So uh..Austin Subway*, Light Rail Expansions and $3.2 - $10.2 Billion

[skittlebrau 474]

13 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Good. City needs to live within their means like everyone one else. Citizens are not a bottomless piggy bank. 

Trimming the police budget is a good start.

[ChickenSandwich 9824]

1 minute ago, skittlebrau said:

Trimming the police budget is a good start.

We will see if that assumption is correct Ms Cleo, assuming the COA gets its way.  The laws of unintended consequences will certainly apply. 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 600]

As many people as possible need to keep or start working from home. It's been great getting around Houston the last few months. I know very few people mass transit really works for. My neighbor wants it it go to the museum district twice a year but I sure as hell don't want to help him pay for it. I'd rather drive his old ass down there twice a year than pay for something I'll never use. Between income, property, sales, gas and other business taxes I pay I'm taxed out. I hope it fails for the sake of the Austin taxpayer. I seriously doubt it'll  do a damn thing to resolve traffic congestion. It's just not convenient enough for a large majority of the population.

[Js1 85257]

17 minutes ago, CfRhTxStBobcats said:

As many people as possible need to keep or start working from home. It's been great getting around Houston the last few months. I know very few people mass transit really works for. My neighbor wants it it go to the museum district twice a year but I sure as hell don't want to help him pay for it. I'd rather drive his old ass down there twice a year than pay for something I'll never use. Between income, property, sales, gas and other business taxes I pay I'm taxed out. I hope it fails for the sake of the Austin taxpayer. I seriously doubt it'll  do a damn thing to resolve traffic congestion. It's just not convenient enough for a large majority of the population.

Cool so childless people are exempt from property taxes going to local school districts? 

[CfRhTxStBobcats 600]

10 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Cool so childless people are exempt from property taxes going to local school districts? 

Schools are a necessity that the vast majority of taxpayers benefit from, wether you have children or not. A mass transit system than a vast minority of taxpayers will ever use is asinine.

[Somnio 751]

People in Texas used to use streetcars to get around, just like they still do all around the world.

The difference is everyone else did not stupidly tear out or abandon their tracks like much of the United States did.

We now have 70 plus years of highway expansions, and development patterns which prioritize 5000 pound, fossil fuel burning machines to move people's lard asses to go anywhere.

This has not been a good experiment.  It has failed.  It has been bad for our cities, bad for our environment, and bad for our health.

The future is not to continue sprawling farther out into the hinterlands, and neverending multi-billion dollar freeway expansions into what was formerly farm land.

[Poolflood 845]

https://ktrh.iheart.com/content/2020-06-17-losing-steam-texas-bullet-train-project-seeks-federal-help/?fbclid=IwAR3RchJKHrlUI0uAUD2Y7Soxtwj09ADRXlf3h_SohNGHSCliEe4ro9oOKuY

[Pasken 1309]

13 hours ago, Poolflood said:

https://ktrh.iheart.com/content/2020-06-17-losing-steam-texas-bullet-train-project-seeks-federal-help/?fbclid=IwAR3RchJKHrlUI0uAUD2Y7Soxtwj09ADRXlf3h_SohNGHSCliEe4ro9oOKuY

Wrong thread.

[B00M 6413]

On 6/13/2020 at 5:40 PM, Somnio said:

People in Texas used to use streetcars to get around, just like they still do all around the world.

The difference is everyone else did not stupidly tear out or abandon their tracks like much of the United States did.

We now have 70 plus years of highway expansions, and development patterns which prioritize 5000 pound, fossil fuel burning machines to move people's lard asses to go anywhere.

This has not been a good experiment.  It has failed. 

I'll concede that it's been bad for our health and environment, but economically, did reliance and fuel burning cars and highways fail us? 

 

[Poolflood 845]

2 hours ago, Pasken said:

Wrong thread.

Awe fuck.  Ban me.

[Somnio 751]

1 hour ago, B00M said:

I'll concede that it's been bad for our health and environment, but economically, did reliance and fuel burning cars and highways fail us? 

 

I'm not sure.  Like most things there are positives and negatives.

I will say this, many think in terms of either/or on this topic.  There are examples all around the globe of nations with high rates of car ownership, and modern expressway systems while still having transit systems that absolutely shame all but just a handful of our biggest and most urban cities here in the U.S.

Canada and Australia are two in the Anglosphere which come to mind as quite relevant.  Look at Melbourne as an example.  This isn't a massive city, nor is it an ancient city founded 1,000 plus years ago.  It's really quite comparable to a Houston or Dallas in size and age.

