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  #1101  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2009, 3:25 AM
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To add to what I wrote earlier, just about all the additional freeway lanes being added to existing Texas freeways will be toll lanes, often called managed lanes. High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) get to use them for free or for a reduced toll.

In the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth areas, that's all that's being built. TXDOT is so short of CA$H, TXDOT cancelled all the Dallas County highway projects in 2008. If it weren't for tolls, no freeway or highway construction would have proceeded.

Why should Austin be treated any different, and be immune to tolls? It may be far cheaper to build a separate toll road a few miles away than build toll lanes within the existing freeway's ROW.

In the DFW area, they''re building toll roads without toll booths. It's amazing how technology advances.

If you don't want toll roads in the future, TXDOT will need to find new tax revenues. Texas's gas tax and revenues haven't been rising with the rising costs for highway materials and new highway construction. That's why toll roads and toll lanes are being suggested in the first place. Raising the gas tax, or using a completely new tax to raise revenues is the only way to avoid using tolls.
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  #1102  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2009, 6:30 AM
NormalgeNyus NormalgeNyus is offline
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Austin is not getting treated any different then any other texas city. in fact austin is getting treated worse. If these new round of tolls goes through austin will be the first city to turn free roads in to toll only roads and austin will have more miles of toll roads then any other city in texas. The point of tolls is to create a alternative route for commuters to take. Txdot is a total failiure and the public should not be double taxed because of the mistakes of that department. regardless if the road is being built as a toll or not everyone is still paying taxes to build the toll roads so why not just have them free roads. years ago only the man of the family needed to work and the government had enough money to build the entire interstate system and provide social security and provide us with enough money to give our kids a great education. now you need both parents working 2 jobs each just to put dinner on the table and the freaken government cant educate our kids or pay for roads or social security. something is totally wrong .
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  #1103  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2009, 3:00 PM
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Originally Posted by NormalgeNyus View Post
years ago only the man of the family needed to work and the government had enough money to build the entire interstate system and provide social security and provide us with enough money to give our kids a great education. now you need both parents working 2 jobs each just to put dinner on the table and the freaken government cant educate our kids or pay for roads or social security. something is totally wrong .
Without getting totally political here, I couldn't agree with you more!!!
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  #1104  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2009, 3:16 PM
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The only reason we were able to go so long with the gas tax so low is that urbanites got screwed (driving miles on roads gas taxes never pay for so suburbanites can continue their free ride). Ain't gonna continue forever - and raising the gas tax just further incents suburban sprawl (as long as we keep the idiotic funding rules we have in this state).
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  #1105  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2009, 7:57 PM
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Some one on this board once mentioned tolling I-35 thru downtown. Sounds like a great idea. That might actually divert people over to 130 and relieve the need to expand I-35 thru downtown. I would venture a guess a good percentage of the traffic is thru traffic anyway. The downtown surrounding area could be awesome if it wasn't for that crazy highway splitting it in half.
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  #1106  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2009, 4:26 PM
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Two quick hits from me on the complete lack of TOD on the commuter rail line in Florida we used as a model for the Red Line, and on the idiocy of expecting people to ride shuttles to an event that were stuck in the same traffic their car would have been.
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  #1107  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2009, 10:27 PM
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  #1108  
Old Posted Jan 12, 2009, 4:34 PM
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http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news...rticle=4831618

Straus Seen as Booster of Passenger Rail Programs

SA-Austin corridor could be high on the list
By Jim Forsyth
Sunday, January 11, 2009

Long dormant efforts to establish a commuter-rail link between San Antonio and Austin are expected to get a major boost, when Alamo Heights State Rep. Joe Straus III is elected Speaker of the Texas House this week, 1200 WOAI news reports.

"That is going to be a critical issue for us," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who also chairs the San Antonio Austin Corridor Council, told 1200 WOAI's Bud Little.

"Having a speaker from the urban area of Texas, hopefully, will have a huge influence on addressing our transportation needs."

Wolff said he will spell out a two phase proposal to Straus in hopes of winning support from the Speaker-to-be for this long awaited project.

The first phase would be to locate the freight lines currently being used by the Union Pacific, which run parallel to Interstate 35, to a route parallel to State Route 130 about thirty miles to the east. Then the existing rail lines could be used for passenger transportation.

"I hope that will see more resources coming into the urban areas coming into transportation."

Wolff says his son Kevin, a newly-minted Bexar County Commissioner, is a good friend of Straus, and he says meetings have already been set up to discuss the commuter rail issue. Wolff says the Straus election, which is expected to take place on Tuesday, should be a boost to urban commuter rail systems statewide.

Efforts to establish large scale passenger rail systems in Texas have generally sputtered, ever since the Bullet Train proposal went down to defeat in the late 1980s.

