Quote:
Originally Posted by aqibtalib
I think it's more interesting to focus on what Cap Metro is actually planning to do post-rail. They will be conducting their service plan update this year and next, and it is supposedly going to be a bigger overhaul than previous updates.
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To a certain extent I agree, though I wouldn't limit the discussion to just CapMetro (the participation of the city and the lone star rail project are both important).
As I said, I think any large debt-financed capital project is now doomed in Austin. It's impossible to design a starter system that both serves a sufficiently large segment of voters and is cheap enough to avoid sticker shock. It may have bee possible decades ago, but there's just too much information now available, and too many voices, and the trade-offs that are an inevitable (and necessary) part of any project are just too visible.
My hopes are pinned on
1) the aforementioned Lone Star
2) incremental improvements. As you said, some BRT, some separation, some just frequency improvements.
It'll be a lot easier to pass a ~$40M "transportation bond" every few years that includes $5M or so to put in a queue jumper lane for a bus, and keep doing incremental improvements that way.