According to the 2016 Australian census, Melbourne has the second-highest rate of public transport usage among Australian capital cities for travel to work at 19 percent, second to Sydney's 27 percent.^[1] In 2017-2018, 565 million passenger trips were made on Melbourne's metropolitan public transport network.^[3]

Melbourne's public transport system includes rail, tram and bus services. Its tram network is the largest in the world.^[26] Almost 300 bus routes and 16 rail lines serve Greater Melbourne.

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Melbourne}  

Australia also has one of the highest rates of auto ownership in the world at 730 motor vehicles per 1,000 people.  The United States by comparison has 838 per 1,000 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita

 

Canada is another nation with high auto ownership at 685 per 1,000 people, yet it's transit systems and usage far surpass systems in the U.S.  And it's not just Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver.  Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa are all relatively small cities, are not very old or dense cities, and still have quite extensive and well used transit systems.

There are other examples globally such as Japan and Germany which are known for their cars, have quite high auto ownership rates while still having impressive, well used transit systems.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

According to the twitterz, this is heading to the ballot. 

[elfenix 34221]

i'm assuming like every other transit initiative in austin for the last several decades, it will fail, not because people are generally opposed to transit (though plenty are), but because it doesn't do ____, which ____ is different for each pro-transit voter, and for which no plurality exists

[Pasken 1309]

39 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

According to the twitterz, this is heading to the ballot. 

Yea but a scaled down version at 7 bil. Now Orange Line cuts off at 183 in the north and Stassney in the south. The gold line is no longer light rail so now it's just a bus line.

[Wally Fairway 5539]

When does Elon announce the next Boring Co project is Austin?

"If" there was a deal, as part of the mega-factory, how much do you think tax incentives are going to underwrite the tunnels?

[clapclapclap 9000]

34 minutes ago, Pasken said:

Yea but a scaled down version at 7 bil. Now Orange Line cuts off at 183 in the north and Stassney in the south. The gold line is no longer light rail so now it's just a bus line.

Yes, surprised this was posted earlier:

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200722/cap-metro-proposes-3-billion-in-cuts-to-mass-transit-plan-due-to-coronavirus

[Pasken 1309]

5 minutes ago, clapclapclap said:

Yes, surprised this was posted earlier:

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200722/cap-metro-proposes-3-billion-in-cuts-to-mass-transit-plan-due-to-coronavirus

It's still a good plan but a bummer not to have LRT to the east side of campus and the new basketball arena. 

[Guest Lobo]

Mayor about to do something woefully illegal with unspent (but sold) Public Safety Bond money with regard to getting this rail project started up.  I'll let him start digging his grave since I like being with my kids on the weekends.  But...here we go.

[MillerEP 30446]

Now that Tesla is moving into Austin, maybe we can beg Elon to hook us up.

[atomheartbevo 89617]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Mayor about to do something woefully illegal with unspent (but sold) Public Safety Bond money with regard to getting this rail project started up.  I'll let him start digging his grave since I like being with my kids on the weekends.  But...here we go.

You better spill the beans at some point.

[atomheartbevo 89617]

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/austin-city-council-to-vote-on-putting-project-connect-on-november-ballot/

Quote

Austin City Council will soon vote to put Project Connect on the November ballot. KXAN has learned the resolution is expected to pass unanimously. The future of the $7 billion project would then depend on voters — who must decide whether to approve an 8.75 cent tax rate increase.

Quote

The downtown tunnel is estimated to be about a mile and a half and would run under Guadalupe Street, then travel north underneath Trinity Street until it reaches 4th Street. From there, it would continue west under 4th Street until it runs into Guadalupe.

Quote

“If you don’t build the downtown tunnel you’re just putting buses or trains in the same traffic as the cars are sitting,” said Jimmy Flannigan, Austin Council Member for District 6 and Vice-Chair for the city’s Mobility Committee. “It is an absolutely critical element of this proposal.”

Quote

Where exactly CapMetro will dig and where the tunnel will pop up above ground is unclear. Transit agency officials said they need to perform additional engineering to determine exact locations. 

“If we don’t do the tunnel then we’re going to be taking away mobility on the surface, and we’re going to be taking whole segments of our streets that are congested right now,” Alter said.

The downtown tunnel is estimated to cost around $2 billion.

A mile-and-a-half tunnel under Guadalupe to Trinity to 4th.

Now whether it will take them 10 years or not, the more important question is whether they can take the surrounding streets that will bear the brunt of  the traffic during construction and convert them into bike-only streets.

Also, since Jimmy Flannigan got mentioned in the media, Fitlump is going to lose her shit on twitter and declare we should go back to vehicles that burn coal or something.