One reason is the influence rural and highway construction interests have wielded in the Legislature, an influence Wolff and other passenger rail proponents hope will diminish under a speaker who understands the transportation needs of urban Texas.
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  #1109  
Old Posted Jan 12, 2009, 4:54 PM
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The fact that he's from San Antonio means that he has to travel between Austin and San Antonio for government business. That alone should be a reason for him to take up the issue.
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  #1110  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2009, 7:00 AM
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Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas View Post
The fact that he's from San Antonio means that he has to travel between Austin and San Antonio for government business. That alone should be a reason for him to take up the issue.
Maybe, and maybe not. He might prefer to expand I 35 instead. Or take Amtrak's Texas Eagle, which departs San Antonio around 7 am and departs Austin around 7 pm, when it is on schedule. He really has little personal incentive to push for several billion dollars freight bypass line construction so freights can be displaced from the UP main line. That's a long term solution years from now.

If you expect a quicker solution, ASA coordinating with Amtrak to provide more services daily along the UP corridor is more likely. Amtrak already has the power to run on UP tracks. All Amtrak and ASA will have to do is lengthened existing sidings, add stations and platforms, and upgrade crossing signals where necessary.
Of course, Amtrak will demand either the State or ASA to pay for these improvements to UP's tracks, and pay subsidies to maintain this service profitable, like they do for the Heartland Flyer. I'd expect at most Amtrak will run will be four trains daily between Austin and San Antonio. One train in each direction in the mornings, and one train in each direction in the afternoons, plus the existing Texas Eagle service.
The advantage of having shorter distance trains is they will be more reliable to run on time. Also, it'll be far cheaper to implement. After this service has proven itself, that would be the time to look at increasing this service and spending far more State funds building the new freight bypass line or double tracking more of the existing UP line so more passenger trains can run on it. I still think double tracking most of the UP line to run more passenger trains on it will be far cheaper than building an entirely new freight bypass line.

If Texas is going to spend billions for new passenger train services, let's take another gander at building the Texas T-Bone High Speed Rail. If HSR is built, the ASA commuter rail project becomes redundant.

Last edited by electricron; Jan 16, 2009 at 7:27 AM.
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  #1111  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2009, 1:50 PM
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The service will never prove itself - people won't accept huge delays on a commuter line, and there's insufficient ability to double-track enough to avoid delays (nor can they simply push freight traffic to night-time like Tri-Rail attempted).
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  #1112  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2009, 12:52 AM
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Capital Metro - Phase II Expansion of MetroRail Red Line Upgrade existing MetroRail commuter rail line I wonder what these refer to. I would guess the expansion would be taking the line in closer to Congress to Brazos. Is the upgrade of the existing line referring to double tracking? Any idea on a time frame for the money to start flowing?
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  #1113  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2009, 5:49 PM
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Bail-out

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Originally Posted by hookem View Post
Great link. Several requests for rail project money, that's good. The boardwalk for the town lake trail by riverside is included. Several bike projects are listed under "water" for some reason. But not much for streets -- not even the timed/sensor traffic signals that are so desperately needed! Also, what's this all about --

Asking for bailout money to use for toll roads???
I believe the $80 M for Red Line upgrades covers extension to Brazos, double-tracking of line (perhaps just to McNeil junction) and maybe additional vehicles that would allow more frequent, bi-directional travel all day.

There is an additional $190 M for Phase II Expansion of MetroRail Red line that I think is actually the Elgin Green Line.

There is also $60 M for vehicles for the Urban Rail system.

The CAMPO Transit Working Group has now recommended both the Green Line and Urban Rail projects to the CAMPO board.

BTW, Austin already has one of the most sophisticated computerized traffic signal systems in the country. They included $800 K for web access to the system and $2.4 M for 20 new signals.

I believe "Austin TX Streets/Roads Purchase and install vehicle detection stations using toll-tag registration tags $6,000,000 25" is actually parking meter pay stations that can bill to your TxTag account in addition to credit/debit cards, and "Austin TX Transit Purchase and install Transit Fare & Parking Management Kiosks $5,000,000 50" is the other part of the system that would also sell transit passes.
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  #1114  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2009, 4:30 PM
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Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan View Post
I believe the $80 M for Red Line upgrades covers extension to Brazos, double-tracking of line (perhaps just to McNeil junction) and maybe additional vehicles that would allow more frequent, bi-directional travel all day.

There is an additional $190 M for Phase II Expansion of MetroRail Red line that I think is actually the Elgin Green Line.
There is no reliable information on the internets, but my best guess is that $80M is just extending to Brazos and buying more trains; the $190M being more of a double-tracking project.

(I have a hard time believing they can double-track and extend to Brazos and buy more vehicles with only $80M, given previous LRT estimates for building doubletrack in the off-street ROW, in other words).

