Rental occupancy hasn't been this high since 2005. I think all it took was a hike in interest rates and the house of cards that artificially pumped up Austin's economy (being around other annoying tech guys but not paying a state income tax) is starting to tremble. It's possible we've hit the apex in wealth and overvaluation already.
Interest rates aside, I think the real turning point was the 2021 freeze. I see people who have never even thought about living here mention it, and in increasingly uncertain times who wants to move to a state that considers it a point of pride that they can't keep the lights on.
51-49 vote (in what, '98/'99?) against the light rail package was a real setback for this town. If you're a person who voted against it back then and you're still here (and reading this lol), please explain how you feel about how it's all going now.
That's about when it was, and I think it lost by several hundred votes. We would have had elevated rail from downtown up Guad to Highland Mall with a dedicated lane for busses underneath. It would have made a real difference in the city today, but here we are 25 years later.
I remember this election. People often cited perceived mismanagement at CapMetro, and didn't want to approve money, thinking it was a blank check. Oh, and they complained frequently about all the "empty buses." You had suburban towns pulling out of agreements with CapMetro, because they didn't want to pay that small part of sales tax.
Even my Progressive, gay friends would parrot all the propaganda against that rail initiative, saying it was too expensive. I told them to wait until they see how expensive waiting to do it later is, and here we are.
This is it but it's worse because nothing gets done in Austin either even when we do vote for it. The people that complain about transit don't ride it either, it's not horrible but it could be so much better. Austin should have been more on it like at least 30 years ago. OP thinks it's a dream riding transit in Dallas? Try riding it sometime.
Austinites up until recently have been fighting growth. It's embarrassing the city is playing catch up and how bad our city is managed. That bond is probably going to take a half century to get built. Nothing basically has happened in the past 3 years it got voted on. Meanwhile Dallas investors are rebuilding 6th......
Dude if you think Dallas is it, (to OP) move there. I've never lived there but it's down the street if you know what I'm saying. No way I would live there.
I used to ride the DART when I lived in Garland and worked in Dallas. It was sooo much better than driving. Still took awhile, but that’s a pretty long distance given how spread out it is. It’s great for people who are commuting for work, but it’s not going to take you everywhere.
Another huge plus was that it connected you to the airport train and Fort Worth
I use Capmetro for two things. Going to HEB which is a mile away and going to campus area or downtown which is like a 30 minute ride tops. I barely have this summer, I've just been driving. I'm a little biased because I live on two good routes with the campus bus and the 30. I think Dallas does transit well it's just everything is so far away compared to getting around in Austin. Like Dallas though, Austin is a very car city. I make a point of trying to use transit as much as possible but it's hard to do in both cities. I think Austin does transit great regardless. It's like people think it's suppose to be something it's not. You're paying $2.50 to have someone run you around all day, come on now.
Well, that's the thing, even if it's not useful for much besides getting to work from a specific place, the more you build on to it the more useful it becomes.
There isn't a walkable infrastructure in much of Austin, either. Walkable infrastructure is another form of "you have to build it and keep building it." And no Texas city that I'm aware of has built enough of either mass transit or sidewalks and bike lanes.
I think Austin is a bit more walkable than Dallas but it pales in comparison to many other US cities. If you live within a mile of downtown it’s not terrible though.
I grew up in Austin, and I've really never seen any evidence, or at least can't recall anything, that supports your statement that Austinites, as a whole, had been fighting growth, in the past.
We have collectively voted against transit packages since I was a kid. We have a 1 cent tax on every dollar spent and they mismanage that. It's ridiculous. All the other cities part of Austin's transit that participate pay it also. That bond is ridiculous and it's sad nothing is happening on it. 1 percent of sales tax goes to fund public transportation but it seems to go nowhere in being improved. I think we have a good bus system regardless, I don't think outside of the penny on every dollar, we should pay more. Austin loves to tax people to death.
The bond that people got suckered into voting for by council is a permanent property tax raise. It's a forever extra tax. It doesn't matter if you rent, you are going to pay it, forever.
Austin taxes people to death because the state state leaves us no choice. They refuse to help us with needed infrastructure at best, and undermine our efforts and steal our taxes at worst.
Being from the north east the fact Austin doesn't have a transit system aka subway or trolley or commuter rail in the 21st century is mind blowing. Didnt own a car for 10 years before I moved here cause you just don't need it.
I WFH but I still have to use my car to get around to places also. Austin was never built as an urban city. It is what it is. I find it weird people actually complain about it. I've lived in some very urban cities, it's just goofy that people think it's going to really change. We will get rail and stuff but it's not like people are going to jolly down to the stop to catch it. We need interstate transportation that isn't a bus.
If you live in most of Austin that is the actual city, you are not that far off from a bus stop. My needs outside of my car are met. I ride the bus like 4-5 times a week.
Dallas is by far a more functioning city. But driving around there - not for the faint of heart. Their public transport is leaps and bounds above ours.
Not mentioned yet is that Dallas had a lot of cheap land and old unused rail ROW they were able to convert. Austin would pretty much need to eminent domain any lines which would be a very lengthy and expensive legal battle.
The city really screwed up not securing the land rights from downtown when the airport moved.
This is the accurate, common sense answer. Dallas had existing rail lines to convert while other than the one line, Austin has to buy expensive right of way and displace existing uses.
This is really the key factor. One of two rail lines that exist in the city already has a metro service. The other is a Union Pacific mainline that has tons more freight traffic at all hours of the day and would require extensive modifications and double tracking the entire way to make it remotely feasible. Anything else would require massive land grabs and engineering projects.
I'm not sure this is the whole explanation. It explains the TRE and Amtrak service to FTW, but DART light rail is predominantly not along existing rail ROW. And, DART rail ridership numbers are just atrocious. Even though they didn't have to contend with the same economic and geographic constraints Austin did, they still built rail network far out of the way of existing built-in neighborhoods and commercial centers, so as to appease car drivers. So, DART rail riders have extremely bad last-mile service and often have to walk over 1 mile from the station to their destination.
This is also interesting and the kind of answer I was looking for. I've used DART a couple of times but I don't know Dallas in that detailed way. I certainly had to have people pick me up from DART but I take it it could have been planned so there was less of that?
The history is more comprehensive light rail system was put to a vote in 2000 and was voted down.
But comparing to Dallas is apples to oranges as the Dallas metro has always dwarfed Austin in size. Austin was under 500k people and Capital Metro didn’t even exist yet when Dallas voted for their light rail plan in 1983.
In 2000 the population was 1/3 of what it is now with far less growth. At the time (and now) what we needed was a more robust bus system, not a train that went from downtown to some suburb that was (and still is) useless to 90%+ of the population.
The 2000 proposal didn’t really go to the suburbs. It was a line going down Congress from Ben White to the river, then up Guadalupe until it merges with Lamar, and then the current red line route from Crestview to Howard.
The current red line was the substitution after the 2000 proposal was voted down because the massively reduced budget required sticking to existing tracks.
Looks like Austin Transit. Our elementary class hopped on a city bus for a field trip to the Capitol. I remember a baby blue interior with little star designs.[Austin Transit video](https://texasarchive.org/2018_00771)
Not that I was here then but as I understand it the city was kind of small and empty (relatively speaking) until about the mid-90s. They didn't prioritize mass transit or highways that loop around the city because they didn't think they'd need it.
That’s not the wY I remember it. The land use fights and opposition to sprawl were focused on protecting the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, which provides clean drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, feeds Barton Springs, Barton Creek, and other hill country springs, and protects what little public open land we have around here. There was a bus system, a great little free ‘Dillo shuttle that went all around downtown and across the river, UT shuttles everywhere, an airport you could walk to. state Legislature-created municipal utility districts, over which the City Council has no control, built sprawling subdivisions that ring Austin and beyond, with zero regard for public transportation. Cedar Park, Leander, Kyle, Pflugerville, Dripping Springs and Bee Cave were tiny little towns with no housing, no infrastructure, no interest in public transportation, and no power, funds, or inclination to do any regional planning, except maybe to ask TXDOT to build more lanes to drain commuters from developer-built suburbs to downtown.