Edited August 13, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89617]

Quote

This corporation will be called the Austin Transit Partnership. Technically, the council voted on this item last week, but due to some technical problems, it voted again Wednesday to make sure the vote was legal.

Because Austin.

[freyguy 4258]

Gonna laugh my ass off when they start digging and find a massive sinkhole

[Neonmoon 38129]

16 minutes ago, freyguy said:

Gonna laugh my ass off when they start digging and find create a massive sinkhole

Fixed 

[Guest Lobo]

I dunno...I just watched the worse train ad in the history of ads.  And in the history of trains.  And that's like an overlap of 1000 years.

[Poolflood 845]

26 minutes ago, freyguy said:

Gonna laugh my ass off when they start digging and find a massive sinkhole

They'll just fill it with cash.

[Texas Jeff 1942]

Which would be a more morally correct way to spend $2 billion in Austin?

A 1.5 mile tunnel so that trains and buses don't have to mix with cars for 1.5 miles...

... or invest about $100,000 per AISD high schooler to completely modernize or rebuild ALL of our high schools and make them the best schools in the area?
... I'm talking $280 million for Bowie, $240 million for Austin High, $290 million for Akins, and so on.  Every high school kid in the district massively benefits.

Now, the tax bases are not the same, some RRISD and other ISDs are in the Austin city tax base, but the tunnel we are talking about here is going to benefit one small area.

It would be a lot cheaper to just kick cars off of the 1.5 miles and make it transit only ... and spend the money to transform the lives of the next generation.  Give them the education they need to get some of the tech jobs coming to our town.

[JohnLocke 115]

Leave it to Austin to sink a fortune into subways when we are on the cusp of driverless taxis and buses.  I sure hope this corrupt mega money sinkhole, which will screw up transportation for decades, does not pass. But it's Austin, so it probably will.

[Orange&White 5521]

The COA has a long and successful history with tunnels. You're all overreacting.

[Pasken 1309]

10 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Which would be a more morally correct way to spend $2 billion in Austin?

A 1.5 mile tunnel so that trains and buses don't have to mix with cars for 1.5 miles...

... or invest about $100,000 per AISD high schooler to completely modernize or rebuild ALL of our high schools and make them the best schools in the area?
... I'm talking $280 million for Bowie, $240 million for Austin High, $290 million for Akins, and so on.  Every high school kid in the district massively benefits.

Now, the tax bases are not the same, some RRISD and other ISDs are in the Austin city tax base, but the tunnel we are talking about here is going to benefit one small area.

It would be a lot cheaper to just kick cars off of the 1.5 miles and make it transit only ... and spend the money to transform the lives of the next generation.  Give them the education they need to get some of the tech jobs coming to our town.

The Tunnel will benefit the entire transit system. NOT just downtown. If you want AISD, Manor and other school districts to raise taxes then go work with them and make that a reality. This make believe, "Oh why don't we spend the money on X" is just silly. Austin needs public transit and only you guys could find reasons to be against this proposal. 

[Orange&White 5521]

1 hour ago, Pasken said:

Austin needs public transit and only you guys could find reasons to be against this proposal. 

This is the dumbest fuckery you have posted on this site yet. 

 

I still haven't figured out which council member/politician/transportation agency you work for, but there have been several transportation votes in this city's history that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there are a LOT of people in this town that can find reasons to not support multibillion dollar boondoggles run by corrupt agencies.

[Pasken 1309]

Just now, Orange&White said:

This is the dumbest fuckery you have posted on this site yet. 

 

I still haven't figured out which council member/politician/transportation agency you work for, but there have been several transportation votes in this city's history that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there are a LOT of people in this town that can find reasons to not support multibillion dollar boondoggles run by corrupt agencies.

Oh because if anyone disagrees with you then they are a paid shill? Get fucked. I don't work for any agency or anything political. I'm just a 20 year Austin resident that is sick of the lack of efficient public transit options and this would get us in the same ballpark as many cities our size. 

[Orange&White 5521]

ok, cool.🤘

[bschoolprof 6251]

Really great of the city to spend 2 4 6 8 $10 billion on an underground homeless shelter for the hot summer months.  It will even come with a novelty train you can ride for a mile or two.  

[Pasken 1309]

6 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Really great of the city to spend 2 4 6 8 $10 billion on an underground homeless shelter for the hot summer months.  It will even come with a novelty train you can ride for a mile or two.  

They downscaled it to 7 billion a couple weeks ago. It's officially on the ballot at City of Austin Prop A.

2 New Light Rail Lines

Nine new Park & Rides 

3 new MetroExpress commuter routes. Providing limited-stop service for commuters.