On the other hand, Green Line start-up capital cost does has some range estimates which would include $190M.

Can't find anything conclusive with google, though. They're playing their cards close to the vest this time.
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  #1115  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2009, 1:33 AM
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Originally Posted by M1EK View Post
There is no reliable information on the internets, but my best guess is that $80M is just extending to Brazos and buying more trains; the $190M being more of a double-tracking project.

(I have a hard time believing they can double-track and extend to Brazos and buy more vehicles with only $80M, given previous LRT estimates for building doubletrack in the off-street ROW, in other words).

On the other hand, Green Line start-up capital cost does has some range estimates which would include $190M.

Can't find anything conclusive with google, though. They're playing their cards close to the vest this time.
Here's my reasoning on the $80 M:

Extending two tracks two blocks to Brazos will cost a few million at most. Most of the cost is in utility adjustments and streetscape improvements. Let's round it off to $5 M.

4th Street between Trinity and IH-35 was just reconstructed to facilitate double-tracking and provide for the Lance Armstrong Bikeway. Adding the second set of tracks will have minimal cost - less than $1M. They probably will need to replace the Waller Creek bridge, so let's round off the cost of this segment to $5 M as well.

The Saltillo District Master Plan estimates the cost of doubling and relocating the tracks adjacent to 4th Street, a dedicated Lance Armstrong Bikeway, and associated streetscaping and utility work at less than $10 M.

That's $20 M so far.

If they double the current fleet from six to 12 DMUs at a cost of $30 M, that still leaves $30 M. This fleet would be more than adequate to run frequent all day bi-directional service, but that would require more double track along the corridor. The rest of the track is simple ballasted track, which costs $1M to $2M per mile. The last $30 M could cover at least 15 miles of double-tracking.

The other big costs, platforms and control systems are already in place. The only other possible cost would be to lengthen platforms to allow them to run two-car consists. This might also be in the estimate, but would probably mean less double-tracking.

The big cost difference between this rail project and previous LRT estimates is the cost of street reconstruction and utility work. Electrification is also more expensive, but those costs are offset by less expensive LRVs, which do not require the diesel engines.
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  #1116  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2009, 5:07 PM
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I've driven by the new platform a number of times and have seen no evidence that it was prepared for double-tracking. In addition, the LRT estimates were for a few miles of track-in-street (with reconstruction/utility work), and then for new double-track from Lamar/Airport northwestwards for the remaining miles (many more miles). There's no way that the former was responsible for $900M of the $1B total.

Also, there's a lot of places along this line where there is NOT sufficient width to build the second track off to the side of the first (I'm thinking along Airport Blvd for starters here) - the first will have to be moved over. This isn't like Tri-Rail where the corridor was already wide enough and the main closures were for building switch sections.

Another possibility here is that they're only talking about adding a few more sections of double-track rather than double-tracking the whole length of the route. $80M couldn't cover the whole thing, after vehicles + Brazos section, but it could build a few stretches.

Not that any of this matters, of course. A double-tracked commuter line that doesn't go to UT or the Capitol isn't any better than a single-tracked commuter line that doesn't go to UT or the Capitol.
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  #1117  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2009, 8:26 AM
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No rail on weekends

Well, forget about downtown residents taking shopping trips to the Domain, or suburbanites visiting downtown for activities. Based on this schedule, looks like I won't even be be able to ride it just to see what it's like. Maybe this is old news, but it's pretty depressing.

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten.../0123rail.html
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  #1118  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2009, 1:32 PM
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Many people are disappointed - this is what happens when you pretend your commuter rail service is "light rail" or "urban rail" to make it sound better to locals and federal regulators - people actually expect light-rail-like service.

This was the plan all along, however, except that there was supposed to be one (only one) mid-day trip.
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  #1119  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2009, 4:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hookem View Post
Well, forget about downtown residents taking shopping trips to the Domain, or suburbanites visiting downtown for activities. Based on this schedule, looks like I won't even be be able to ride it just to see what it's like. Maybe this is old news, but it's pretty depressing.

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten.../0123rail.html
I agree this is totally depressing
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  #1120  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2009, 5:07 PM
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Maybe with some double tracking we could see some more density around the stops. Also, it has to get to at least Brazos. Saltillo, being so close, is a prime example. This could be a nice Mexican style area, with some colonial type density like you might see in Cuernavaca or Puebla. It is in an area where you could have a high percentage of low income and even more discounts to those who could take the train right into work (even housemaids and the such that work at the Hilton). Now increase service and we may be able to get to a whopping 5,000 riders a day---what a low bar to set.
As is this is basically worthless, I won't even ride it just for fun, to get to interesting places, no sorry, Leander is not interesting. We badly need to get the second line passed or this city will start to stagnate.
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