Leffingwell Postpones Urban Rail Vote

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Mayor Lee Leffingwell said in a press release today that, contrary to what he promised voters in last year’s election, an urban light rail proposal will not be ready by its “overly ambitious” November 2010 deadline.

Too much about the future of the light rail—an entirely different project from the Capital Metro MetroRail that opens later this month—remains unclear, Leffingwell said. Chief among his concerns is how the light rail would run across Lady Bird Lake, as well as what rail construction could do to Austin traffic.

“I believe the City has more work to do to present a clear picture of what subsequent phases of an urban rail system might look like, how construction and operation of those later phases might be financed, and exactly what role we can expect federal funding to play,” Leffingwell said.

Leffingwell said that he and City Council members plan to continue developing the proposal until it’s ready to be put to a vote, hopefully by the end of next year. The electric light rail will reportedly run from Northeast Austin’s Mueller development through the University of Texas campus and the Capital, then downtown, across the river, and east on Riverside Drive to the airport.

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By Cate Smithson in News on March 10, 2010 5:39 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

mdahmus

Shawn, most people in the transit community wouldn't call MetroRapid BRT, despite the flimflam job pulled on the Feds by Capital Metro.

Shawn Shillington

What I understand to be the current proposal is here:

http://shawnshillington.com/ProposedAustinRailMap.pdf

tim

Ben Wear at the Statesman usually has the most up to date information and maps. He has a blog on the statesman website with an RSS feed that's great for keeping up to date on transportation concerns.

I don't think the city has a website yet for it yet, unfortunately. This doc:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/downloads/dap_rail_brief_072408.pdf

has the basic map that most people are basically working off of on slide 30. There have been a few changes that you can suss out from Wears blog, but it's basically still the same.

jtsmith01

Can you guys point me to a place that has any of the proposed future rail plans online? I'm all for taking a breath and figuring out a system that makes the most long-term sense, but I'd really like to feel like something, anything, is in motion.

tim

Yeah, my only hope with the delay is that we'll be able to say - "This is bad rail. Bad rail is what you get when you let Cap Metro build rail. When the city builds rail it will be good rail and go where people want to go."

mdahmus

The airport is in like phase 3 or 4 anyways; and yes, it makes sense at that point.

The biggest danger in this postponement is that if I'm right that people who won't ride the excellent express bus straight to work today will stop riding the train once they figure out they're at the mercy of shuttle-buses each and every day, we'll have had another year for the fence-sitters to learn "rail doesn't work". Because there's really only one guy out there who tried to tell people "this is BAD rail, and unlike good rail, bad rail doesn't work" all along.

tim

The airports a bit of a red herring. Riverside is one of the most dense parts of Austin. Conversely it also has some of the most undeveloped land in Austin, so it could get even more dense (Amili South Shore is going to be adding hundreds of units replacing a radio shack in just a few months). It's easier to think of if you think of it hitting downtown and what should be the four densest neighborhoods in Austin - Downtown, Mueller, UT, and Riverside. From that perspective it's very practical.

The Airport just makes sense once you've run a rail down Riverside, and it's really not that far if you take Riverside.I know it can seem that way on 71.

lukequinton

I want mass-transit as much as the next Austinite, so this is tough, but, in relation to part of this plan, I have to wonder if we really need a big ol' train to the airport right now . . . that's a long way and, I'm guessing, a ton of dough. We'd be one of the few cities with an easy rail connection, but, I there are other things that seem more important to hit up first.

Maybe some transit experts can fill me in on this. . .