AUSTIN | Transportation Updates

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by JoninATX

Does anyone know if the city approved on adding several double tracks at certain stations? It was in the impact newspaper back in June, said if it was approve that it would have started back in October this year and finish up in March.

http://impactnews.com/articles/capit...otos.html#3375

It wasn't City approval they were seeking. They applied for a Federal grant, that was not approved.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

It wasn't City approval they were seeking. They applied for a Federal grant, that was not approved.

CapMetro has their own board capable of making its own decisions without seeking approval from the city council. CapMetro has their own source of tax revenues to spend as its board may direct. If the board decided to fund double tracking using its own funds, it could do so. But the board can't spend city, state, or federal funds without being granted those funds for that specific purpose first.

[JoninATX]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

It wasn't City approval they were seeking. They applied for a Federal grant, that was not approved.

Ok, well thanks for the clarification SecretAgentMan.

[mars-man]

Gondolas in Austin: creative transportation ideas emerge

Austin Business Journal by Robert Grattan, Staff Writer
Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 1:26pm CST

What if Austinites rode gondolas to work?
Admittedly, the question sounds a little far fetched, said Frog Design Inc.'s Michael McDaniel.
But it, and other questions like it, should be explored as Austin develops a comprehensive transit system to carry the city into coming decades….

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...an-we-see.html

I have long wondered why more gondola systems are not employed in urban environments, rather than just ski areas and amusement parks. Check out the subway-style map on fifth slide. Love it!

[mars-man]

Wear: A tram instead of a roller coaster
Solving Austin’s traffic congestion with gondolas?

Posted: 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012

By Ben Wear

When my boss first mentioned to me that someone at a recent conference in San Francisco had suggested using gondolas for mass transit in Austin, I thought he was talking about boats...

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/t...asterso/nTKkz/

[KevinFromTexas]

^I still really like that idea and I wish it would be given some serious consideration by city leaders and voters.

[LoneStarMike]

It's a cool mode of public transportation, and a lot cheaper, but I'm thinking the best part of all is that large portions of it could be built a LOT faster than widening a road or laying tracks for urban rail. I read some of the articles, but it didn't really say how long it would take to construct. Does anyone know?

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/t...owntown/nTP6T/

Posted: 10:48 a.m. Friday, Dec. 7, 2012
Construction closing lanes on West Eighth downtown

By Ben Wear
A project to rework West Eighth Street downtown, reducing it from four lanes to two, will close lanes between Congress Avenue and Colorado Street over the next six months.

Work on that same street further to the west, meanwhile, has moved to a new stage with the coming construction of a roundabout at West Eighth and Rio Grande Street.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/t...he-sky-/nTQbY/

Posted: 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012
Getting There: Pontoon bridges? Bicycles in the sky? Hey, it’s Austin

By Ben Wear

Several months ago, I looked at some renderings of what that team had in mind. One drawing of where the creek flows into the lake east of Congress Avenue — an ornate rendering straight from the Hudson Valley school of painting — showed what looked like a bridge across the lake. I assumed it was the urban rail bridge that the city Transportation Department has proposed for roughly that same spot.

Nope. If you look closely, it shows a water-level pontoon bridge (with space enough underneath for sculls and other small boats to pass) that would open and close like a gate in a picket fence, and would connect at its southern tip to the boardwalk trail now under construction. Stephanie McDonald, the conservancy’s executive director, told me the current thinking has the bridge opening and closing a couple of times a day. I twit you not.

Anyway, McDonald told me the city’s transportation folks, with their rail bridge in mind, are not exactly big fans of the pontoon bridge idea. A spokeswoman with the city’s Transportation Department, apprised of our conversation, said, no, department Director Rob Spillar could see doing both. But city officials have said the rail bridge would probably include bus lanes as well as sidewalks for walking and biking. Why have both bridges?

[BrodeRayEwing]

......

[KevinFromTexas]

Count me in as thinking it's goofy of them to propose the bridge. I thought there was already a plan to have a rail bridge to connect the north shore to the south shore from either Brazos or Trinity to Riverside. That bridge was supposed to have a lane for buses as well as a pedestrian lane and bicycle lane. I really can't stand this pontoon idea. It just seems very stupid. Besides it only being extended across the river a few times a day (lame) it also will require a lot of maintenance and operating costs.

[lzppjb]

I think we should make a bridge by tying a bunch of barrels together with hemp rope to span the lake. Watch your step.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...p-100-r/nTzfY/

Posted: 10:00 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013
A dozen Central Texas roads among state’s top 100 road and bridge problems

By Chris Tomlinson

Texas has 11 major bridges that need repair, 11 highly-traveled highway segments that need safety improvements and 38 road segments that suffer from unacceptable congestion, according to a national nonprofit group.

That list of the state’s top 100 road and bridge problems from TRIP, an advocacy organization based in Washington, includes a dozen Central Texas road sections. U.S. 290 through Oak Hill is seen as the worst locally, coming in No. 9 on the list, followed closely by congested Interstate 35 through Central Austin.

Long sections of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and Loop 360 in West Austin also made the list, which includes a suggestion that the MoPac bridge over Lady Bird Lake be widened.

The group predicts that the number of vehicle miles traveled in the state will increase 35 percent by 2030. Most of the problems are in major metropolitan areas

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...rd-look/nT288/

Updated: 8:55 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013 | Posted: 8:54 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013
Wear: I-35 fixes finally get a hard look

By Ben Wear

Call me a cockeyed optimist. But I think something is happening with Interstate 35. Something real, something that might make a difference.