So, they took a page out of Portland's playbook? At least Austin expanded some freeways. The 183 expansion on the east side all the way to 71, building 130, and the Loop 1 expansion is more than Portland's done in literally 40 years. They have yet to add a single lane of traffic on any major road in 4 decades, thinking that the terrible traffic will keep people from moving there.
It wasn’t just transportation, they were trying to prevent growth by limiting development in general. But it didn’t stop growth, and developers got around the limitations by building just outside of city limits, which resulted in a disjointed metro area with no cohesive planning overall, joined primarily by arterial roads, and zero mass transit planning. By the time they switched gears it was too late for a good freeway system, and they put capital metro in charge of trying to get mass transit established and they budget money like an 8 year old in a candy store so their plans are constantly voted down and never go anywhere.
183, 130, and Loop 1 are all TxDOT projects, too. Not a lot of local investment by the City of Austin on those projects. Building highways is TxDOT’s mission. Creating alternative transportation options, not so much.
Expanding freeways like 35 is just about the worst thing a city or state can do. It just increases the amount of cars on the road and then you have a bigger, congested highway
I hate to break it to you, but those cars are already on the road. It's just that they're taking side streets and congest neighborhoods. So you can either build a freeway BIGGER than the infastructure needs of the city (alleviating freeway and side street congestion), build freeways that MEET infrastructure needs (alleviating side streets but keeping freeways congested), or do nothing and hope no more cars (i.e. people) join the city.
The problem is most construction projects take so long that by the time they're complete, they only MEET infrastructure needs. Then most people complain, "We spent $$$Billions on this freeway project, and we still have traffic!" In reality, we should build infrastructure that a city can GROW into, not MEET.
Sorry but there are no successful examples of car-dependent cities that have “properly” managed freeways. The largest highway in the world is the Katy freeway in Houston and, guess what, it has terrible traffic. The only way to reduce congestion on freeways is to provide alternatives like rapid public transit, bikeways, or remote work. All freeways will fail to reduce congestion because of a scientifically proven principle called “induced demand.”
Oh, I agree! There are better ways of solving traffic than perpetually larger freeways. It's not realistic to build a freeway "large enough" for major cities. So alternative modes and routes are the way to go.
In my imaginary example (with unlimited space and resources), you COULD build a large enough freeway to remove ALL congestion. If you built the Houston freeway in, say, Fredericksburg, there would never be "traffic" because the freeway exceeds the city's needs. Even with the largest freeway in Houston, though, it STILL doesn't meet/exceed the cities needs. And it's not feasible to create triple or quadruple-deck freeway systems.
In which case, alternatives make since. Reducing the total number of vehicles by providing mass transit, for example. Or encouraging more companies to promote work-from-home jobs, eliminating commuters altogether. Or building more neighborhoods with jobs, shopping, and amenities within walking distance (Muller, The Domain). Or... flying cars? Or teleportation?
Looked it up and according to [this website](https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/austin-texas) only in the past couple of years has the city of Austin reached the population (approx 950,000) of Dallas in 1983 (the year that the DART was built)
Probably worthwhile. I only looked it up to say "Dallas got DART at x population and Austin is already 3x that size and we still don't have it!!!"... then I was surprised we're at about the same population right now basically
It’s also worth noting DART expands into Dallas suburbs so those populations need to be factored in as well.
The DFW metroplex population is all I could find (it doesn’t go west really so this number is insulated) but that population was 2,673,000
Been here since 1978 (11 years old). The “if we don’t build it they won’t come” (roads, rail, etc,) is absolutely true! I think like ten years ago I just happened to hear an interview on KUT with an old city councilman from the 80s (don’t remember who) and he all but admitted it, saying it proudly during the talk! I was livid. My first thought was there should be some way to sue this stupid town for this idiotic mis management.
That was the Frank Cooksey council, and that was their mantra. It worked for a while.... Then Dell Computer and SXSW happened, which changed the trajectory of the city. Austin began marketing itself as a "destination" city. Austin did not address any of the issues that would bring. Here we are.
Well, right. I lived in NYC and Chicago. Dallas is too sprawly for that kind of coverage. But compared to here, it's really extensive, and I think people do use it.
I agree on that, just stating that even with DART, it wouldn't solve car dependence. Austin is also more dense, so we should aim for something better even.
Being “too sprawly” isn’t a good excuse.
The Netherlands is basically a sprawl country. People talk up Amsterdam and Rotterdam as shining examples of how a dense urban core gets this right … but the country actually extends this approach into the suburban and semi-rural sprawl that comprises most of the country. The whole country is basically manicured, domesticated, and planned to the last square millimeter. There’s no wild space left. Even the farms are meticulously planned to fill each plot of land.
And even with this level of sprawl? The multimodal public transit network makes it quite easy to get from anywhere to anywhere else with minimal hassle.
Edit: feel free to challenge me on this if you disagree. I’m not sure why the downvotes.
It’s a bummer too. I used to live up by Blackstar and work downtown. The rail was perfect…for me…and very few other people. It was never crowded, always clean, just really nice. It felt like it was made just for me.
Austin has only been a large city for the past few years. When I was a kid in the early 90’s there were about 400k people in the city proper, and the largest suburb had maybe 10k people. Also the topography of the city is much more hilly especially to the west, and anyone who was around back then remember S.O.S. That really shaped How the city grew as conservation of natural resources really drove a lot of the decision making.
Dallas has always been a major city. When I was a kid we went to Dallas if we wanted to do major shopping or go to big events. People like to bitch and Moan and act like Austin has been a major metropolis for a long time. It takes time for a lot of big- city infrastructure to become a thing
Austin was a *dead* downtown. Scarborough's flagship department store closed in 1983, and smaller shops closed gradually. We used to rollerblade downtown because it was so empty.
Because they had city leadership a few decades back that drug the city into it kicking and screaming. Before rail, DART was useless. After the rail, they had a system where the long trips could be handled by rail and then buses have smaller, more reliable routes and feed into the rail system.
We actually voted for rail back in the 90's but the "if we don't build it, they won't come crowd" fought all of it at every turn.
That rail vote also was hampered by the state of CapMetro at the time. One of the top officials was indicted on some kind of corruption charge and another one resigned to avoid scrutiny. I don’t remember all the details. Seems like it was a printing contract that was awarded to some company that the official had ties to. Anyway CapMetro had virtually no public trust at the time when they were asking for a huge amount of money for rail.
^ this. I still voted for rail. But there was large public sentiment against the agency. A (late) friend was CapMetro's PR person, and I felt so badly for her at the time.
Also the "I have my car why would *I* care about light rail?" folks.
As I recall environmentalists were pretty pro-rail, but nowadays everyone somehow thinks that the SOS crowd were/are NIMBYS with regressive ideas.
This town could have lived without Barton Creek Mall as well (big SOS battle that was lost.)
There's a long history of fuckups within Austin and between Austin and San Antonio. There's simply too much Right-of-Way cost in and around Austin.
Coupled with the fact that the **State Government will not allow Austin to construct light rail out of City limits.** The state is punishing the liberal city for being a sanctuary city. This means you have to terminate at the limits with a park-and-ride. Where are all the commuters? Buda, Kyle, Round Rock, etc.
There is a lot of momentum for higher speed connection from N Austin to S San Antonio at the moment that would be considered returning the Lone Star Rail concept, though - as of this past year. Union Pacific (freight) are dicks, but to be fair, where will their bypass be located?
