AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by electricron

There is an empty lot just to the north available, but that would basically destroy a park. .

Do you mean Brush Square? Or do you mean the stuff on Waller creek east of red river?

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Do you mean Brush Square? Or do you mean the stuff on Waller creek east of red river?

Brush Square, the block also includes a fire station, if that helps.

My point was and still is to get the main train station, tracks and platforms, out of the street. I suggest going up provides more options for future rail expansion than the current new station design.

At some point in the future, they will want to extend the MetroRail into south Austin - more than likely now with the collapse of Lone Star Rail. The new design of the downtown MetroRail station should be designed for continuous tracks and not for stub tracks. If the UP will not allow the use of its tracks through south Austin, paralleling that corridor would probably be the best corridor to run these trains, although running a rail corridor immediately parallel to freeways will be the other likely routes, just not as good imho.

The only way to do that at grade is to eventually take over 4th Street entirely and make a transit street mall of it. Going up or down with the tracks keeps the street available for other traffic, the FRA is never going to allow share lanes with commuter trains. These trains are not streetcars.

Every rail plan proposal should include options for future expansion into south Austin, be it commuter, light, urban, subway, or monorail. When it gets built to south Austin can be delayed, but the plan from the very beginning needs to obvious how such an expansion can be possible. and a stub yard in the middle of 4th Street doesn't meet that design criteria at all.

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Which is meaningless because you'd never run anything out that far anyway.



Actually, South Congress or even 35 are more centralized, because almost half of Austin is east of 35.



Which again, is absolutely and completely meaningless.

If Manchaca was named Lamar, and Lamar where it turns SW was named LamarJr, would that make a difference? No.

In north/Central Austin, does the fact that Guadalupe runs into Lamar mean that all transit service and planning stops at the Triangle? No. It's called the G/L corridor.





It _is_ a major corridor. I'm not, and have never said, it's not.


It's just not the #1 major corridor in all of Austin. It's not even the #1 corridor in South Austin.



And that matters.


Every little bit helps. But the development, and the potential development on (for instance) South Congress _dwarfs_ what's possible on South First.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/GIS-Data/p...ixed%20Use.pdf




It's an important route. But it's not the most important route.


The city of Austin disagrees with you. Capital Metro disagrees with you. Every single professional transportation planner that has ever looked at the city disagrees with you.

In order to keep the subject civil, I will forego the line by line nitpicking. Actually we are on the same page. I never said South 1st is the busiest or the top major corridor in South Austin, I said it is a major corridor which is plainly obvious to anyone who regularly travels it. So on that note it's agreed.

I'm not advocating that the South 1st corridor be the focal point or even the top priority for mass transit, though it would be nice to see mass transit improvements along the route.

Not sure where your getting the idea that I'm some sort of lone wolf disagreeing with everyone and to be quite honest it doesn't matter. There's nothing wrong with different solutions and agreeing or disagreeing on how to go about improving South 1st. or any other southbound route doesn't make it right or wrong. Again I didn't say South 1st. was the top corridor. The only thing I will disagree on is the centralized location of South 1st because it's clear to see on any map. That's okay if you don't agree with me on that because it's trivial.

[smt1]

Chariot (which Ford just bought a few weeks ago) started putting up their first non-San Francisco job openings, and they happen to be in Austin:
https://www.chariot.com/

Ford said they they're going to expand Chariot to 5 new markets by the end of 2017- wonder if Austin will be the first of those:
https://media.ford.com/content/fordm...n--chario.html

I hope we see more Chariot-like services. I've heard they've become very popular in SF, particularly in downtown San Francisco.

The routes per purely crowd sourced unlike typical mass transit like Cap Metro.

[The ATX]

Who thinks this is going to happen? From KXAN:

http://kxan.com/2016/09/19/new-trans...ster-industry/

[electricron]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Who thinks this is going to happen? From KXAN:

http://kxan.com/2016/09/19/new-trans...ster-industry/

Not me! Another PRT scheme, this time hanging under an elevated cable. Or did I get that wrong?
Six person cars are only more efficient if they actually carry 6 people. But just like all the other cars on our streets and highways, they won't.

It's time the citizens of Austin look at public transit systems that work, and not build what they dream about.

First, they need to look at building flyovers for the on and off ramps off their existing freeways. Most of the congestion occurs at the off ramps - where a line forms at the first red light because there are no flyovers for those wishing to turn left. A few strategically placed flyovers for left turners will help much more than most of the other proposals I've read. If not flyovers, how about redesign counter flow intersections where only left turners have to wait at a red light?

Second, they can start looking at how to move the masses using mass transit in to and out of downtown Austin. To do that they need to know where most of them are coming from. If from the suburbs, then build a transit system that reaches the suburbs. If not, then build it to where there are sufficient riders to use it. It's important to connect the dots where most commuters are coming from to where most are going to. Don't fall into the trap that most commuters wish to go downtown.

