Austinist: Out on the Edge of Darkness, There Rides a Peace Train

M1EK

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:36:58 -0600

The problem isn't that this encourages density or doesn't; the problem isn't that it goes to the suburbs or doesn't; the problem is that it's a shitty rail line. Rail can be great. You can also build shitty rail, which is what this is going to be. You'll have to transfer to a shuttle bus to go the last mile or two to the Capitol or UT or even to most of downtown. Imagine doing that every day, if you have the choice of otherwise taking your car, and you'll see the problem. (Light rail down Lamar/Guadalupe would have gone straight to all three - within an easy walk). Hell, I've only been crackplogging about this for four years now; and every time a story pops up, I have to re-link y'all. http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/archives/000324.html

Mr. Sensible

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:34:22 -0600

Tarvin, Your old-school, keep Austin tiny rhetoric is so tired. You may have lived here your entire life, but this city is growing--and there's nothing you can do about it. If nothing else, be happy to live in a city that everyone wants to move to. And if you want to live in a city with "negative population growth", I hear Flint, Michigan is lovely.

Tarvin

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:41:34 -0600

What Austin needs is about 100,000 fewer people. That way the traffic, pollution, cost of living, etc. can go back the way they were. We need negative growth, not more.

Shilli

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:33:49 -0600

I like density downtown, but building huge new developments in empty fields far from downtown doesn't do it for me. This train goes from downtown to the suburbs and it is part of a larger plan which mainly involves more roads to the suburbs. I'd rather they just quit. Close MoPac from 360 South to 360 North. Bury I-35 in a tunnel with no exits between 71 and 183. Don't build any more roads anywhere that are wider than two lanes each way. At that point, a train from the suburbs to downtown might be popular enough to work. As it is, I think it will require continuing government subsidies and will only be used by people who can't afford to pay for tolls and parking, not the hummer owners. The post conveyed more negativity than I actually feel towards the train. I like the train just fine. I don't like highways and I don't like sprawl and I think this plan overall means more of those, not less.

db

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 21:57:26 -0600

What's with the old-school attitude toward density and transit on austinist lately? Where I'm from, getting suburbanites' fat asses out of their hummers is known as "a cool thing to do in Leander." Unless you like. . . um. . . roads. And cul-de-sacs. And such. In that case: see you at TGI Friday's. I'll be the one in the oxygen mask, drinking the bottled water.