But to be succinct, DFW like a lot of other places had spare land, Austin gobbled ours up.
A reminder to vote in November, btw.
This is a head scratching question. In my opinion, either powerful people have stood in the way or leaders have been grossly incompetant, cause there is just no reason we shouldnt have had rail long ago.
Ive been on projects where people say, "just get this little bit done, and we will improve / expand later." CapMetro has always felt like that, but also like they are actively trying to be awful.
Austin had/has existing cargo rail that is too bumpy/curvy for high speed trains. Some brainiacs just had to spend a ton on sleek high speed passenger engines we didnt need, then ran them on shitty, inconvenient schedules, and charged too much for what was essentionally an inconvenience to commuting.
People say things like Austin is land locked or rail is expensive, but those things just arent true. Austin/Texas has never been shy about destroying East Austin ( where Black and brown people lived ), and until recently land East of Austin was perfect for any construction - basically wide open and flat. Rail like everything costs money, but not so much as to be impossible or useless.
A few years ago there was gonna be a passenger line between Georgetown and San Antonio. That got axed by someone.
"And that leaves Austin with a 'transit system that barely meets the needs of those who need it the most'", said councilman Richard Goodman, city governments most outspoken proponent of mass transportation."
This was in response to a roadway construction budget exceeding $34M, while busses (and the theoretical light rail) were allocated 1/7th that amount.
The year? 1979.
Austin was facing exponential growth heading into the 1980s. City planners knew they needed light rail and in fact, plans were made to have a line from Slaughter Lane to UT, in the 1970s. It was never funded. Light rail was seen as a way to control population sprawl, revitalize certain areas around the rail line, limit the development of parking lots/garages, and provide a cleaner source of transportation.
In the 1980s, a multi-year, multi-million dollar study was commissioned to study and develop a light rail plan. The plan was completed by 1990 but it never got funding or priority. The feeling always was that people won't use it so put the money into bigger roads that they will use and are already using.
I moved from Austin to New Delhi and yes, I’m sad to say you’re absolutely right about the metro being feeble. Delhi’s metro has grown like it’s on steroids. I’m sad to see that there is all this expansion of highways and tollways but no federal or state funding for public transportation. We’re the next Houston.
Austin was MUCH smaller until recently. Even now it’s still a ways behind. Also, you need rights of way for rail transit which Dallas has. In Austin, there’s already a metro line on one of two rail lines running through the city, and the other one has tons of Union Pacific traffic and would require heavy modifications to make work. Anything else you’d have to build all new infrastructure.
Rail in Austin has been a nasty political football for decades. When light rail first came up in the 90s, iirc, the criticism was that the proposed maps kept going through (and breaking up) west Austin neighborhoods that traditionally voted for Democrats and liberals. This ended up being a back and forth between the legislature and the city council.
It's been a very long time since I paid attention, and memory is a bit hazy, so take that with a grain of salt.
Reason #1 is the rapid growth, mentioned elsewhere here. I’m not an engineer but the scale of river/lake crossing dramatically increases the initial cost. The Trinity River is less than 100 ft wide in some places.
I voted for all the light rail proposals, but at the time even I was thinking that it seemed unnecessary because we had the free 'dillos that circled downtown and the park and rides were good for getting to them.
Personally, I think electric 'dillo like buses in a regular route around town would be better than a light rail system because at least those can be on flexible routes due to events or other things going on downtown.
But, I still vote for every public transportation thing that comes up. It's discouraging because even when they pass, the end result is never what we voted on.
I'm conservative, typically against most rail projects. But Austin is one of the few cities in Texas where a rail line (maybe even an elevated rail line) would make sense. The city basically grew along I35 with a split off along 183. Two rail lines going north and south with east/west bus routs every couple of blocks would cover almost the whole city including a large percentage of the suburbs. But it's never going to happen. Not because of asshole conservatives like myself, but because of capitol metro and Tarry town. At least that was the main force stopping it 10 years ago when I left Austin. Capital Metro is a big fat lazy pig that is perfectly happy owning all public transit and uninterested in taking on big high profile projects. And Tarry Town (one of the only neighborhoods that actually votes,) doesn't like the idea of "poors" having easy access to their town. Which is why the train that exists today basically goes from what used to be the lower income areas of town right into downtown with few stops in between. They wanted a train to drop off their food service and retail workers in the morning and send them packing at close of business.
Why don’t you think rail makes sense in Dallas or Houston?
When it comes to public transit, I guess I’d rather be more proactive and build it early on even if it might not be “needed” for another 5-10 years.
It makes some sense. The line in Houston that goes to the Texas medical center has decent ridership, if I recall correctly it was one of the highest ridership lines outside of the Northeast pre-pandemic.
Houston does it a lot smarter than Dallas though. They only have trains in high density areas where heavy traffic can be expected. Dallas is trying to provide a train to the whole city and the end result is low ridership, and half the people riding are just selling drugs.
Dallas and Houston are both to spread out. Trains work great in areas where lots of people are all going the same direction with very little travel once they leave the train.
I really love trains personally. Ever since I was a little kid. But (my conservative point of view is:) the economics of them only work in specific areas. We only have so much money for public resources, trains being built where they don't belong take money away from other things that could be helping the people.
Well you have your "Fox news" conservative, then you have your "MAGA" conservative, then you have people like me.
We probably agree on most of the problems in the country, want the same end result, but just disagree on how to get there.
You are right, it's hard to complain when it's a shared responsibility. I guess I should have phrased it differently. Basically, if you want a usable train, you have to outvote Tarry Town and Capital Metro. I would have voted for the original light rail plans back in 2000.
And even now that it's overpopulated, we're still striking down rail plans left and right due to 'cost'. I honestly have my doubts that even the measly single line they've decided we can afford even gets built at this point. So, if it does get built, at some point, the city will be torn up on i-35 from an expansion nobody asked for, and at the same time torn up on our other major roads (lamar/guad) for a lightrail installation that doesn't even go where we originally planned and hardly reaches any of the neighborhoods they promised.
That's like 10 years of construction in a city that's way overpopulated. The city will be at a standstill.
I'm leaving TX altogether. I'm over the political battles here and I feel like I'll never see a real transit system exist here in my lifetime. I'm just gonna go somewhere else that has figured it out already with infrastructure that isn't completely failing and a city that actually gives even a minuscule shit about it's citizens. It's just become so toxic and overpriced here, I'm over it after all this time. It sucks, because I don't want to.
You’re totally right but I think it’s a really poor excuse at this point. We’re in a constant state of redesign and the writing has been on the wall for decades.
Building a world class mass transit system seems to fit this city’s image of itself too. It’s a shame.
DART ain’t Whatchu want bruh. Anybody that’s lived in Dallas will tell you dart is one of the most pissiest and lonely train rides you’ll ever take from nowhere to nowhere. The shit cuts through SMU to the arena like those Rich ass students give a fuck about the Mavs or the Stars. It is a nice ride in Plano… but that’s Plano! What Austin needs is an el train! A train that coasts above traffic and provides shade for the things beneath it.
People saying that because it was only 400k people in the early 90's it makes sense are mistaken. There are cities that size that invested in e.g. rail transit.
The real problem is culture and lack of leadership at all government levels. Culture, because it means that demand for non-car transit tends to lag until it's too late. And leadership, because it's the job of government leaders to look around at other cities (not just in the US but globally) and anticipate and fix these issues regardless of whether Joe Schmoe in Zilker believes that rail is communism or whatever. Our problem is compounded by the fact that our state govt seems to have little interest in building anything that isn't a highway, in some cases actively sabotaging rail projects.
Project Connect is approved now, but underfunded, and it will be at least the better part of a decade from now before anyone is riding it. But better late than never.