[Tech House]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Who thinks this is going to happen? From KXAN:

http://kxan.com/2016/09/19/new-trans...ster-industry/

Beautiful concept, we just need to get more people on board with ideas that go beyond roads and rails. I love that there are so many innovative thinkers in Austin who are proposing such an interesting variety of transportation alternatives.

I left a few comments in the thread below that article, I'm "Lakota Clearwater" (an homage to my late great border collie/Australian shepherd, Lakota) and I mostly quibbled with the nay-sayers. Anyone coming up with solutions, however outlandish, is helping propel us toward a time when people can actually move about Austin in a sane and timely manner. It really pisses me off that comment threads for articles about novel ideas are almost always dominated by negativity.

But you asked a question and my answer is that it's very unlikely to happen because it's such a novel concept that it surely has all kinds of weaknesses that aren't immediately apparent, and it doesn't take much to scare people away from radical new ways of doing things that currently don't work. "It's unfamiliar, so I'd prefer to sit in a traffic jam for an hour because it's what I'm used to."

[Tech House]

Originally Posted by electricron

First, they need to look at building flyovers for the on and off ramps off their existing freeways. Most of the congestion occurs at the off ramps - where a line forms at the first red light because there are no flyovers for those wishing to turn left. A few strategically placed flyovers for left turners will help much more than most of the other proposals I've read.

Great suggestion, but stay open to the changes that are coming. We're going to need to embrace new modes of public transit that work well with autonomous vehicles, and high-speed PRT on existing freeway ROWs would dovetail well with that. Sure, not everyone's going downtown, but there's high density development alongside most of our freeways, and to the extent that PRT fails to deliver you to your precise destination, SDVs will finish the job.

Someone (the CEO?) at Lyft predicts that urban travel will be dominated by SDVs within a decade, and that may not be too far-fetched. Yes, intelligent freeway interchanges with completed flyovers would be lovely to have, but we need a lot more than that and we have to think ahead to a time when the majority of people won't even need to own a private automobile. I'm pretty excited about this change, even though I was spooked by it at first. The thought of liberating parking lots for more intelligent and aesthetically-pleasing uses elicits glee, don't you agree?

[wwmiv]

This is a much more realistic, if just as futuristic, proposal than the gondola system. However, it does suffer from some of the same political problems as the gondola system as I'd mentioned before and some of the same mode-specific problems that both Novacek and I have pointed out. I'd be more interested in seeing where this goes, but it'd need to have more capacity per vehicle than 6 to get off the ground I think. You'd need 20 people per vehicle at least to make the upkeep costs worth it (lower capacity means more vehicles, means more moving parts per passenger, means more upkeep costs, and therefore more subsidy-per-rider), but then does that affect whether the vehicles can be powered forward or not? There are some really interesting questions to be asked here.

[lzppjb]

It's an interesting idea. I like the idea of using 100mph roller coaster technology.

What if you could have different lines along the same roadway?

For example, 2 lines to downtown from the Parmer/I35 area (10 miles ~ 6 minutes @ 100mph). Alongside those lines would be 2 lines connecting downtown to 183/I35 (5 miles ~ 3 minutes @ 100mph). That would keep the cars from having to make stops every mile or two to pick up more passengers. Each area chosen as a destination would have dedicated lines.

ABIA would have 2 dedicated lines (to/from). Mueller, The Domain, Allendale, a couple spots in South Austin, etc. Y'all have a better idea of what spots have the most commuters. I'm just looking at a map of Austin.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

It's an interesting idea. I like the idea of using 100mph roller coaster technology.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...coaster-train/

Developed at Tokyo University’s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), with the help of amusement ride firm Senyo Kogyo, Eco-Ride works in the exactly the same way as a theme park roller coaster. By turning potential energy into kinetic energy, it coasts along its tubular tracks without an engine. The train’s speed is controlled by aerodynamics and by “vertical curves”, sections of track that form the transition between two sloping segments. The Eco-Ride is set in motion and slowed at stations via rotating wheels between the rails that catch a fin underneath the train.

When fully installed, Eco-Ride would ply a route, ideally circular, at speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour. The idea is that Eco-Ride will use its own inertia to get up most slopes but may on occasion need to be winched up steeper inclines. If it was first lifted to a height of 10 metres, the train could comfortably cover a distance of 400 metres, says its developer, Yoshihiro Suda, director of the IIS Advanced Mobility Research Center.

The lack of any engine makes carriages extremely light, so the energy required to propel them is small and the emissions low. Plus there is no need for the expensive, bulky infrastructure that usually accompanies the building of new train tracks.

