AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[BevoLJ]

The only real benefit to the shared lanes that I see is that you are packing tons of more people on it than you would be in the cars, and still allowing cars to have more traffic options. But that is no different than buses. Personally I say they just turn 2nd street into a street mall, and perhaps Trinity or Colorado. 6th street is often closed down but it and 5th are way to important streets for traffic during the day. I guess you could make 8th street go both ways, and turn 7th the opposite way and make it a one way going west. Then some how make it work to funnel traffic onto 6th better near West.

[hookem]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

The only real benefit to the shared lanes that I see is that you are packing tons of more people on it than you would be in the cars, and still allowing cars to have more traffic options. But that is no different than buses. Personally I say they just turn 2nd street into a street mall, and perhaps Trinity or Colorado. 6th street is often closed down but it and 5th are way to important streets for traffic during the day. I guess you could make 8th street go both ways, and turn 7th the opposite way and make it a one way going west. Then some how make it work to funnel traffic onto 6th better near West.

Speaking of closing streets for pedestrians... this year, closing Cesar Chavez for the Art Festival made a huge negative impact to downtown traffic -- much worse than I ever remember it. Lamar was a parking lot for a mile north and south of it. I'm not sure how long they can keep doing that. The impact was much worse than when they close East 6th for various events.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

The only real benefit to the shared lanes that I see is that you are packing tons of more people on it than you would be in the cars, and still allowing cars to have more traffic options. But that is no different than buses. Personally I say they just turn 2nd street into a street mall, and perhaps Trinity or Colorado. 6th street is often closed down but it and 5th are way to important streets for traffic during the day. I guess you could make 8th street go both ways, and turn 7th the opposite way and make it a one way going west. Then some how make it work to funnel traffic onto 6th better near West.

I'm guessing that it isn't considered a benefit, its just the only option as I think Mike always says, dedicated lanes are no longer available politically or financially.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by hookem

Speaking of closing streets for pedestrians... this year, closing Cesar Chavez for the Art Festival made a huge negative impact to downtown traffic -- much worse than I ever remember it. Lamar was a parking lot for a mile north and south of it. I'm not sure how long they can keep doing that. The impact was much worse than when they close East 6th for various events.

It gets that way during rush hour, especially on Friday, even when they don't close CC down. It wasn't bad for us because we knew which routes to take and were aware of it ahead of time. (SXSW was an totally different ball game.) The city does a poor job in giving notice on lane closures, they tell you on the road when its too late. They have same issues with construction lane closures, not sure why they don't improve that - would save a lot of people a lot of grief.

[BevoLJ]

Upon more thought I guess even with having shared lanes downtown and their own lanes outside the city might not be all that bad. Having their own lanes outside of DT they are still able to quickly get people into DT faster than normal. So that is good. Once DT with the shared lanes it would slow down to your average bus speeds, but getting people in and out of DT would still go faster than busses.

The way Mike often comes accross puts me off a lot so not sure how serious I take him, but one thing that he talks about a lot that does make a lot of sense to me is people don't like to transfer from one mode to another. They want to get on the train/bus/their car and go where their destination is. Not go from car -> bus -> metro train -> light rail -> bus -> taxi -> walk two miles -> elevator -> then find their desk. (obviously exaggerated a bit, lol). But if people can have something that will get them into DT faster than the bus or their car like a light rail on its own lanes outside DT, then even if it is going bus speed DT they will not have to get off and get a bus, taxi, bike or whatever to where they want, they can still stay on it to close to their destination and then walk.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I'm happy/content with the plan.

Portland's streetcar line only garners ~12,000 riders daily, this line will reach 20,000. Portland's streetcar uses shared lanes for the majority of its route, Austin's will as well.
Portland's streetcar is not exactly integrated into the MAX system, which means that transfers are required. Austin's system will therefore be roughly comparable (though the Red Line is infinitely worse than MAX).
Portland's streetcar vehicles are not given traffic priority except at certain locations where the streetcar must turn (and only to give the vehicle time to turn), Austin's will be endowed traffic signal preemption equipment and will be given complete priority over cars.

If it sounds better in theory, it probably is better in reality as well.

Portland's streetcar line carries that many folks because they did the heavy lifting two decades ago with good light rail - they are bringing in 50,000 or more people/day into the core, who then (because they came in on GOOD rail) are willing to use the existing bus system (or the streetcar line it replaced to an extent) to get around during the day. It's worth noting their streetcar is free, and recently had a big bump in ridership as bus patrons who suddenly had to pay switched to the free alternative.