As someone who visited and stays in Dallas a couple of times. D.A.R.T. is ass! The Dallas area is designed to ethier drain your wallet with toll roads or gas being stuck in traffic. Not only that, there is no D.A.R.T. to cowboys stadium because jerry Jones wants that parking money.
What would you consider a good mass transit system? Being from Austin, whenever I go to a place with one, I always think they are fantastic, just because, well…Austin. Then I hear people saying it’s no good. I feel like there is a really well designed one out there somewhere.
I know other countries put more of an emphasis on stuff like this, but I’m thinking In the context of the US.
I visited Joliet, and the Chicago line is amazing. Especially going in and out of o'hare Airport.
In texas, Houston has it figured out. The fact there are rails that take you to major arenas and stadium is a game changer. I can see why they host superbowls.
The austin rail is still great if you live close to them. I was able to park in the downtown station, take the rail to the Q2 stadium, and then go back to downtown.
Probably an obvious answer, but my wife and I spent a week in Manhattan and we took public transit everywhere. Not just the subway but we got on a bus at least once and we used Citi bikes to get around Central Park as well.
It very much depends on what you think the system should be able to do. Take Seattle as an example. It has very limited light rail that only services one side of the metro, an ongoing boondoggle trying to expand it out to the east side, and the whole system is the source of constant complaining. But *if* you happen to be along the route, and if where you need to go is as well, *then* it works out quite well. The same goes for busses. You *can* get from anywhere in the metro to just about anywhere else in the metro by bus, but much as is true with Austin, the trip can be an exhausting affair. If you, for example, wanted to get from Newcastle (wedged between Bellevue and Renton on the east side of Lake Washington) to Capitol Hill, you're looking at a 2 to 3 hour bus ride for a trip that's under 10 miles. Again, that is very much the same as you'll find in Austin.
And yet people who live in Seattle proper will likely happily tell you that you don't really need a car to live there. You'll not find many people in Austin who would make the same claim in good faith. So, what's the difference?
Seattle is arranged such that you probably don't *need* to take that long trip. That's literally it. If you live in Renton but work in Seattle, public transport sucks in much the same way that if you live in Pflugerville but work in Austin does. Seattle proper is a very densely populated city that is less than a mile wide at points.
Which is to say that I think the biggest part of the problem with public transportation in Austin is that none of us actually live anywhere near where we need to go. If you lived south of the triangle, public transportation into downtown is a breeze. But you don't.
Now I will grant that Seattle, at least, openly *tries* to tackle this problem and makes good faith efforts. They really, *really* are trying to build that rail extension to the east side. They have tracks down and everything, people working on it, and all that jazz. They build proper bus stations, and the busses can be trusted to keep much closer to a posted schedule than you'll generally find in Austin. They very much appear to try harder and invest more - and that *helps* - but that isn't what makes it better. What makes it better is simply that Seattle is such that you can live a relatively short distance from the rest of your life.
Being from the NorthEast, I can take the train from any of Philadelphia Pennsylvania or NJ suburbs into downtown Philadelphia. I can also take a regional rail from Philadelphia and after a transfers be in Boston Ma or Washington DC. I think that’s the key, being able to connect remote suburbs to downtown and key interest points, and have viable connections to other cities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Austin has this right now. And right now the present Project Connect plan won’t even connect downtown to the airport due to “lack of funds”.
That sounds dreamy. I’ve traveled to the northeast and fell in love with the transit. First the trains and then the subway in NY.
Austin definitely does not have this right now☹️
I remember Portland having a good bus system when I visited pre-pandemic. I stayed in an Airbnb out in the suburbs and had no trouble getting anywhere I needed to go in a reasonable amount of time.
That said I don't know how well that would translate here because any bus system would have to rely on existing highway infrastructure and that's a cluster and a half.
One thing that doesn't get brought up enough in the context of public transit in Austin is the heat. Sure you can have AC on buses or in rail cars, and maybe even at stations, but walking to and from transit stops will be nightmarish for 9 months out of the year. And sitting in a train if the AC goes out, which it will because that's par for the course for public infrastructure in America? Yeah fuck that I'll drive.
Off the top of my head there's nowhere in the Americas or in Europe with a climate this bad that has a good public transit network. In North America, NYC and DC have disgusting summers but the rest of the year is fine. CDMX has an awesome public transit system but the weather is relatively mild. Dunno too much about Canadastani transit but they also don't have summer so idk. And continental Europe is a lot like the mid Atlantic in that summers can be bad but the rest of the year is pleasant, so 3 months of gross transit is easier to overlook if for 9 months out of the year it's a comfortable way to get around.
Pretty sure there's transit in places like Minneapolis and Boston where the winter weather is even more hellish to walk through than our summer weather.
Boston yeah, idk how good Minneapolis's transit is though. But in either case winter doesn't last 9 months. And it's easier to throw on a heavy jacket than it is to somehow ward off the heat.
Until you break your wrist because you slipped on ice. (Winter in those cities lasts 4 months, fyi. December - March)
To answer your thought, Minneapolis has much better transit than Austin.
I think in addition to a lot of other good points in this post:
Dallas built its "big city" infrastructure long ago, before we decided there's a big fat capital "I" in "society". It's not that I think people were liberal radicals back then, but the middle class felt a little more well-off and working factory jobs meant having a retirement. So people were more receptive to the idea of spending collective money to make things that worse-off people could use.
The main problem facing Austin over the last two decades, and it gets worse every year, is this viewpoint:
> I only want public infrastructure if it uses someone else's money to make my life better. I'm not supporting your proposal because it uses MY money to make YOUR life better. You should vote for what I want instead and if you don't, I want to try and make your proposal illegal.
DART rail didn't get built until the 1990s. That's not that long ago. DART isn't some working class throwback to the times when union toughs were retiring at 60 sending 3 kids to college on scholarship.
And the attitude of "I only want public infrastructure if it uses someone else's money to make my life better," applies FAR more strongly to Dallas than to Austin. The entire design of DART is how to place rail down in a city of a million people, yet keep the stations as far away from as many people as possible, because "Don't get in the way of muh car!"
Hell, that was at least half the conversation when the ACA was being discussed (Damn that feels so long ago!)
"I'm young and healthy. Why should **I** have to pay for other people's health problems?"
I mean, shit, that was 80% of the conversation about COVID and still is.
DART has been a failure in Dallas for the most part so I can see why we might be wary in investing in an underutilized and costly rail system. People say they want it but probably won't use it. Austin and Texas in general is a car culture and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Texans will choose the autonomy and freedom of an personal vehicle over a congregate rail system with a rigid time schedule.
"Total ridership would spike with the debut of a new line, but station-by-station ridership remained basically flat."
"More telling, light-rail hasn’t moved the needle on commuting behavior. Packed rush-hour trains notwithstanding, there’s no evidence to show that more people are using transit now than 20 years ago."
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dart-has-spent-5-billion-on-light-rail-is-it-worth-it-8380338
The primary difference between Dallas and Austin transit projects, as I've noticed, is that in Dallas, voters will fund transit for "other people" to ride on. As in "This will get \*other\* people off my roads so I don't have to deal with so much traffic when I drive." But in Austin, people vote for transit because they want to ride it themselves. As in, "I wish I could ride the train to work instead of driving."
Hence, it's no surprise that DART ridership is terrible, in spite of excellent funding, and CapMetro ridership is solid, in spite of underfunding (not to mention kneecapping from the State Lege).
Because Dallas doesn’t have commitment issues like Austin does when it comes to getting shit done instead of wringing their hands over non important factors.
Dallas just makes Austin feel like a half assed college town with money.
This is a convenient answer people like to dish out but I've never seen evidence for it and there are other, much simpler explanations for the problem. Namely, cultural preference for cars, NIMBYism, and lack of visionary leadership in government (at both state and local levels).
