Snapshots: MetroRail Red Line

Who cares how much it cost?* Who cares if it doesn't go everywhere we want to go?** Austin's almost got a people train. Toot toot!

These photographs were provided by Steve Hopson.

*Even though this will be one of the cheapest commuter rail lines ever built on a cost per mile basis, many people would have preferred the money be spent on 1/4 of a flyover between any two of Austin's highways.

**One of the main reasons this will be one of the cheapest commuter rail lines ever built on a cost per mile basis is that it was built on an existing rail line, which limits route options.

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By Shawn Shillington in News on March 12, 2009 10:24 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Shawn Shillington

Luv ya, M1EK.

The 4th and Trinity stop actually seems fine to me location-wise to access most 6th street bars. The problem (other than where the train goes from there) is that you have to be willing to get on at 6:45 pm or 6:45 am.

mdahmus

Not only does the train not really go 'downtown' except in the barest of senses, it also won't run late enough to be of any use in a pub crawl. Unless you want to get drunk at 2:00 - 5:00 on a weekday afternoon, which, of course, is fine.

mdahmus

I'm kind of hurt I didn't get a link out of one of those footnotes.

The decision to go commuter doesn't JUST limit our route options; it limits our options for more rail going forward, as we can now never build the 2000 LRT proposal - the only rail corridor in this area which roughly matches the success template of cities like Dallas, Houston, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc.

We're matching the failure template of South Florida here, in case anybody remembers - expecting that people who won't ride buses today won't mind riding commuter rail that forces them to transfer to a bus on the work end of their trip every single day.