Yesterday’s Jeff Ward show which I caught about an hour of was a predictable frenzy of transit-bashing, with a cameo by Fred, a Capital Metro board member who I assume is Fred Gilliam.
Some easy softballs to whack which were pitched by both sides on that show:
- (from a caller) “The 986 express bus already takes about 50 minutes to get downtown, so why would we need a rail line?”. Answer: First of all, it takes a lot longer than 50 to get from Leander to downtown even in non-rush-times. The route the caller mentioned only runs at 6, 6:20, and 6:30 AM, by the way. According to the 986 schedule, in those severely off-peak times it takes 62 minutes to reach downtown.
A more representative line, the 987, which doesn’t hit the inner park-and-rides either, takes 75 minutes to reach downtown (Guadalupe and 8th). The 983, which is the only route which has a departure time from Leander after 7:20ish, takes 85 minutes to reach downtown. - (from Fred): (paraphrased): “Well, Jeff, you’re a genius for noting that people won’t walk 5 miles from the drop-off at the Convention Center to get to their job at the Capitol or UT, so we’ve designed this great distributor service which will run at very high frequencies and take you straight there”. This “high-frequency distributor” exists today; it’s called The Dillo, and it’s dog-slow.
From experience with other areas which have tried the approach of building a rail line where it happens to be convenient to lay tracks (or use existing tracks) and then distributing via shuttle buses, most people won’t be willing to take this transfer. In Tuesday’s posting I noted that the city is as skeptical as I am of Capital Metro’s idea that this won’t drastically hurt ridership.
For comparison, the 2000 light rail plan would have taken passengers from the same park-and-rides up in Leander and NW Austin, but it would have dropped UT passengers off at Guadalupe (without a transfer). It would have dropped state passengers off within a block of the Capitol (without a transfer). And it would have dropped downtown office workers off within a block of Congress Avenue (without a transfer).
This plan is nothing more than Capital Metro’s attempt to build what they think Mike Krusee will let them get away with. It serves only far suburban passengers, and it serves them poorly.
3. (from Jeff and others): (paraphrased): “people won’t leave their cars behind for transit, or they’d be doing it now”. Baloney. Cities which develop rail systems which are competitive (not even faster, just close) on time with the automobile and are reliable (same time every day) always siphon away a lot of car drivers. This has been the experience in Portland, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Salt Lake City, etc. Rail does things that buses can’t, namely, get out of traffic, and provide a comfortable ride. None of those cities were experiencing any success with getting people out of their cars with their bus systems (which were more extensive than ours), but all of them are now (with rail) delivering people to their jobs via transit who actually had the choice of driving and chose not to.
The problem is that this rail plan won’t do it. Capital Metro, again, is building what Mike Krusee will let them build rather than building what needs to be built.