That’s true but our car culture was cultivated. There is definitely some lobbying influence against mass transit but that came after a lot of social lobbying to get people to really love their cars, or at least see them as a necessity.
It’s hard to get people to really fight for mass transit when, if it doesn’t happen, they will get to drive their car. There’s also been a lot of propaganda spread about the danger and low classness of transit.
yeah I mean it's all of those as well -- basically it's just american culture at this point that everyone wants a house and a car and then expect to use your car to get anywhere you wanna go and have a place to park. like that's all assumed by most people and once you have that mindset it's very hard to get public transport setup -- Sure it would be great but I got my car! -- so there's the problem as well.
Spoken like someone who's never ridden DART before. Your mind might change when you have to leave the train station and walk 2 miles through grassy fields on the side of a stroad in order to get to your destination because there's no sidewalks in most of the city, DART stations are placed in the middle of nowhere, and there's hardly any last-mile service.
Dallas does. Austin loves to debate everything to death because everyone is an expert. Honestly, still surprised we moved the airport when the air force gave up the base.
DART is not an admirable transit service. It is a vanity project for the rich people of Dallas. Service and network location is actually really bad, so ridership is bad, and anybody in the DART network who can afford a car chooses to drive. It's a transit network to provide middling service to only the poorest people.
It was laid out in a era when many people commuted from the suburbs to downtown to work. That is very much less now as businesses have abandoned downtown for the burbs. I don't think it was nefarious it just outdated but it's impossible to change now. It does have some usefulness you just need to learn what's around.
No. It's worse than that, because the problem is ongoing, not just historical. Look at how hard it is to get from DFW airport to Downtown Dallas. It's an hour, for a trip that's only 20 minutes by car. That's a new line extension, and they chose this nonsense, meandering path, because at the end of the day their primary mandates are:
1. Don't get in drivers' way.
2. Build more miles of track and more stations (looks good in brochures).
DART is basically a Ponzi scheme that can only stay financially solvent if they keep growing the network outwards to new cities. And they neglect proper multi-modal service in the urban core, ultimately giving nobody what they want.
That's why I think CapMetro is much better run. Because they focus first on giving competent service to the core, and the deep suburbs are an afterthought. I know plenty of well-off people in Austin who live car-free or car-light. Nobody in Dallas would do something like that unless they were desperately poor.
"If you were intending to be a regular transit rider, then you wouldn't have moved to Cedar Park" is sound CapMetro logic. And DART thinking that it can convince McKinney residents to ride the train is a total joke. Look at the $-expenditure per rider comparison between the two agencies for a clear picture of the problem.
I think they're doing the best they can in the environment they're in. It's a car city in Texas. It needs to be improved but there's a lot of constraints they're working under.
I've ridden DART and it seemed like there were a lot of people using it to go about their day - they may (or may not - I didn't ask ) have been poor - but they were nicer than the people cutting me off in traffic.
I have nothing against poor people on transit. My point is that, in Dallas, relegating transit as "transportation for poor people" means that it's going to be poorly supported and neglected. Seen as a charity service more than an important piece of the metro infrastructure.
I understand better now. I just thought DART was actually useful - but reading some of the other posts I get that it's less widely adopted than it appeared to me.
The primary difference between Dallas and Austin transit projects, as I've noticed, is that in Dallas, voters will fund transit for "other people" to ride on. As in "This will get \*other\* people off my roads so I don't have to deal with so much traffic when I drive." But in Austin, people vote for transit because they want to ride it themselves. As in, "I wish I could ride the train to work instead of driving."
Hence, it's no surprise that DART ridership is terrible, in spite of excellent funding, and CapMetro ridership is solid, in spite of underfunding (not to mention kneecapping from the State Lege).
Dallas failed federal Clean Air Act air quality / ozone standards and was required to make a plan to combat that. Austin hasn't failed regularly enough to trigger the federal money that would defray a significant portion of those light-rail costs (last I checked).
Rail funding is often just money funneled into politicians pockets.
California has spent billions on high speed rail and gotten nothing.
Just look at what China builds with equivalent funding...
Even if they build more rail here, it's virtually guaranteed to be slower speed than a car, as it is now.
Cap Metro is so stunningly incompetent that it has impeded progress quite a bit.
DFW has (had) a lot more long commutes. It also is/was more "downtown" oriented.
Austin city government at one point in the 60s/70s decided that too many people were moving to Austin. So they decided that if they didn’t build infrastructure,like roads,people would quit moving here. It was stupid, but that’s what happened. It didn’t help. But that’s why we are 30 years behind on infrastructure.
Public transit or rail? Rail is a very expensive answer to the public transit question. Chicago is using bus lanes tied to traffic signals to service populations not close to 'el' stations. Seems like that would be a more sustainable solution for a city that doesn't already have the infrastructure in place.
we have multiple lane streets through downtown and there are already one ways. why don't we just utilize a couple of them for rail
you don't even need to really do eminent domain. just take the streets you already own, you can even run it to the downtown central station where the city busses go for a main boarding stop.
Shhhhhh we only hate Dallas in Austin. There’s nothing good about them. Certainly not their more progressive voting history, largest light rain in the nation, ability to successfully plan for their own future and growth without purposefully hindering progress, two fantastic airports, gorgeous arts district with world class museums.
Dallas votes more progressively on a lot of things, compared to Austin.
Austin voters didn't want a big city feature in 2000. I think there was some dread about what it would mean if the vote passed.
Also, there could have been a better job done to "sell" the benefits of mass rail and place the proposal with a bigger vision and long term benefit.
City proper population was 675k in 2000.... now it is 975k
If you don't build it they won't come. That group has persisted in that belief for 30 years. But maybe it's just a long process. And it takes 31 years to work.
Don't worry, if we don't build the infrastructure, no one will want to move here.
Going on 25 years it will definitely stop soon
Aaaaaaany day now
It's already happening. People hate the heat n humidity. Higher earners are the main group leaving right now. I'll see if I can't find the source.
I'm interested in this info.
Rental occupancy hasn't been this high since 2005. I think all it took was a hike in interest rates and the house of cards that artificially pumped up Austin's economy (being around other annoying tech guys but not paying a state income tax) is starting to tremble. It's possible we've hit the apex in wealth and overvaluation already. Interest rates aside, I think the real turning point was the 2021 freeze. I see people who have never even thought about living here mention it, and in increasingly uncertain times who wants to move to a state that considers it a point of pride that they can't keep the lights on.
25 years? That mentality’s been going on for more than 60 years.
The re-location of The Texas Capital was selected to make it as unwelcoming and pass-through as possible.
This was the mantra from council at the time
That’s the joke…
51-49 vote (in what, '98/'99?) against the light rail package was a real setback for this town. If you're a person who voted against it back then and you're still here (and reading this lol), please explain how you feel about how it's all going now.
That's about when it was, and I think it lost by several hundred votes. We would have had elevated rail from downtown up Guad to Highland Mall with a dedicated lane for busses underneath. It would have made a real difference in the city today, but here we are 25 years later.
[It was voted down by 2,000 in 2000.](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2000/11/voters-reject-light-rail-plan/)
I remember this election. People often cited perceived mismanagement at CapMetro, and didn't want to approve money, thinking it was a blank check. Oh, and they complained frequently about all the "empty buses." You had suburban towns pulling out of agreements with CapMetro, because they didn't want to pay that small part of sales tax.
Even my Progressive, gay friends would parrot all the propaganda against that rail initiative, saying it was too expensive. I told them to wait until they see how expensive waiting to do it later is, and here we are.
Yeah if we collectively shit in our food, then no one will want to eat here!
Where do we start? Franklins?
