Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyPie
Austin's Commuter Rail Is A Monument To Government Waste
Scott Beyer, CONTRIBUTOR
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbey.../#3448c0ee4310
Austin, TX–Last Saturday morning, while stumbling upon an Austin rail station, I was able to imagine at micro level what it must be like to visit one of China’s ghost cities. I was in Leander, an Austin suburb that has the northernmost stop on the metro area’s commuter rail system, when I spotted a multi-acre station plopped across what was essentially a rural area. After parking in the empty lot, I got out and walked around, to find a clean, well-landscaped facility that had not one human in sight. The info center was locked, the train platforms were empty, and no trains arrived. There was even a computerized voice humming out service updates over the platform speakers, to an absent audience. In fairness, the station was closed that day until 4pm. But that just begged the question—why would a train station be closed all Saturday morning and afternoon in a major metro area? Meanwhile, the platform offered an unobstructed view of adjacent US-183, where, in the course of 10 minutes, dozens of cars passed by in each direction.
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Hey, it's a commuter rail line. CapMetroRail isn't the only commuter rail operator in the states to have truncated operations on Saturday and Sunday.
List of Commuter Rail operators in the USA, and if they operate on Saturday and Sunday.
Sounder > No Saturday and No Sunday
ACE > No Saturday and No Sunday
CalTrain > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
Metrolink > Yes Saturday and Yes Sunday
Coaster > Yes Saturday and Yes Sunday
Sprinter > Yes Saturday and Yes Sunday
Frontrunner > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
Railrunner > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
TRE > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
CapMetro > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
Northstar > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
Metra > Yes Saturday and No Sunday
Music City > No Saturday and No Sunday
Well, that covers the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. I don't think listing the Eastern Time Zones will change my point, even if they all ran on Saturday and Sunday - which by the way they don't.