It's as if we built the 2000 line, then a couple more lines, and THEN decided to build a shared-lane circulator downtown. I'd still be against it on principle (transportation dollars should go to things that actually improve mobility), but it would probably be full in that scenario.

Austin's system will have very little chance of getting ahead of cars. Signal priority envisioned in this plan is just a la Rapid Bus - which means if the street is congested it's worthless.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by M1EK

Portland's streetcar line carries that many folks because they did the heavy lifting two decades ago with good light rail - they are bringing in 50,000 or more people/day into the core, who then (because they came in on GOOD rail) are willing to use the existing bus system (or the streetcar line it replaced to an extent) to get around during the day. It's worth noting their streetcar is free, and recently had a big bump in ridership as bus patrons who suddenly had to pay switched to the free alternative.

It's as if we built the 2000 line, then a couple more lines, and THEN decided to build a shared-lane circulator downtown. I'd still be against it on principle (transportation dollars should go to things that actually improve mobility), but it would probably be full in that scenario.

Austin's system will have very little chance of getting ahead of cars. Signal priority envisioned in this plan is just a la Rapid Bus - which means if the street is congested it's worthless.

Yeah, I can see that the good rail supporting the street car success. Houston doesn't allow traffic in its DT bus lanes during rush hour. Those lanes are forbidden to automobiles.

[M1EK]

A teaser for a future crackplog. This is what, essentially, the plan was for reserved guideway rail on Guadalupe in the tightest stretch in the 2000 plan. This was going to be a difficult sell with >40,000 boardings/day; there's zero chance it will ever happen now that the ceiling on Guadalupe might be 20,000 boardings/day (no, suburbanites won't transfer, so you lose all riders from 2000 originating or departing northwest of Airport/Lamar).

This is from memory, but it's pretty much what was up in our meeting room wall. Note that only one lane TOTAL is on the most constrained stretch of Guad, not even one each way (south of 27th and north of 29th it's one lane each way plus the train tracks).



This is why I fought the Red Line so hard in 2004. It means we can never, ever, ever have light rail on Guadalupe in front of UT - despite what people like JMVC are trying to tell you to make sure you keep supporting spending more money on the Red Line.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by electricron

Apparently most of Austin's inner city streets lack sufficient lanes to lose lanes for urban rail, just like Honolulu. Therefore an at-grade alignment sharing of lanes seems likely. But Honolulu solved that problem by elevating their rails above city streets. If that solution is too expensive for Austin, they should look at what DART did in downtown Dallas; having rail, bikes, and pedestrians take over a single city street by building a streetmall. Of course, you wouldn't want to lose Congress to a streetmall, but what about a neighboring city street through the center of the city?

You had many excellent points in your response, all which make perfect sense, I removed them to save space. I'm curious why losing Congress to a street mall would be bad? Its seems like a great idea? Why not force traffic out to other streets more capable of handling the flow. Congress is continually staffed by tourist who don't know where they are going, and it is a big distraction to their safe driving and also upsets the locals to the point of non-stop horn blowing. All of this makes it dangerous to pedestrian activity.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by JAM

You had many excellent points in your response, all which make perfect sense, I removed them to save space. I'm curious why losing Congress to a street mall would be bad? Its seems like a great idea? Why not force traffic out to other streets more capable of handling the flow. Congress is continually staffed by tourist who don't know where they are going, and it is a big distraction to their safe driving and also upsets the locals to the point of non-stop horn blowing. All of this makes it dangerous to pedestrian activity.

We can't do it because nobody on the pro-rail side except me is out there telling the city they will vote against the plan unless they do it. It's just that simple; that's why Capital Metro screwed us in 2004 too.

If you say "I'll vote for you anyways but please do X", you're going to be the lowest priority, and most of the time, you won't get X. So if X is REALLY important, you might want to consider changing the sentiment.

[wwmiv]

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/04/...-free-markets/

Free Parking or Free Markets

In his book Great Planning Disasters, Sir Peter Hall defined a great planning disaster as a planning process that costs a lot of money and has gone seriously wrong. Urban renewal and high-rise public housing are classic examples. Many things in life cost a lot of money and go seriously wrong, however, so how does a great planning disaster differ from a great moviemaking disaster or a great catering disaster? One major difference is that individual investors, producers, or caterers bear the cost of their disasters. With a great planning disaster, almost everyone loses something.

