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  #5021  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2016, 7:13 AM
drummer drummer is offline
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New Articles on Lone Star Rail

Public officials begin reassessing Lone Star Rail District feasibility

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Elected officials who sit on the policy board for the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization are scrutinizing development of a proposed commuter rail line between San Antonio and Georgetown now that a vital player has dropped out of the project.
Lone Star Rail District pushing forward on rail project

Quote:
The LSRD presented four alternatives at the April 15 meeting that would not require the participation of UP. Those options include two options that would build the rail along I-35, one that would build it along SH 130 and one that would build it parallel to the existing UP line. LSRD officials said they will continue to include the UP line as a possible alignment for the purposes of the environmental impact study, or EIS, in the event UP rejoins the project.
Not a whole lot of new information, but there are some insights into possible new ideas since UP backed out. Both articles are from Community Impact, linked in the titles.
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  #5022  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2016, 3:20 AM
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TxDot posted a slew of simulations of the 35 options. https://www.youtube.com/user/TxDOTpio/videos
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  #5023  
Old Posted Apr 20, 2016, 4:16 AM
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lzppjb lzppjb is offline
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Awesome! Thank for the heads up. Those caps look really nice. Like a mini-mini-Central Park.
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  #5024  
Old Posted Apr 22, 2016, 1:53 PM
hereinaustin hereinaustin is offline
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Originally Posted by brando View Post
TxDot posted a slew of simulations of the 35 options. https://www.youtube.com/user/TxDOTpio/videos
I would ideally like to see something like this where the decks are instead of what is currently proposed:



The image above is proposed for a freeway segment in Houston with corridor dimensions that are a little larger, but similar, to what we have (200' minimum). Our I-35 deck system is beyond horrible and the current proposal for this segment of I-35 also sucks. I'm not saying ours can look identical, but with smaller shoulders, we could get close to optimizing the space available without maintaining a confusing deck.

Here's my mock-up:


Last edited by hereinaustin; Apr 22, 2016 at 2:28 PM.
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  #5025  
Old Posted Apr 23, 2016, 3:32 PM
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AłlTransit is a pretty fun new app to play with. Site for Austin:
http://alltransit.cnt.org/metrics/?a...stin%2C+tx#map
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  #5026  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2016, 7:43 PM
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Early voting starts today on prop 1.

http://traviscountyclerk.org/eclerk/...A16_EVPerm.pdf
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  #5027  
Old Posted May 3, 2016, 12:27 PM
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Nonprofit supports Capital Metro’s proposal for new downtown MetroRail station
Urban Land Institute releases review of project

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The original downtown Austin MetroRail station had always been intended to be temporary, and nonprofit organization Urban Land Institute has come out in support of Capital Metro’s plans to build a permanent multimodal station.
http://communityimpact.com/austin/ce...orail-station/
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  #5028  
Old Posted May 5, 2016, 3:51 PM
AusTxDevelopment AusTxDevelopment is offline
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Deleted because it was already posted above. I didn't scroll back far enough.
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  #5029  
Old Posted May 6, 2016, 2:03 PM
Novacek Novacek is offline
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will-the-song-of-a-single-bird-delay-an-austin-highway
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news...emium-referral
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  #5030  
Old Posted May 6, 2016, 8:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Novacek View Post
will-the-song-of-a-single-bird-delay-an-austin-highway
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news...emium-referral
Hate me for saying this if you want but I really hope so... I've never been a fan of the southwest extension of 45.
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  #5031  
Old Posted May 6, 2016, 8:29 PM
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^Agreed, I'm tired of all of our money going to the same old same old. In other news, the council is trying to stop the bike/sidewalks bond from making it to the ballot....Gotta love this council!!!!
http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories...ecommendation/
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  #5032  
Old Posted May 8, 2016, 2:15 AM
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Prop 1 failed. So unless Uber and Lyft are liars they will be leaving Austin Monday morning.
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  #5033  
Old Posted May 8, 2016, 2:55 AM
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Originally Posted by The ATX View Post
Prop 1 failed. So unless Uber and Lyft are liars they will be leaving Austin Monday morning.
And now it gets interesting...
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  #5034  
Old Posted May 8, 2016, 3:25 AM
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I'm so F'n proud of our city for not taking s*** from a huge corp. They can leave for all I care but it would be obsurly short sighted and the bottom line is a lot of $ will be lost. I've heard other companies are trying to set up shop here and would have no problem with the regulations
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  #5035  
Old Posted May 8, 2016, 3:34 AM
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Ride sharing is a great idea. But I wouldn't even let Uber and Lyft kiss my ass on their way out of town. Good riddance. The money they will be losing over this minor inconvenience for them is significant. If they were a public company the board of directors and stockholders would be calling for the CEO's head.
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  #5036  
Old Posted May 8, 2016, 4:15 PM
paul78701 paul78701 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Strayone View Post
I'm so F'n proud of our city for not taking s*** from a huge corp. They can leave for all I care but it would be obsurly short sighted and the bottom line is a lot of $ will be lost. I've heard other companies are trying to set up shop here and would have no problem with the regulations
They are not trying to set up shop...they are already here! Get Me https://www.getme.com/ has existed in Austin for a while now. They moved their headquarters here from Dallas last year. They have already said that they are staying.

