keathmilligan.net
Technology and politics from Austin, Texas
New downtown light rail plan – a billion-dollar boondoggle in the making
Along with their egos, Mayor Wynn and Council Member McCracken’s light rail vanity project is getting bigger and more expensive:
$600 million streetcar plan offered for Austin
City consultant's proposal still a work in progress, and many hurdles remain before concept could become a reality....
Central Austin should have a 15.3-mile streetcar system, consultants hired by the Austin City Council told members Thursday, a slight refinement of a proposal that the ROMA Design Group unveiled in April.
What do we want? Utopia! When do we want it? Now! What will cost? We don’t care!
When ROMA first rolled out this plan back in April, the upper end of the cost was estimated to be somewhere around $420 million by McCracken at the time. Now it’s $600 million. He also said back in April it shouldn’t require any new taxes. I’m not seeing any such rosy predictions in the current coverage.
Ever-increasing construction-cost estimates? Check.
Annual operating expenses for the Wynn-McCracken express are estimated to be between $21 million and $23. Voters were sold on initial estimates for the Capital Metro commuter of $5 million annual operating expense. The actual operating cost ended up being twice that.
Doubling annual operating expenses? Check.
Build it and they will ride
The proposed rail line runs from the airport to the Long Center and then to UT and on to the Mueller development. Ducky for people who both and live and work or go to school along the route, I suppose.
I sure hope all those out-of-towners flying in for events downtown and non-permanent-resident students appreciate the wonderful gift from the Austin taxpayers.
Don’t let those pesky voters derail my shiny new train
After voters rejected the disastrous 2000 light rail plan, Wynn and company have been carefully coaching ROMA, the architects of the plan, to make it as appealing as possible to voters. I think we’re in for a taxpayer-funded marketing plan that would make TXDOT proud.
This is a billion-dollar boondoggle in the making.
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Comments
Obviously I couldn't disagree more. The 2000 light rail plan matched successful starts all over the country - the commuter rail line only matches a disastrous debacle in South Florida. This rail line being proposed now is suboptimal but at least provides some service to residents of Austin (who pay almost all the bills for Capital Metro) instead of to residents of Leander (who pay a tiny fraction) and Cedar Park (who pay nothing).
The light rail plan will only serve out-of-towners and a tiny fraction of Austin's residents. The rest of us will get to foot the bill.
"tiny fraction" is an interesting way to put the densest part of the city. (It also makes the commuter rail line a bit more likely to be attractive enough to pull in a few more suburbanites).
There are tens of thousands of people living within walking distance of this proposed line, and more than 100,000 people working within walking distance of it. There's no other place in the city more appropriate for rail transit, although I wish we could make it run up Guadalupe.
Only a portion of those people will use the rail line.
I agree that the commuter rail plan we are getting is a bad idea (it doesn't go anywhere enough people want to visit) and thing streetcars without reserved guideways aren't any better than buses, but the 2000 light rail plan looked reasonable to me. Out of curiosity, why do you think it was disastrous?
For the same reason this one will be. The politicians backing it will crow about its "success" (while blaming any failures or cost-overruns on underlings) and use it as a feather in their hats as they seek higher office, but ultimately, it will do little to address the city's mobility issues relative to the cost.
Politicians are selfish creatures and a necessary evil, I agree. That doesn't mean that the plan would have failed just because they were involved, though. Their behavior will be the same regardless of what gets built!
My mother lives in Dallas and the DART system there appears to be working quite well. The Austin proposed system looked similar; if nothing else it hit both major population areas and the main destinations which is a big step up from the commuter rail. Not a guaranteed success, but certainly not a preordained failure either.
What do you see are the mobility issues that neither plan addresses?
What do you propose to resolve mobility issues?
Thanks everyone for the comments. I'll be posting a follow-up blog entry soon to address the "If not light rail, then what?" question. Suffice it to say, I think light rail is one of the least effective and most expensive solutions we as a city could pursue.
Stay tuned.
Can't agree with you. Buses were sold as the great alternative to rail 60 years ago, and look where that's gotten us.
I'd like to see a progressive rail plan downtown, and yes I think it's worthwhile.
What we need is correct public transportation for all surrounding suburbs of Austin to bring people into Austin and take them out efficiently. One of my biggest problems is that I live in Round Rock and have no way to get into Austin unless its by car. Where is my light rail? Where is my bus system? It was given to Cedar Park and Leander but not Round Rock?! Seriously. We need a correct way to get people in and out of the area as well as through the 35 corridor without needing to take 35 itself.
Put that on the billboards. Even if the billions in unaccounted money doesn't grab people, this will. It's true. It's simple. It cuts deep.
Politicians are selfish creatures and a necessary evil, I agree. That doesn't mean that the plan would have failed just because they were involved, though. Their behavior will be the same regardless of what gets built!
I think we’re in for a taxpayer-funded marketing plan that would make TXDOT proud.
This is a billion-dollar boondoggle in the making.
mpcoc
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