Government regulation of the parking market is another great planning disaster. In this essay, I argue for a market-based solution to parking problems, drawing on the preface to the forthcoming paperback edition of my book The High Cost of Free Parking. I recommend in the book: (1) setting the right, demand-based price for curb parking, (2) returning the parking revenue to pay for local public services, and (3) removing minimum parking requirements.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by JAM

You had many excellent points in your response, all which make perfect sense, I removed them to save space. I'm curious why losing Congress to a street mall would be bad? Its seems like a great idea? Why not force traffic out to other streets more capable of handling the flow. Congress is continually staffed by tourist who don't know where they are going, and it is a big distraction to their safe driving and also upsets the locals to the point of non-stop horn blowing. All of this makes it dangerous to pedestrian activity.

If you look at traffic on Congress coming from northern Austin, Congress really doesn't matter getting into downtown. But, if you look at traffic on Congress from southern Austin, it is important. There's a valid reason why Congress has 6 lanes of traffic.

The fact it has 6 lanes is why many propose taking 2 away for "urban" rail. Which would probably be okay for southern Austin commuters if the "urban" rail continue south on Congress further than Riverside. Alas, it apparently will not and that's why using Congress is unacceptable.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by electricron

If you look at traffic on Congress coming from northern Austin, Congress really doesn't matter getting into downtown. But, if you look at traffic on Congress from southern Austin, it is important. There's a valid reason why Congress has 6 lanes of traffic.

The fact it has 6 lanes is why many propose taking 2 away for "urban" rail. Which would probably be okay for southern Austin commuters if the "urban" rail continue south on Congress further than Riverside. Alas, it apparently will not and that's why using Congress is unacceptable.

Ya, Congress Bridge is typically lined with cars going into Downtown in the morning, (if not, they are going 60MPH on it) however, they do have 1st and Lamar Bridges. I was thinking anyone else coming in off S. Congress - just force a turn onto CC? Only close Congress from CC to the Capitol.

[KevinFromTexas]

I doubt urban rail could be added to the Ann Richards/Congress Bridge. I mentioned this before, but the bridge has national historic designation. The City of Austin actually gets federal money for maintaining the bridge. I believe the terms are they only get the money if the bridge is in its original condition. So if they added lanes (widened the bridge) or overhead wires with pylons, the City would lose that funding. I'm not sure what the annual total is, but it's one reason they were considering building a completely new rail bridge east of Congress. It would also be nice to get the buses off Congress Avenue and put them on that new rail bridge, as well as having pedestrian and bike use on that new bridge.

[KevinFromTexas]

This article talks about the possible new bridge.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...k-renewed.html

Riverside rail talk renewed?

Austin Business Journal - by Jacob Dirr, ABJ Staff
Date: Friday, April 1, 2011, 5:00am CDT

It seems Austin’s Transportation Department is rekindling talks with property owners along Riverside Drive, as a possible prelude to building a passenger rail bridge to downtown.

The city of Austin is considering building a bridge in the area for a passenger rail system and an eventual track heading east.

[BevoLJ]

I wonder what the bats would think of a train going over that bridge? I doubt they would mind, but if they did it would really suck to lose them. I know most people around here want to steamroll over anything that gets in the way of progress, but those bats are really damn cool and I do think they bring a lot of people and money into Downtown Austin. I go and see them many times every year and every time with out fail they still amaze the hell out of me. No matter how many times I've watched them they are dang amazing.

[Downtown_Austin]

When the speakupaustin.org website went live I posted an idea to improve last-mile and recreational transit by installing bike share hubs throughout the urban core, and that a managed bike share system should be part of the transit discussion.

It has become the highest rated "idea," but it still needs more voting support and visibility. Please take a few seconds to support a managed bike share system throughout Austin's urban core.

thanks,

Jude

[KevinFromTexas]

^Voted, naturally, since I'm a bike nut. I voted for a few more bike friendly ideas, too. One that I really like is requiring more businesses to provide bicycle racks outside their building. I've noticed things getting better over time. I remember when I used to have to lock up to things like handrails and sign posts or just about anything I could find that was bolted down and firm. Now more and more places have retroactively installed bike racks. I've also noticed an increase in bike use in general. There are times when I ride up the grocery store now and see 3 or 4 other bikes parked there.

And this is inside of admittedly less than urban South Austin.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

I wonder what the bats would think of a train going over that bridge? I doubt they would mind, but if they did it would really suck to lose them.

I also don't think they would mind, do 40 foot buses or semi-trucks bother them?

[BevoLJ]

Ya I doubt they mind. I have 4 bat houses up around the two decks on my house and if they don't mind the noise from the all the neighborhood kids playing on those decks I doubt would mind a light rail. Maybe if they build a new bridge for the light rail they can make it to house bats too. I can't remember if I have seen them come out from the UP bridge or not.

A quick off topic, owls moved into both of my owl boxes I have on my two biggest trees a couple weeks ago. I can't wait to see the little baby owls, they are cute as hell.