Uber and Lyft will eventually come back, but in the meantime, they are just giving up market share to these guys. Some of that market share may be tough to get back once Get Me (and possibly others) become entrenched. I agree, they aren't making a smart business move if you ask me.
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  #5037  
Old Posted May 9, 2016, 10:14 AM
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So, I've been out of the U.S. for a few years now and I understand the basics of the disagreement, but can someone fill me in on why Uber and Lyft weren't for background checks, etc.? Was there more to it? I'm watching from far away and am clearly missing something.
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  #5038  
Old Posted May 9, 2016, 1:44 PM
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The way I understand it Uber and Lyft are against any regulation that would make their drivers appear more like employees than independent contractors. If the drivers are employees than the companies have to pay overtime, unemployment insurance, etc. They spent more money fighting the background checks than it would have cost to fingerprint all of their drivers so there is definitely more to it.

Last edited by corvairkeith; May 9, 2016 at 2:02 PM.
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  #5039  
Old Posted May 9, 2016, 3:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by corvairkeith View Post
The way I understand it Uber and Lyft are against any regulation that would make their drivers appear more like employees than independent contractors. If the drivers are employees than the companies have to pay overtime, unemployment insurance, etc. They spent more money fighting the background checks than it would have cost to fingerprint all of their drivers so there is definitely more to it.
While they are surly fighting from having to call their contractors employees, the problem here was turning background checks over to the city and instituting finger printing. They are able to get such a free flow of drivers because the red tape barrier of entry is controlled. They still have to submit background checks but you don't have to deal with the DMV level of setup that will discourage a lot of people from signing up. Uber/Lyft are not built on full-time drivers. They're built on people who drive less than 10 hours a week that are just looking for a little bit extra of income. It's not life or death and requiring people to go through the fingerprint check, lines, more paperwork etc. is just going to make it not worth the time for a lot of people.


Quote:
Originally Posted by The ATX View Post
Ride sharing is a great idea. But I wouldn't even let Uber and Lyft kiss my ass on their way out of town. Good riddance. The money they will be losing over this minor inconvenience for them is significant. If they were a public company the board of directors and stockholders would be calling for the CEO's head.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you are not a CEO of a million dollar company. They are in hundreds of cities around the world and will not be affected by losing out on the 33rd biggest metro in the US. There is money in Austin but it's not this massive cash cow that people here think it is. They told the city council that they could not operate with the suggested law changes but the council changed the law anyway in December. The council is the one that dared them to leave because they didn't think L/U ever would. The fact that L/U are being criticized for a lack of negotiation after the council already changed the law is laughable. The time for negotiation ended in December.
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  #5040  
Old Posted May 9, 2016, 4:57 PM
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Originally Posted by paul78701 View Post
They are not trying to set up shop...they are already here! Get Me https://www.getme.com/ has existed in Austin for a while now. They moved their headquarters here from Dallas last year. They have already said that they are staying.

Uber and Lyft will eventually come back, but in the meantime, they are just giving up market share to these guys. Some of that market share may be tough to get back once Get Me (and possibly others) become entrenched. I agree, they aren't making a smart business move if you ask me.
The problem with Get Me is that I've heard it's much more expensive, as one of the posts I came across broke down the numbers and in some cases is 4x more expensive than either Uber or Lyft. On top of that, the service isn't as good. Your not going to see a whole lot of transfer if the cost of running their service isn't reasonable and it's not going to be in the same price range because that extra cost of going with the city's regs are being handed down to the customer. I don't know anything nor have I read anything about the other company to say anything about it.

I was split on this vote because I can see both sides but it came down to how I've seen Uber and Lyft change the community for the better in all honesty. We have seen a decrease in drunk driving accidents and DUIs and that's the main reason why I voted yes. The next reason would be a whole lot of people who don't have a car or live near a bus line have started relying on Uber and Lyft to get to work ect... Taxis may be okay for just going down the street but they are really pricey these days. Last time I took a taxi from DT home, it was just over 20 bucks...I only live about 4.3 to 4.5 miles from DT. I was shocked.


I'm all for alternatives and I hope these other companies can take over some of the load. There will be customers who will switch over but I don't see a majority of people using it unless prices go down.
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