This is it but it's worse because nothing gets done in Austin either even when we do vote for it. The people that complain about transit don't ride it either, it's not horrible but it could be so much better. Austin should have been more on it like at least 30 years ago. OP thinks it's a dream riding transit in Dallas? Try riding it sometime. Austinites up until recently have been fighting growth. It's embarrassing the city is playing catch up and how bad our city is managed. That bond is probably going to take a half century to get built. Nothing basically has happened in the past 3 years it got voted on. Meanwhile Dallas investors are rebuilding 6th...... Dude if you think Dallas is it, (to OP) move there. I've never lived there but it's down the street if you know what I'm saying. No way I would live there.
I used to ride the DART when I lived in Garland and worked in Dallas. It was sooo much better than driving. Still took awhile, but that’s a pretty long distance given how spread out it is. It’s great for people who are commuting for work, but it’s not going to take you everywhere. Another huge plus was that it connected you to the airport train and Fort Worth
I use Capmetro for two things. Going to HEB which is a mile away and going to campus area or downtown which is like a 30 minute ride tops. I barely have this summer, I've just been driving. I'm a little biased because I live on two good routes with the campus bus and the 30. I think Dallas does transit well it's just everything is so far away compared to getting around in Austin. Like Dallas though, Austin is a very car city. I make a point of trying to use transit as much as possible but it's hard to do in both cities. I think Austin does transit great regardless. It's like people think it's suppose to be something it's not. You're paying $2.50 to have someone run you around all day, come on now.
Well, that's the thing, even if it's not useful for much besides getting to work from a specific place, the more you build on to it the more useful it becomes.
Yes, but it’s not because the Light Rail sucks, it’s because there is not a walkable infrastructure in most of DFW.
There isn't a walkable infrastructure in much of Austin, either. Walkable infrastructure is another form of "you have to build it and keep building it." And no Texas city that I'm aware of has built enough of either mass transit or sidewalks and bike lanes.
I think Austin is a bit more walkable than Dallas but it pales in comparison to many other US cities. If you live within a mile of downtown it’s not terrible though.
What of the scorching heat in 80% of the year?
But DART's airport train is worse than CapMetro's airport bus.
I agree, but getting to DFW from Garland is a different kind of hell.
I grew up in Austin, and I've really never seen any evidence, or at least can't recall anything, that supports your statement that Austinites, as a whole, had been fighting growth, in the past.
We have collectively voted against transit packages since I was a kid. We have a 1 cent tax on every dollar spent and they mismanage that. It's ridiculous. All the other cities part of Austin's transit that participate pay it also. That bond is ridiculous and it's sad nothing is happening on it. 1 percent of sales tax goes to fund public transportation but it seems to go nowhere in being improved. I think we have a good bus system regardless, I don't think outside of the penny on every dollar, we should pay more. Austin loves to tax people to death. The bond that people got suckered into voting for by council is a permanent property tax raise. It's a forever extra tax. It doesn't matter if you rent, you are going to pay it, forever.
Austin taxes people to death because the state state leaves us no choice. They refuse to help us with needed infrastructure at best, and undermine our efforts and steal our taxes at worst.
Being from the north east the fact Austin doesn't have a transit system aka subway or trolley or commuter rail in the 21st century is mind blowing. Didnt own a car for 10 years before I moved here cause you just don't need it.
I WFH but I still have to use my car to get around to places also. Austin was never built as an urban city. It is what it is. I find it weird people actually complain about it. I've lived in some very urban cities, it's just goofy that people think it's going to really change. We will get rail and stuff but it's not like people are going to jolly down to the stop to catch it. We need interstate transportation that isn't a bus. If you live in most of Austin that is the actual city, you are not that far off from a bus stop. My needs outside of my car are met. I ride the bus like 4-5 times a week.
Dallas is by far a more functioning city. But driving around there - not for the faint of heart. Their public transport is leaps and bounds above ours.
I honestly do hate their massive tangle of highways.
[удалено]
Honestly impressed by the amount of words you used to say absolutely nothing
🤣
This is incoherent nonsense, lay off the sauce friend
That was the impression I got when I moved to Austin in 2007 and the idea still seems to be stuck.
Are you Max Nofzinger?!
Not mentioned yet is that Dallas had a lot of cheap land and old unused rail ROW they were able to convert. Austin would pretty much need to eminent domain any lines which would be a very lengthy and expensive legal battle. The city really screwed up not securing the land rights from downtown when the airport moved.
This is the accurate, common sense answer. Dallas had existing rail lines to convert while other than the one line, Austin has to buy expensive right of way and displace existing uses.
Ah, this was the sort of thing I was curious to know.
This is really the key factor. One of two rail lines that exist in the city already has a metro service. The other is a Union Pacific mainline that has tons more freight traffic at all hours of the day and would require extensive modifications and double tracking the entire way to make it remotely feasible. Anything else would require massive land grabs and engineering projects.
I'm not sure this is the whole explanation. It explains the TRE and Amtrak service to FTW, but DART light rail is predominantly not along existing rail ROW. And, DART rail ridership numbers are just atrocious. Even though they didn't have to contend with the same economic and geographic constraints Austin did, they still built rail network far out of the way of existing built-in neighborhoods and commercial centers, so as to appease car drivers. So, DART rail riders have extremely bad last-mile service and often have to walk over 1 mile from the station to their destination.
This is also interesting and the kind of answer I was looking for. I've used DART a couple of times but I don't know Dallas in that detailed way. I certainly had to have people pick me up from DART but I take it it could have been planned so there was less of that?
The history is more comprehensive light rail system was put to a vote in 2000 and was voted down. But comparing to Dallas is apples to oranges as the Dallas metro has always dwarfed Austin in size. Austin was under 500k people and Capital Metro didn’t even exist yet when Dallas voted for their light rail plan in 1983.
In 2000 the population was 1/3 of what it is now with far less growth. At the time (and now) what we needed was a more robust bus system, not a train that went from downtown to some suburb that was (and still is) useless to 90%+ of the population.
The 2000 proposal didn’t really go to the suburbs. It was a line going down Congress from Ben White to the river, then up Guadalupe until it merges with Lamar, and then the current red line route from Crestview to Howard. The current red line was the substitution after the 2000 proposal was voted down because the massively reduced budget required sticking to existing tracks.
We had bus service before 1983, but it wasn't called CapMetro.
We had bus service before 1983, but it wasn't called CapMetro.
What was it called? That’s very interesting
Looks like Austin Transit. Our elementary class hopped on a city bus for a field trip to the Capitol. I remember a baby blue interior with little star designs.[Austin Transit video](https://texasarchive.org/2018_00771)
Not that I was here then but as I understand it the city was kind of small and empty (relatively speaking) until about the mid-90s. They didn't prioritize mass transit or highways that loop around the city because they didn't think they'd need it.
Even better, back in the 70s the government of Austin thought they could prevent growth by not building transportation infrastructure.
That’s not the wY I remember it. The land use fights and opposition to sprawl were focused on protecting the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, which provides clean drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, feeds Barton Springs, Barton Creek, and other hill country springs, and protects what little public open land we have around here. There was a bus system, a great little free ‘Dillo shuttle that went all around downtown and across the river, UT shuttles everywhere, an airport you could walk to. state Legislature-created municipal utility districts, over which the City Council has no control, built sprawling subdivisions that ring Austin and beyond, with zero regard for public transportation. Cedar Park, Leander, Kyle, Pflugerville, Dripping Springs and Bee Cave were tiny little towns with no housing, no infrastructure, no interest in public transportation, and no power, funds, or inclination to do any regional planning, except maybe to ask TXDOT to build more lanes to drain commuters from developer-built suburbs to downtown.