4 new MetroRapid routes, 3 new MetroExpress routes and 15 new neighborhood circulator zones. Expanded bus service with an all-electric bus fleet, new routes and on-demand circulators within certain neighborhoods. 

A transit tunnel downtown would separate rail from traffic to improve on-time performance which also allows for future train extensions not possible without the tunnel due to the relatively small downtown blocks

All-electric bike fleet stationed at transit hubs 

 

[Guest Lobo]

I'm not seeing the necessity for the creation of a bloated "Austin Transit Partnership" administration and budget.  It's going to send City of Austin portion of your property tax bill up 20%.  (up 8.75 cents to 53.35 cents).  We already have CMTA ("Cap Metro") who already has a rail operating entity called Cap MetroRail.  The City of Austin also has a public transportation department, which is very heavily staffed and resourced.  And CAMPO was/is running the show on getting the federal matching dollars for this thing (which is a substantial portion). This ATP shit is just a money-grab, I get it.  But nobody has even asked what their administrative budget would be.  The only public comments I've heard about why it needs to exist at all is Casar said they will direct the equity and community engagement efforts.  Apparently part of his district is underground or something and could be displaced by all this.  

This thing will be at least 2x the budget, come in multiple years late, etc.  We all know that, even those of us who actually want the train.  But the very entity formed to avoid those overages/delays, is apparently this Austin Transit Partnership.  So in typical City Council fashion, they want a new, heavily funded entity that does not answer to voters whose makeup and budget and bylaws and responsibilities can all only be revealed after the November ballot. 

Why does illuminative Progress prefer to remain so far in the dark?  

[DanRydell 799]

12 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Which would be a more morally correct way to spend $2 billion in Austin?

A 1.5 mile tunnel so that trains and buses don't have to mix with cars for 1.5 miles...

... or invest about $100,000 per AISD high schooler to completely modernize or rebuild ALL of our high schools and make them the best schools in the area?
... I'm talking $280 million for Bowie, $240 million for Austin High, $290 million for Akins, and so on.  Every high school kid in the district massively benefits.

Now, the tax bases are not the same, some RRISD and other ISDs are in the Austin city tax base, but the tunnel we are talking about here is going to benefit one small area.

It would be a lot cheaper to just kick cars off of the 1.5 miles and make it transit only ... and spend the money to transform the lives of the next generation.  Give them the education they need to get some of the tech jobs coming to our town.

The sources of that $2 billion are city property taxes, CapMetro funds, and federal transportation funds, none of which are allowed to be spent on AISD schools.

[Wally Pryor 5261]

20 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Really great of the city to spend 2 4 6 8 $10 billion on an underground homeless shelter for the hot summer months.  It will even come with a novelty train you can ride for a mile or two.  

It's all part of the plan, man.  The city is tired of hearing about homeless people out on the streets.   This gets them a cool home and keeps them out of sight.    So what if the funding on this will be a bottomless pit.  And it will be, trust me.    Just hire more consultants to figure out a way to sell it to the public.     

Problem solved. 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Wally Pryor

[Pasken 1309]

6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I'm not seeing the necessity for the creation of a bloated "Austin Transit Partnership" administration and budget.  It's going to send City of Austin portion of your property tax bill up 20%.  (up 8.75 cents to 53.35 cents).  We already have CMTA ("Cap Metro") who already has a rail operating entity called Cap MetroRail.  The City of Austin also has a public transportation department, which is very heavily staffed and resourced.  And CAMPO was/is running the show on getting the federal matching dollars for this thing (which is a substantial portion). This ATP shit is just a money-grab, I get it.  But nobody has even asked what their administrative budget would be.  The only public comments I've heard about why it needs to exist at all is Casar said they will direct the equity and community engagement efforts.  Apparently part of his district is underground or something and could be displaced by all this.  

This thing will be at least 2x the budget, come in multiple years late, etc.  We all know that, even those of us who actually want the train.  But the very entity formed to avoid those overages/delays, is apparently this Austin Transit Partnership.  So in typical City Council fashion, they want a new, heavily funded entity that does not answer to voters whose makeup and budget and bylaws and responsibilities can all only be revealed after the November ballot. 

Why does illuminative Progress prefer to remain so far in the dark?  

We have to do it like this to get federal funding. 

[freyguy 4258]

2 hours ago, Pasken said:

The Tunnel will benefit the entire transit system. NOT just downtown. If you want AISD, Manor and other school districts to raise taxes then go work with them and make that a reality. This make believe, "Oh why don't we spend the money on X" is just silly. Austin needs public transit and only you guys could find reasons to be against this proposal. 

