erica McKewen from Capital Metro let me know that one of the most recent monthly reports does, finally, have the subsidy information available for the general public.


Example from page 7 of December’s report, blown up for your perusal below. The most recent subsidy information shows that even with higher ridership after the 2011 changes (closing competing express bus routes, dropping unproductive shuttles, adding a peak trip); the Red Line still requires a subsidy of nearly 35 dollars per passenger per trip. In most other cities with successful light rail lines (that pull boardings well into the 5 digits per day), operating costs are similar or even lower than the bus system as a whole – which, if you can get higher passenger fares, means that operating subsidies on good light rail lines are lower than comparable buses, not ten times as high.





In tabular form, the most important numbers only:


Mode
Operating subsidy per ride
Notes


Regular bus
$3.22
On top of a regular fare of about $1 per trip, $2 for express. High productivity routes like the #1 have barely any subsidy at all.


UT shuttle
$1.23
By contract, a certain percentage of operating costs is paid for directly by UT; the rest by Cap Metro – this is fare-free for students and de-facto fare-free for everybody else


Red Line
$33.98
Fares were lowered for most people to be as low or even lower than express buses; many to most riders do not even pay Capital Metro taxes

[nixcity]

^Wow, although not really surprising to me. I say shut it down now and take all that money we would save from the subsidies and put it towards a real light rail line with dedicated lanes.

[BevoLJ]

That just annoys me. So we don't get any bus lines in Westlake (3 miles from DT) because we don't pay Cap-Metro taxes (though I wouldn't mind paying them, I'm sure most don't want to), yet they build this huge expensive rail 20 or so miles out to the burbs for people who don't pay the taxes.

[M1EK]

Who is riding the Red Line, Part Two


Posted on February 7, 2012 by m1ek




Here’s a summary chart showing the data from Capital Metro from October, 2011; showing how many people board from each station in the AM peak, discussed yesterday in more detail.





Why break it up like this? Because as I mentioned yesterday, it should be pretty obvious that the 3 park-and-rides aren’t attracting a bunch of people from Austin itself. Nonsense, you say? Lakeline is in the city limits, you say? Let’s look at the map.


Here’s Lakeline Station.





Here’s Lakeline Station after I roughly draw the line representing the Austin city limits (by hand, so please excuse my poor skills).





And here is the same image with an arrow helpfully representing the approximate direction all those transit passengers are going to work (note: Paint won’t let me go off straight vertical or horizontal; imagine it about 15 degrees to the southeast).





Now, here’s the thing: There are a few people inside that little part of Austin sticking up there who might be taking the Red Line. But it ought to be incredibly obvious based on nothing more than this picture (if it wasn’t just from words before) that most of the passengers getting on the train at Lakeline probably came from outside the city limits of Austin – because most people living inside the city limits of Austin would have to backtrack quite a ways to get to the train station.


Howard is the same – except it’s people from Pflugerville and Round Rock freeloading instead of Cedar Park. Any questions?

[Geography]

Building a sound wall along Mopac will increase the adjacent homes' property values, and with the values, their property taxes. I wonder how many will complain about getting pushed out of their homes from higher property taxes as a result of the sound wall. As it is now, the proximity of Mopac keeps property values in those neighborhoods low, and those neighborhoods have a superb location in Austin. A lot of poor folks can only afford to live that close to downtown because of the Mopac noise deterrent.

[M1EK]

Here's where you guys need to get involved - NOW. Write and/or call your city council members.


Oppose City Funding Of Additional Red Line Service


Posted on February 8, 2012 by m1ek




WHEREAS most riders of existing Red Line service are likely not residents of the City of Austin and the majority likely don’t even reside in jurisdictions which pay Capital Metro taxes


and


WHEREAS the City of Austin already excessively subsidizes the existing Red Line operations, as the overwhelming taxpayer to Capital Metro, contributing over 90% of Capital Metro’s revenue to allow the Red Line to be subsidized at a cost of nearly 34 dollars per ride


and


WHEREAS such funds as proposed to further subsidize the Red Line cannot possibly result in a positive economic outcome for the City of Austin given that weekend traffic on the highways is not substantial, and the city can only recover 1% of spending by visitors in the form of sales taxes


THEREFORE BE IT SUGGESTED that everybody reading this contact everyone you know and your city council members and advise AGAINST the City of Austin paying for expanded weekend service on the Red Line and saving the money, instead, for the city’s urban rail proposal – which, unlike the Red Line, will serve primarily Austinites and which desperately needs the money.