But when it came to the worst of it — those several miles passing through Austin where the traffic exceeds 200,000 cars a day and the corridor is confined to its current footprint by a cemetery, a basketball arena, hotels and hospitals — little has occurred, and it has seemed almost not worth pondering what could be done.

Then the city of Austin, in what at the time seemed mostly like a symbolic gesture to road enthusiasts, in 2011 commissioned a $1 million study of possible small-bore projects for the section between U.S. 290 in North Austin and William Cannon Drive in South Austin. The Texas Department of Transportation later kicked in $1.2 million to broaden the study to I-35 between Texas 45 North in Round Rock and Texas 45 Southeast near Buda.

[M1EK]

Sorry for neglecting y'all. Some recent doings on rail in Austin, with crackplog links:

JMVC said with a straight face at the UTC that the Drag doesn't have enough demand to justify rail: http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=768 - this, in response to pointed questioning about whether Rapid Bus precludes light rail there (hint: it does), and whether we should care (he says we shouldn't). Some picture background: http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=776 and just from a few moments ago: http://m1ek.dahmus.org/?p=782

The Alliance for Public Transportation, best represented by a few other posters here such as secretagentman, continue to be silent on this topic - as they are on everything except for Capital Metro cheerleading. Independence must be one of those words that does not mean what I think it means. Of course, when it came to yours truly asserting back when there was still time to DO something, that Rapid Bus meant no light rail here, they were quick to undermine and submarine from the courageous comfort of anonymity.

In short, folks, not only are we probably not getting half-decent rail on the Mueller alignment, because it will share lanes with buses and right-turning cars on most of the route and with everybody else on some of the route, we will likely never get rail on the Drag. Unless, you know, people start fighting.

[nixcity]

So it sounds like there is still at least some debate as to where the next line will run, does that mean it could be up for a vote anytime soon? Sending it west through West Campus rather than out ot Mueller makes so much more sense.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by nixcity

So it sounds like there is still at least some debate as to where the next line will run, does that mean it could be up for a vote anytime soon? Sending it west through West Campus rather than out ot Mueller makes so much more sense.

There's a contingent that's trying to change the city's mind by being nice. The city has basically stonewalled them, as has Capital Metro. Seriously - go watch the video linked in one of the posts up there and watch as Capital Metro spokesman Cortez claims that the Drag doesn't justify any higher quality service than Rapid Bus. (Same guy who has bemoaned for years the fact that we couldn't get rail done on the #1 corridor, suddenly changing his tune now that people actually asked a few pointed questions about Rapid Bus precluding rail).

[nixcity]

What percentage of the 2000 LR proposal's projected ridership would have been from Leander stop to Crestview?

[electricron]

I'm not so sure that's exactly what he stated, it's more akin to what he meant.

What should be pointed out was the answer to why there couldn't be dedicated lanes north of MLK. It's the same reason why dedicated light rail lines can't be built there as well. Conflicting usages and demands upon the Guadalupe Street was the answer.

You have a 5 lane street, one lane being set aside for parking and four lanes being used for traffic. Even if you took one lane away to reconfigure the street into a three lanes, with the center lane being used for left turns, that leaves just one lane to be dedicated for transit. The only way to get two lanes dedicated for transit would be to eliminate on street parking also. The City owns the street's right-of-way, if its not willing to dedicate lanes for rapid bus, what makes you think it would for streetcars or light rail?

If the only way to achieve two dedicated transit lanes is to eliminate on street parking, that means somebody has to step in and buy land to build parking garages. CapMetro wouldn't want to build park & ride lots at every station - so why would they want to build parking elsewhere? Of course not.

The other solution is to tear down much of the commercial properties along the street for widening. I suggest proposals of eliminating on street parking and potentially widening of the street were two of the reasons the light rail referendum in 2000 failed.

Rapid bus and streetcars can share lanes, and that's why they're being proposed now and at least one is being built. Yet, M1ek doesn't like any proposal other than the 2000 light rail plan. A plan the city may not have allowed.

[M1EK]

Originally Posted by electricron

I'm not so sure that's exactly what he stated, it's more akin to what he meant.

What should be pointed out was the answer to why there couldn't be dedicated lanes north of MLK. It's the same reason why dedicated light rail lines can't be built there as well. Conflicting usages and demands upon the Guadalupe Street was the answer.

You have a 5 lane street, one lane being set aside for parking and four lanes being used for traffic. Even if you took one lane away to reconfigure the street into a three lanes, with the center lane being used for left turns, that leaves just one lane to be dedicated for transit. The only way to get two lanes dedicated for transit would be to eliminate on street parking also. The City owns the street's right-of-way, if its not willing to dedicate lanes for rapid bus, what makes you think it would for streetcars or light rail?

If the only way to achieve two dedicated transit lanes is to eliminate on street parking, that means somebody has to step in and buy land to build parking garages. CapMetro wouldn't want to build park & ride lots at every station - so why would they want to build parking elsewhere? Of course not.

The other solution is to tear down much of the commercial properties along the street for widening. I suggest proposals of eliminating on street parking and potentially widening of the street were two of the reasons the light rail referendum in 2000 failed.

Rapid bus and streetcars can share lanes, and that's why they're being proposed now and at least one is being built. Yet, M1ek doesn't like any proposal other than the 2000 light rail plan. A plan the city may not have allowed.

The city was going to allow dedicated lanes in the 2000 light rail plan. We don't need to hypothesize about it; I've seen the engineering drawings, even for the very difficult stretch from 27th to 29th.

I like any proposal that goes places people want to go, and is congestion-proof. The Red Line goes to shitty places; and the city's urban rail plan (like Rapid Bus), is going to be stuck behind cars turning right downtown, and stuck behind cars going straight in other places.