Where did the missing 2000 riders go?

Image of Mueller "Market District" from 2010
Urban or suburban?

This image is from the 2010 presentation of the Mueller “market district”. The big box in the lower right is the grocery store, physician which is now apparently going to be an HEB.

But the most important question by far: will it be urban or suburban? Let’s ask our old friend David Sucher of City Comforts:

Urban Starts With The Location Of The Parking Lot
Urban Starts With The Location Of The Parking Lot

 

As Chris put it,

The parking lot will be much nicer than average, but this makes the development merely suburban chic not urban.

Sadly, par for the course for our supposed ‘new urban showcase’. I’ve covered Mueller irregularly in the past as has Chris. Notice we’re in 2011 now; no sign of the Town Center; relatively little multi-family development; but the single-family homes and strip malls – they are still there and doing fine. Sigh.

As for how green and sustainable this will be, what with energy efficiency, water efficiency, etc.; a wise ass man on twitter once said this:

Green building vs. sustainability
I set up this new site in January and did the big import back then and promptly failed to finish. It’s still a work in progress but I plan on posting new content here now and migrating the January-through-August content over when I get some time. My friend Baba’s done a great favor to me over the years by hosting this blog; but since I got tired of Movable Type and have had my own hosting for quite a while, esophagitis it seemed like time to get my act in gear – especially since I finally got the crackpot sports blog up and running a few weeks ago over here already.

The current masthead as of 9/1 is a real picture of the downtown station my stepson took for me while we did a quick detour on the way to Austin High so I could count riders one morning last Spring. It was glorious. Click below for the full image.

phthisiatrician unaltered – sometime in the spring” src=”http://m1ek.dahmus.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/JustinPhone-068-150×150.jpg” alt=”Talk about 1000 words” width=”150″ height=”150″ />
Talk about 1000 words

I set up this new site in January and did the big import back then and promptly failed to finish. It’s still a work in progress but I plan on posting new content here now and migrating the January-through-August content over when I get some time. My friend Baba’s done a great favor to me over the years by hosting this blog; but since I got tired of Movable Type and have had my own hosting for quite a while, visit it seemed like time to get my act in gear – especially since I finally got the crackpot sports blog up and running a few weeks ago over here already.

The current masthead as of 9/1 is a real picture of the downtown station my stepson took for me while we did a quick detour on the way to Austin High so I could count riders one morning last Spring. It was glorious. Here’s the full link:
So it turns out I’m so busy now I can’t even keep up on twitter most days – but this deserved a momentary break.

People, more about and by that I mean Capital Metro and their cheerleaders, assured us that the Red Line would be “as good as light rail” once it ran all day. Instead, we have one or two ‘full’ trips per day and a lot of empty ones. And the full trips are misleading – express bus competitors were cancelled, a ton of free passes were given out, and a peak trip was dropped (IIRC), concentrating a few more people on slightly fewer peak-time trains.

Well, anyways, it’s running all day now – and yet is achieving 1700 boardings per day compared to the 25-30K mediocre light rail lines that run all day are pulling (and that the 2000 light rail route would easily have pulled).

It’s time to ask again: WHY? Why are the many tens of thousands of people who live and/or work within walking distance of the 2000 route who Capital Metro assured us would cheerfully ride shuttlebuses not, in fact, riding?

Well, wonder no more.

Alon Levy of Pedestrian Observations forwarded me this study with this short summary (summary from him):

@mdahmus tl;dr version: commuters don’t mind transfers at the outer end, but hate transfers in the CBD.

So there you have it. Too bad Capital Metro and cheerleaders not only didn’t listen in 2004, but still won’t listen – not even today. Yes, even now, I’m having to fight this battle in the comments section of their very own blog.

So, in summary, it’s important to remember: lots of people don’t mind taking a bus from their house to the train station, but almost everybody minds taking a bus from the train station to their office. Never forget.

Background, mostly from yours truly over the years:

 

 

m1ek

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