What Austin Could Look Like? Part I

Dense, walkable development in Austin, outside of Downtown, UT, and SoCo, is a rare bird indeed. Unlike cities such as Portland, Oregon, and even Dallas, Austin hasn't had a rail transit infrastructure extant to provide a stimuli to densify or create greenfield New Urbanist developments. However, it new walkable developments exist, and in some of the oddest places, too.

Streetcar Lofts, Pearl District, Portland, Oregon:



(SP8254 on Flickr)

The Triangle is one of the most obvious dense developments in North Austin, and one of the best, is purposely designed to be pedestrian-focused, located in the triangle formed by the confluence of Guadalupe and Lamar, two of the main corridors in North Austin. Guadalupe-Lamar is also the main transit corridor in Austin, being the route of both the local 1 and the limited 101 bus lines, which provide approximately 7 minute headways at the Triangle. (bus schedule Triangle P&R)


View Larger Map

Along with this fact, the Triangle is only about 10 minutes travel time from UT-Austin and 20 minutes from downtown Austin via bus, at almost any time of day. Easy access such as this, makes it highly attractive to those seeking an urban lifestyle.

The Triangle, Lamar and Guadalupe:


(pfrench99 on Flickr)

So even though it's not along a light-rail corridor, The Triangle is the closest Austin has to anything resembling transit-oriented development, with a focus on residential space, and small, local stores and restaurants. Due to its high levels of transit service, as well as its proximity to Central Market, a large organic grocer, it's an easy sell to people wanting to lessen their reliance on the auto.

Part of the reason that the Triangle was able to develop as an entire pedestrian-oriented community, rather than one building, is due to it being a combination of greenfield and infill development, being built on land that where previously, the Austin State Hospital stood.

(Next post... Midtown Commons at Crestview)

Austin Transit Fantasy Map

Been playing around with making up LRT, Streetcar, and BRT routes for a fantasy Austin transit system.


View Austin Transit Fantasy in a larger map

Oh yeah....

...I'm back. Or at least I hope I am. Refocused the blog too, hopefully over the summer I'll have the opportunity to do some hands-on reportage.

And by the way, I Twitter.

MetroRail Article I'd Never Seen

Maybe it's just that I'm extra jaded today, but I thought this article (Metro Jacksonville), an overview of CapMetro's MetroRail Red Line, and the development around it, is relatively naive. Never seen it before, either.

MJ is advocating a Red Line-style DMU line as a replacement for Jacksonville's proposed BRT lines. They put it forward as

>...an affordable alternative for a traditional light rail plan that was rejected by Austin voters back in 2000.

Ha.

What Makes Austin Different...

...in a bad way?

Read this post by M1EK, summing up some of CapMetro's recent screw-ups...

...and wondered, why the heck does Austin always get screwed over? I mean, first, the defeat of the 2000 light rail plan, then the passage of the 2004 commuter rail proposal, its continual delays, the delays of the urban rail plan, the cut-backs in express bus service, lack of any good new urbanism, and getting passed up in the "progressive, what works" category by Houston, Dallas, and heck even Ft Worth! (Not to mention Phoenix having an awesome new LRT system, Phoenix!)

Just curious... ;-)

The Good, The Bad, and the Crazy!

From Wired.com, crazy ideas in Michigan:

Michigan Could Be Home To Maglev Superhighway

Lawmakers in Michigan are considering plans to build a high-speed, hydrogen-powered maglev rail line that would carry people between Detroit and Lansing using specially built cars, buses, and trucks...

Talk about scalability! All the problems of roads, maglev, monorail, cetc. combined!

This is the only good part, a smart grid-ish combined network incorporated in the trackway:

...but will spin off enough surplus energy to power municipal sewer and water, communication, and security systems, and its tracks can be used to house conduit clusters of utility lines and fiber optic cables...

Still crazy though, when real HSR would be a better idea.

"Urban Rail" in Austin?

Community Impact: Proposed urban rail could relieve road congestion



© Community Impact 2009

Latest news that I've seen about the Austin/CAMPO Urban Rail project recently was a page-long article in the Leander/Cedar Park edition of the Community Impact newspaper. Gives some nice definitions of what the heck they're meaning by "urban rail", and where they plan to route the train, ans well as some dates.

According to Austin's Transportation Director, Rob Spillar, they're branding it as "urban rail" because

"We're trying to make a distinction, that this is something different, a technology that can have the characteristics of both light rail and streetcars..."

Interesting idea, but I think I've seen most systems with grade-separation and street-running still called "light rail, but maybe this is an issue of semantics that still needs to be resolved?

Community Impact also laid down a supposed route for the "urban rail" system, which sounds much more promising than the route of the commuter rail Red Line:

"...15.3-mile track would originate in Mueller, go down Manor, through UT and past the Capitol to connect with CapMetro's Red Line... then crossing the river, before running down Riverside, and out to ABIA."

Here's a possibility of actually building a rail system that would serve a much higher ridership/percentage of Austinites, hitting the two major governmental complexes in town (accessibility of course depending exactly where the line is routed), through a busy part of downtown, and the urbanized Riverside corridor. Thus why the ridership calculations are for:

"...32,000 riders a year."

Apparently the CAMPO Transit Working Group even voted to approve further action upon the Urban Rail plan by 11-1, with former Travis County County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty being the only "ney" vote. Ray Spillar sees putting the bond proposition of $290 millon (to match 50/50 with FTA funds) on the May or November 2010 ballot. Too bad I'll be gone to college then.

There might yet be hope for Austin and REAL rail transit...

EDIT 3/7/09: Link and Map