The folks who basically wanted us to suck it up and enjoy what crumbs we got from the All Systems Go plan are still at it, even today. On the Austin Streetcars group (for people who are trying desperately to salvage some kind of rail, for central Austin, which is otherwise going to only be served by “high frequency circulators” in the form of shuttle buses and, of course, Not So Rapid Bus), Lyndon Henry just called the ASG starter line an “urban light railway”, to which I just had to respond with this old gem which now that I look back, is probably the best thing I wrote about this whole commuter rail debacle. Unfortunately, it was nine months after the election.
Update: Lyndon responded with:
They’ve ordered non-FRA-compliant light DEMUs for this line. It qualifies
as a “light railway” by all standards I know of within the transit
industry. However, since it’s non-electrified, it is NOT
LRT. Operationally, it will be somewhat similar to the Camden-Trenton
RiverLine light railway and the Sprinter light railway currently under
construction in Oceanside (north of San Diego – which they’re calling
“light rail”).
to which I answered:
Pop quiz:
1. What are the headways it will run at during peak times when it opens?
2. How will the passengers get to their final destination?
The answers to those two questions are:
1. 30 minutes, at best
2. Shuttle buses
Neither of those answers is compatible with the concept of “light rail”. As you know. It’s a pretty shoddy effort to claim that it’s light rail because it’s using a slightly less heavy, but still non-electrified, locomotive.
This project is commuter rail, and not a very good one at that (most commuter rail lines at least penetrate a major downtown area; this one does only by the most generous definition of the term, and doesn’t come remotely close to any of the 3 or 4 other activity centers of the region).
Your insistence on applying the adjective “light” to it as frequently as you can suggests to me that you might be uncomfortable with your role in selling Mike Krusee’s Austin-screwing transit-killer to the citizens and are trying to convince yourself that this pile of garbage really is a stack of roses.
Again, I refer you to this:
and then I inserted the original blast that this isn’t light rail by any reasonable definition of the term.
Lyndon is one of the “good guys” which is why I hate so much that he’s helped, as I mentioned, sell Austin down the river for Mike Krusee (whose constituents by and large aren’t even Capital Metro taxpayers).
