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Originally Posted by IluvATX
It's rather selfish to vote no on the platform of "I won't ride it" or "I don't like the route"...This may be our only chance to help alleviate traffiic for years to come. So before you refuse the rail vote, consider the city as a whole.
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Tl; Dr: What you are saying makes almost no sense. If the entire city is paying for something, it better benefit most of them too. This proposal ignores the single densest area: West Campus/North campus. The main reason for including West Campus is to ensure our starting ridership is high so that future expansions can be more readily added.
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The proposed route has some positives: it covers Riverside, the convention center, medical center, DKR Memorial Stadium, and the new ACC. And negatives: doesn't include the airport (coming later), doesn't include West Campus, routed through 1+ miles of untaxable UT land, and doesn't take advantage of existing investments in MetroRail.
But what I find frustrating is that a compromise, with alignment basically the same south of MLK with a Guadalupe/Lamar alignment north of MLK, would have worked really well for our city. This would have allowed for all the benefits of the proposed alignment (coverage of Riverside, convention center, medical center, and football stadium), while still including our densest area (West Campus).
The new urban rail + existing MetroRail could instead intersect at Lamar/Airport. The existing MetroRail could be realigned to include the domain, more of Highland mall plus Hancock OR Mueller. The new urban rail, along Lamar, could later be extended north to 183, Rundberg, Parmer, Braker, and I-35 if demand warranted it.