Alright I'll start my list of things that are more important for us to be spending our $ on than a cute little rail system for downtown employees..

1.  Transform AISD's ability to effectively teach online - whatever it takes, however long it takes

2.  Homeless & Mental health -- we do not want to become another Seattle, Portland or San Francisco 

3.  Continue to upgrade our water supply - I'm waiting for the next zebra mussel outbreak

4.  Fixing the po-lice

Cool little trains, parks & libraries have got to be put at the bottom of the list right now.  The city's basics are going to shit.

[Wally Pryor 5261]

Between the current year and upcoming fiscal year, the city council has put aside a total of $124MM to address the homeless issue. 

Last homeless count in early '20 put the # at just over 2,500 in Austin. 

Let's scratch #2. 

 

  

[Orange&White 5521]

10 hours ago, Pasken said:

We have to do it like this to get federal funding. 

The feds just spent $6 TRILLION dollars on COVID relief and it’s not over yet. What fucking federal funds do you think there will be to fund a fucking tunnel in Austin?

[gmr548 16575]

 

 

 

And sure, the same federal government that just threw out $3.2TRILLION fucking dollars for Covid relief is ready to start funding a fucking choo choo train in Austin, Tx. 

 

 

 

 

I don't think this makes the point you want it to.

 

 

 

The feds just spent $6 TRILLION dollars on COVID relief and it’s not over yet. What fucking federal funds do you think there will be to fund a fucking tunnel in Austin?

 

$2.8 trillion later (no idea if that's accurate but that's not the point), still making literally the exact opposite point of the one you want to make.

 

[Orange&White 5521]

29 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$2.8 trillion later (no idea if that's accurate but that's not the point), still making literally the exact opposite point of the one you want to make.

 

Are you really this dense?
 

The point I’m making is not that the federal government doesn’t spend a fuckton of money, but more that when they are forced to spend a fuckton of money to save the economy, they are less able to spin up the money making machine to blow a billion on a tunnel in a local community in Texas.

[Orange&White 5521]

This is literally EXACTLY what was done when the red line was put on the ballot.

They said there would be a massive federal package that would offset the cost to Austin. “Trust us”.

Then, low and behold, they didn’t get a fucking dime. And it was very widely circulated that they knew they weren’t going to get it before the marketing and ballot item were even created. They fucking lied and not a single person was held accountable.

Maybe, and this is a crazy fucking notion, but maybe they could secure the fucking federal funding BEFORE coming to the Austin voters and lying about it or making promises they can’t keep.

And some of you wonder why there is distrust in the City and CapMetro when it comes to shit like this. They are following the exact playbook they used before.

[dcar00 14144]

12 hours ago, freyguy said:

Alright I'll start my list of things that are more important for us to be spending our $ on than a cute little rail system for downtown employees..

1.  Transform AISD's ability to effectively teach online - whatever it takes, however long it takes

2.  Homeless & Mental health -- we do not want to become another Seattle, Portland or San Francisco 

3.  Continue to upgrade our water supply - I'm waiting for the next zebra mussel outbreak

4.  Fixing the po-lice

Cool little trains, parks & libraries have got to be put at the bottom of the list right now.  The city's basics are going to shit.

are we going to have a line to run out to del valle for the downtown cool hip tech folks to ride to Tesla?

[Chet Steadman 940]

On 8/12/2020 at 11:34 PM, JohnLocke said:

Leave it to Austin to sink a fortune into subways when we are on the cusp of driverless taxis and buses.  I sure hope this corrupt mega money sinkhole, which will screw up transportation for decades, does not pass. But it's Austin, so it probably will.

This is where I am 100%.  Money for more busses, rerouting of existing bus lines and, perhaps, even a couple more rail cars?  Sure thing.  

Sinking billions upon billions into subways which will both be exponentially over budget and quite possibly antiquated by the time it’s completed?  Abso-freaking-lutely not.  

[Wally Pryor 5261]

On 8/12/2020 at 11:34 PM, JohnLocke said:

Leave it to Austin to sink a fortune into subways when we are on the cusp of driverless taxis and buses.  I sure hope this corrupt mega money sinkhole, which will screw up transportation for decades, does not pass. But it's Austin, so it probably will.

Probably?   

It won't be close. 

[B00M 6413]

On 8/12/2020 at 8:33 PM, freyguy said:

Gonna laugh my ass off when they start digging and find a massive cave with endangered _________.

Ftfy

Edited August 14, 2020 by B00M

[CooterBrown 18001]

We should incentivize businesses to keep working from home. We wouldn’t need additional infrastructure for decades.