“This is probably the ultimate energy-saving transportation system,” says Suda. A number of municipalities in Japan have shown an interest in the system, including communities hit by last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region in the north-east, he says. Other uses could be feeder routes between other transportation networks, or communities and college campuses located beyond what might be considered a reasonable walking distance, he added. Suda expects the first Eco-Ride to be in operation sometime in 2014.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Who thinks this is going to happen? From KXAN:

http://kxan.com/2016/09/19/new-trans...ster-industry/

It's a little hard for me to evaluate the proposal, since there's so few details, and what there is seems contradictory. Not sure if that's the fault of the "inventor" or the reporter.

so it's like a rollercoaster (unpowered cars on rails or a "pipe")? Or it's powered cars on a cable?

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Tech House

It really pisses me off that comment threads for articles about novel ideas are almost always dominated by negativity.

The problem is that every time one of these ideas is proposed, it's (*almost) invariably

1) some huckster with a scam trying to make a quick buck and then vanish.

2) a complete amateur with an idea that's precluded by basic physics (or functionally precluded by statue or legislation).


*Almost. There can be genuine innovation, but it's rare enough that it makes sense to greet these with a certain amount of skepticism and a critical eye.

[Novacek]

The idea seems to be a complete ghost.

Googling Curtis Brown PMT seems to turn up nothing.

Big Bend Strategies has a web site. Turns out James Moore is a PR guy. http://www.bigbendstrategies.com/experts/

Not sure what qualifies him to estimate construction costs.

[Novacek]

So here's a basic truth and rule of life:


Engineering innovation usually follows scientific innovation.

Almost any new engineering advancement, if you look at it closely, was enabled or made easier by some scientific advancement or refinement behind it.

There are exceptions, and that's where true genius lies, but it's rare.


So (again being critical and skeptical) when some new engineering it proposed, you can look at it and try to figure out what new science enables it.
Is there some advancement in metallurgy? Some new battery chemistry or innovation? Miniaturization of electronics? Information science. *


If there's nothing of that sort, and there's a new system being proposed that could have been built with 1970s technology, then my immediate question is: Why wasn't it? Why didn't we have this in the 70s?
It sets off my alarm bells, and makes me doubt it. It usually means that someone did look at it, and it just doesn't make sense.

Again, there can be genuine innovation. But something like this doesn't look like anything of that sort. It's a monorail/PRT. Both of which have been tried before and both of which usually fail for good reason.


*There are ideas in transportation that show these attributes. They have their problems and limitations, but self driving vehicles (non-tracked) require advancement in computational science and sensor technology that are new (or even not here yet). Even Uber was enabled by information technology advancements.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

It's an interesting idea. I like the idea of using 100mph roller coaster technology. For example, 2 lines to downtown from the Parmer/I35 area (10 miles ~ 6 minutes @ 100mph). Alongside those lines would be 2 lines connecting downtown to 183/I35 (5 miles ~ 3 minutes @ 100mph). That would keep the cars from having to make stops every mile or two to pick up more passengers. Each area chosen as a destination would have dedicated lines.

Your ideal will never even make it pass the first meeting of professional urban transit planners. Here's why, your idea is limited to express services that are 5 and 10 miles long. That can easily and cheaply be fulfilled by express bus services today. If you're going to spend billions of dollars on a mass transit system in an urban area, the vehicles are going to have to stop and pick up and drop off passengers every mile or two - preferrably every neighbor or at least every other neighborhood.
When you space the stations 10 miles apart, you'll be skipping too many neighborhoods. Those who live in those neighborhoods will not be kind to the vehicles or people riding in them, both politically and physically. Deciding which neighborhoods to skip will divide any political support needed to build and operate it.

When planning mass transit systems, keep in mind a few basic principles I have read over the years.
(1) There are limits on how far people will walk to ride public transit. ~90% will walk a quarter mile, ~50% will walk a half mile, <10% will walk three quarters a mile.
(2) There are limits on how long people will accept for a daily commute. ~90% will tolerate 30 minutes each way, ~50% will tolerate an hour each way, <10% will tolerate 90 minutes each way.
(3) The vehicles will lose at least 2 minutes at every stop, slowing down, dropping off and picking up passengers, and then speeding back up to speed.

Using those three principles, let's look at your 10 mile and 5 mile corridor lengths again.
For 5 miles and meeting the 90% thresholds.
It would require 11 stations including both terminus stations.
It would require an overall average speed of 10 mph.
It would loose 20 minutes at the stations.
Taking 20 minutes away from the 30 desired minutes, the vehicle will have to run at 30 mph between the stations.
That's within the capabilities of buses, streetcars, and light rail vehicles.