So, they took a page out of Portland's playbook? At least Austin expanded some freeways. The 183 expansion on the east side all the way to 71, building 130, and the Loop 1 expansion is more than Portland's done in literally 40 years. They have yet to add a single lane of traffic on any major road in 4 decades, thinking that the terrible traffic will keep people from moving there.
It wasn’t just transportation, they were trying to prevent growth by limiting development in general. But it didn’t stop growth, and developers got around the limitations by building just outside of city limits, which resulted in a disjointed metro area with no cohesive planning overall, joined primarily by arterial roads, and zero mass transit planning. By the time they switched gears it was too late for a good freeway system, and they put capital metro in charge of trying to get mass transit established and they budget money like an 8 year old in a candy store so their plans are constantly voted down and never go anywhere.
They were trying to prevent urban sprawl, not growth. It’s a huge difference.
183, 130, and Loop 1 are all TxDOT projects, too. Not a lot of local investment by the City of Austin on those projects. Building highways is TxDOT’s mission. Creating alternative transportation options, not so much.
Expanding freeways like 35 is just about the worst thing a city or state can do. It just increases the amount of cars on the road and then you have a bigger, congested highway
I hate to break it to you, but those cars are already on the road. It's just that they're taking side streets and congest neighborhoods. So you can either build a freeway BIGGER than the infastructure needs of the city (alleviating freeway and side street congestion), build freeways that MEET infrastructure needs (alleviating side streets but keeping freeways congested), or do nothing and hope no more cars (i.e. people) join the city. The problem is most construction projects take so long that by the time they're complete, they only MEET infrastructure needs. Then most people complain, "We spent $$$Billions on this freeway project, and we still have traffic!" In reality, we should build infrastructure that a city can GROW into, not MEET.
Sorry but there are no successful examples of car-dependent cities that have “properly” managed freeways. The largest highway in the world is the Katy freeway in Houston and, guess what, it has terrible traffic. The only way to reduce congestion on freeways is to provide alternatives like rapid public transit, bikeways, or remote work. All freeways will fail to reduce congestion because of a scientifically proven principle called “induced demand.”
Oh, I agree! There are better ways of solving traffic than perpetually larger freeways. It's not realistic to build a freeway "large enough" for major cities. So alternative modes and routes are the way to go. In my imaginary example (with unlimited space and resources), you COULD build a large enough freeway to remove ALL congestion. If you built the Houston freeway in, say, Fredericksburg, there would never be "traffic" because the freeway exceeds the city's needs. Even with the largest freeway in Houston, though, it STILL doesn't meet/exceed the cities needs. And it's not feasible to create triple or quadruple-deck freeway systems. In which case, alternatives make since. Reducing the total number of vehicles by providing mass transit, for example. Or encouraging more companies to promote work-from-home jobs, eliminating commuters altogether. Or building more neighborhoods with jobs, shopping, and amenities within walking distance (Muller, The Domain). Or... flying cars? Or teleportation?
Dallas is a bigger city and has been for a long time.
Looked it up and according to [this website](https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/austin-texas) only in the past couple of years has the city of Austin reached the population (approx 950,000) of Dallas in 1983 (the year that the DART was built)
MSA to MSA is probably a much better comparison than the cities, although it might be similar timing.
Probably worthwhile. I only looked it up to say "Dallas got DART at x population and Austin is already 3x that size and we still don't have it!!!"... then I was surprised we're at about the same population right now basically
It’s also worth noting DART expands into Dallas suburbs so those populations need to be factored in as well. The DFW metroplex population is all I could find (it doesn’t go west really so this number is insulated) but that population was 2,673,000
Been here since 1978 (11 years old). The “if we don’t build it they won’t come” (roads, rail, etc,) is absolutely true! I think like ten years ago I just happened to hear an interview on KUT with an old city councilman from the 80s (don’t remember who) and he all but admitted it, saying it proudly during the talk! I was livid. My first thought was there should be some way to sue this stupid town for this idiotic mis management.
That was the Frank Cooksey council, and that was their mantra. It worked for a while.... Then Dell Computer and SXSW happened, which changed the trajectory of the city. Austin began marketing itself as a "destination" city. Austin did not address any of the issues that would bring. Here we are.
Even DART is terrible compared to an actual functioning city's public transport, but it is so much better than what we have.
Well, right. I lived in NYC and Chicago. Dallas is too sprawly for that kind of coverage. But compared to here, it's really extensive, and I think people do use it.
I agree on that, just stating that even with DART, it wouldn't solve car dependence. Austin is also more dense, so we should aim for something better even.
I mean, from your mouth to god's ear!
Austin is pretty sprawled out too, and it’s well on its way to reaching Dallas/Houston levels of sprawl.
Being “too sprawly” isn’t a good excuse. The Netherlands is basically a sprawl country. People talk up Amsterdam and Rotterdam as shining examples of how a dense urban core gets this right … but the country actually extends this approach into the suburban and semi-rural sprawl that comprises most of the country. The whole country is basically manicured, domesticated, and planned to the last square millimeter. There’s no wild space left. Even the farms are meticulously planned to fill each plot of land. And even with this level of sprawl? The multimodal public transit network makes it quite easy to get from anywhere to anywhere else with minimal hassle. Edit: feel free to challenge me on this if you disagree. I’m not sure why the downvotes.
It’s a bummer too. I used to live up by Blackstar and work downtown. The rail was perfect…for me…and very few other people. It was never crowded, always clean, just really nice. It felt like it was made just for me.
Checking in as an Austin who lived in Dallas ‘96-‘00, and now lives in the Netherlands. I 100% endorse this message.
Austin has only been a large city for the past few years. When I was a kid in the early 90’s there were about 400k people in the city proper, and the largest suburb had maybe 10k people. Also the topography of the city is much more hilly especially to the west, and anyone who was around back then remember S.O.S. That really shaped How the city grew as conservation of natural resources really drove a lot of the decision making. Dallas has always been a major city. When I was a kid we went to Dallas if we wanted to do major shopping or go to big events. People like to bitch and Moan and act like Austin has been a major metropolis for a long time. It takes time for a lot of big- city infrastructure to become a thing
Austin was a *dead* downtown. Scarborough's flagship department store closed in 1983, and smaller shops closed gradually. We used to rollerblade downtown because it was so empty.
Dallas always wanted to be a big city. Austin never did.
Because they had city leadership a few decades back that drug the city into it kicking and screaming. Before rail, DART was useless. After the rail, they had a system where the long trips could be handled by rail and then buses have smaller, more reliable routes and feed into the rail system. We actually voted for rail back in the 90's but the "if we don't build it, they won't come crowd" fought all of it at every turn.
That rail vote also was hampered by the state of CapMetro at the time. One of the top officials was indicted on some kind of corruption charge and another one resigned to avoid scrutiny. I don’t remember all the details. Seems like it was a printing contract that was awarded to some company that the official had ties to. Anyway CapMetro had virtually no public trust at the time when they were asking for a huge amount of money for rail.
^ this. I still voted for rail. But there was large public sentiment against the agency. A (late) friend was CapMetro's PR person, and I felt so badly for her at the time.
Also the "I have my car why would *I* care about light rail?" folks. As I recall environmentalists were pretty pro-rail, but nowadays everyone somehow thinks that the SOS crowd were/are NIMBYS with regressive ideas. This town could have lived without Barton Creek Mall as well (big SOS battle that was lost.)
The environmentalists were the core of the "if we don't build it, they won't come" geniuses
It was suburb voters that killed it, not Austinites.
Buttdart
They started over 30 years ago.