Now let's look at a 10 mile route meeting the 90% thresholds,
It would require 21 stations including both terminus stations
It would require an overall average speed of 20 mph
It would loose 40 minutes at the stations.
Taking 40 minutes from the allowed 30 minutes results in -10 minutes. There's no possible way to meet all the 90% thresholds for a 10 mile route. Some compromises must be made.
The compromise most transit agencies end up doing is placing stations a mile apart on average, where 50% of the potential passengers are willing to walk a half mile. This reduces the number of stations back to 11, and reduces the time lost at stations back to 20 minutes, leaving 10 minutes to travel the 10 miles, requiring vehicles capable of reaching 60 mph. Buses and light rail vehicles in dedicated lanes can achieve this speed.

When the length of the route is longer than 10 miles, further compromises are needed, with stations placed further apart than a mile and running time exceeding 30 minutes,

Let's look at a route 20 miles long, and this time try to meet the 50% thresholds.
There would require 21 stations
It would require an overall average speed of 20 mph
It would lose 40 minutes at stations.
Which would leave 20 minutes to travel 20 miles, requiring vehicles capable of achieving 60 mph. Again, light rail vehicles and buses in dedicated lanes are capable of meeting this speed.

Once the length of the corridor exceeds 20 miles, you are no longer looking urban solutions where most of the passengers can walk to the stations, you're looking at regional solutions with station spacing further than a mile apart where most of the passengers ride something to the stations. This is where commuter rail trains capable of achieving 79 mph speeds become the most preferred solution.

[lzppjb]

The problem with express bus services is that they still have to go through traffic. This isn't Ottawa. There aren't dedicated bus highways completely separate from roadways. That would be the best way for buses, but where would they go in Austin? What gets torn down to allow for them?

Maybe this system isn't made for the entire city because, like you said, it's a political poison pill. Maybe it'd be more for a major destination like the airport.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

The problem with express bus services is that they still have to go through traffic. This isn't Ottawa. There aren't dedicated bus highways completely separate from roadways. That would be the best way for buses, but where would they go in Austin? What gets torn down to allow for them?

Maybe this system isn't made for the entire city because, like you said, it's a political poison pill. Maybe it'd be more for a major destination like the airport.

That's why I placed emphasis on about dedicated lanes. Running Express buses in mixed traffic lanes will be a compromise, but it will still be faster than having the bus stop every few blocks. Just look at all the examples I posted earlier, over half the elapse times of a run over a corridor is at stops.

And yes, an express PRT, cable car, or other mass transit vehicle anyone can imagine might work well with the airport being one of the two terminals. All the problems arise over where should the other terminal be? Somewhere downtown is a pretty wide scope. Would the Convention Center be a best choice, or would a better choice be the State Office Buildings or the middle of the University of Texas campus? Wouldn't all of them make great choices?

And that's my problem with an express service between just two station, several Austin designations lie in a linear path, and a simple point to point mass transit service isn't going to work well.

[KevinFromTexas]

Community Impact News had a good article today on I-35.

https://communityimpact.com/austin/c...7-plan-fix-35/

5 things to know about TxDOT’s massive Central7 plan to fix I-35
Comment now on the $550M-$850M proposal to add express lanes, lower or raise mainlanes through downtown Austin

By JJ Velasquez September 21, 2016

The Texas Department of Transportation is taking feedback from the public on its 7-mile plan to fix the traffic congestion problems plaguing I-35 in Austin.

TxDOT held an open house yesterday at Memorial United Methodist Church, 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin. Attendees learned about the Central 7-mile Comprehensive Project, also known as the Central7 project, and provided suggestions on what they would like to see.

Among the improvements planned as part of the approximately $550 million-to-$850 million project spanning I-35 from Riverside Drive to US 183 are adding express lanes, one in each direction; lower or raising the mainlanes of I-35 through downtown Austin; and bicycle and pedestrian enhancements.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...-land-use.html

Chamber: Want to tackle traffic? Tackle land use first

Sep 21, 2016, 2:55pm CDT

Michael Theis
Staff writer
Austin Business Journal

Chief among those suggestions: a focus on Austin's CodeNext process, a dramatic but delayed overhaul of the city's land development code. In a subsection of the report titled "Land Use (The Original Sin)", the Chamber notes that the number of rush-hour commuters has increased 21 percent over the past 10 years. The vast majority of those rush-hour commuters are driving alone — and an increasing number come from the suburbs.

"Mobility and land-use planning are intimately linked," reads the report. "Outward expansion and demographic growth are not concerns per se. However, a low-density development scheme in which land uses are strictly segregated is ill-suited to the task of managing Austin's immense population boom."

In its report, the Chamber recommends that the city adopt a "form-based" land development code to replace the current "use-based" land development code. A "form-based" code regulates development based upon the physical character of a building or neighborhood, whereas more traditional "use-based" codes regulate development activity by the type of activity that is expected to take place on a given parcel. It also argues that these form-based codes would allow the development in Austin of a wider variety of "missing middle" housing options — such as what a middle-income household might be able to afford.