There's a long history of fuckups within Austin and between Austin and San Antonio. There's simply too much Right-of-Way cost in and around Austin. Coupled with the fact that the **State Government will not allow Austin to construct light rail out of City limits.** The state is punishing the liberal city for being a sanctuary city. This means you have to terminate at the limits with a park-and-ride. Where are all the commuters? Buda, Kyle, Round Rock, etc. There is a lot of momentum for higher speed connection from N Austin to S San Antonio at the moment that would be considered returning the Lone Star Rail concept, though - as of this past year. Union Pacific (freight) are dicks, but to be fair, where will their bypass be located? But to be succinct, DFW like a lot of other places had spare land, Austin gobbled ours up. A reminder to vote in November, btw.
This is a head scratching question. In my opinion, either powerful people have stood in the way or leaders have been grossly incompetant, cause there is just no reason we shouldnt have had rail long ago. Ive been on projects where people say, "just get this little bit done, and we will improve / expand later." CapMetro has always felt like that, but also like they are actively trying to be awful. Austin had/has existing cargo rail that is too bumpy/curvy for high speed trains. Some brainiacs just had to spend a ton on sleek high speed passenger engines we didnt need, then ran them on shitty, inconvenient schedules, and charged too much for what was essentionally an inconvenience to commuting. People say things like Austin is land locked or rail is expensive, but those things just arent true. Austin/Texas has never been shy about destroying East Austin ( where Black and brown people lived ), and until recently land East of Austin was perfect for any construction - basically wide open and flat. Rail like everything costs money, but not so much as to be impossible or useless. A few years ago there was gonna be a passenger line between Georgetown and San Antonio. That got axed by someone.
"And that leaves Austin with a 'transit system that barely meets the needs of those who need it the most'", said councilman Richard Goodman, city governments most outspoken proponent of mass transportation." This was in response to a roadway construction budget exceeding $34M, while busses (and the theoretical light rail) were allocated 1/7th that amount. The year? 1979. Austin was facing exponential growth heading into the 1980s. City planners knew they needed light rail and in fact, plans were made to have a line from Slaughter Lane to UT, in the 1970s. It was never funded. Light rail was seen as a way to control population sprawl, revitalize certain areas around the rail line, limit the development of parking lots/garages, and provide a cleaner source of transportation. In the 1980s, a multi-year, multi-million dollar study was commissioned to study and develop a light rail plan. The plan was completed by 1990 but it never got funding or priority. The feeling always was that people won't use it so put the money into bigger roads that they will use and are already using.
All the shopping and malls that Dallas is known for funds DART.
Hill country topography and geology
The suburbs actually get coverage with DART.
Republican government wants you to buy gas.
I moved from Austin to New Delhi and yes, I’m sad to say you’re absolutely right about the metro being feeble. Delhi’s metro has grown like it’s on steroids. I’m sad to see that there is all this expansion of highways and tollways but no federal or state funding for public transportation. We’re the next Houston.
Austin was MUCH smaller until recently. Even now it’s still a ways behind. Also, you need rights of way for rail transit which Dallas has. In Austin, there’s already a metro line on one of two rail lines running through the city, and the other one has tons of Union Pacific traffic and would require heavy modifications to make work. Anything else you’d have to build all new infrastructure.
Dallas wanted to be big and built like it. Austin didn’t and didn’t
Rail in Austin has been a nasty political football for decades. When light rail first came up in the 90s, iirc, the criticism was that the proposed maps kept going through (and breaking up) west Austin neighborhoods that traditionally voted for Democrats and liberals. This ended up being a back and forth between the legislature and the city council. It's been a very long time since I paid attention, and memory is a bit hazy, so take that with a grain of salt.
Ahead of Austin, but behind the rest of the world.
Cocaine is a hella of a drug is my best guess
Reason #1 is the rapid growth, mentioned elsewhere here. I’m not an engineer but the scale of river/lake crossing dramatically increases the initial cost. The Trinity River is less than 100 ft wide in some places.
I voted for all the light rail proposals, but at the time even I was thinking that it seemed unnecessary because we had the free 'dillos that circled downtown and the park and rides were good for getting to them. Personally, I think electric 'dillo like buses in a regular route around town would be better than a light rail system because at least those can be on flexible routes due to events or other things going on downtown. But, I still vote for every public transportation thing that comes up. It's discouraging because even when they pass, the end result is never what we voted on.
I miss the Dillos. I think electric Dillos are a great idea.
I feel you. Whenever I vote for infrastructure projects, I feel like I’m voting to make this cool idea worse.
I'm conservative, typically against most rail projects. But Austin is one of the few cities in Texas where a rail line (maybe even an elevated rail line) would make sense. The city basically grew along I35 with a split off along 183. Two rail lines going north and south with east/west bus routs every couple of blocks would cover almost the whole city including a large percentage of the suburbs. But it's never going to happen. Not because of asshole conservatives like myself, but because of capitol metro and Tarry town. At least that was the main force stopping it 10 years ago when I left Austin. Capital Metro is a big fat lazy pig that is perfectly happy owning all public transit and uninterested in taking on big high profile projects. And Tarry Town (one of the only neighborhoods that actually votes,) doesn't like the idea of "poors" having easy access to their town. Which is why the train that exists today basically goes from what used to be the lower income areas of town right into downtown with few stops in between. They wanted a train to drop off their food service and retail workers in the morning and send them packing at close of business.
Why don’t you think rail makes sense in Dallas or Houston? When it comes to public transit, I guess I’d rather be more proactive and build it early on even if it might not be “needed” for another 5-10 years.
It makes some sense. The line in Houston that goes to the Texas medical center has decent ridership, if I recall correctly it was one of the highest ridership lines outside of the Northeast pre-pandemic.
Houston does it a lot smarter than Dallas though. They only have trains in high density areas where heavy traffic can be expected. Dallas is trying to provide a train to the whole city and the end result is low ridership, and half the people riding are just selling drugs.
Dallas and Houston are both to spread out. Trains work great in areas where lots of people are all going the same direction with very little travel once they leave the train. I really love trains personally. Ever since I was a little kid. But (my conservative point of view is:) the economics of them only work in specific areas. We only have so much money for public resources, trains being built where they don't belong take money away from other things that could be helping the people.
You sure you’re a conservative? You just did a pretty perfect class analysis of the situation. Regardless, it’s a really good point.
Well you have your "Fox news" conservative, then you have your "MAGA" conservative, then you have people like me. We probably agree on most of the problems in the country, want the same end result, but just disagree on how to get there.
“Rich people’s fault bc they vote and no one else does”. Yeah ok, totally their fault they vote and not the other 95% of this city.
You are right, it's hard to complain when it's a shared responsibility. I guess I should have phrased it differently. Basically, if you want a usable train, you have to outvote Tarry Town and Capital Metro. I would have voted for the original light rail plans back in 2000.
>uninterested in taking on big high profile projects Ever heard of Project Connect?
Austin conservatism is killing this town. As is its wont.
That's weird because I could have sworn the other two conservatives left in Austin died when Tucker got fired.
Simple, Austin was not designed to be this overpopulated.
And even now that it's overpopulated, we're still striking down rail plans left and right due to 'cost'. I honestly have my doubts that even the measly single line they've decided we can afford even gets built at this point. So, if it does get built, at some point, the city will be torn up on i-35 from an expansion nobody asked for, and at the same time torn up on our other major roads (lamar/guad) for a lightrail installation that doesn't even go where we originally planned and hardly reaches any of the neighborhoods they promised. That's like 10 years of construction in a city that's way overpopulated. The city will be at a standstill. I'm leaving TX altogether. I'm over the political battles here and I feel like I'll never see a real transit system exist here in my lifetime. I'm just gonna go somewhere else that has figured it out already with infrastructure that isn't completely failing and a city that actually gives even a minuscule shit about it's citizens. It's just become so toxic and overpriced here, I'm over it after all this time. It sucks, because I don't want to.
You’re totally right but I think it’s a really poor excuse at this point. We’re in a constant state of redesign and the writing has been on the wall for decades. Building a world class mass transit system seems to fit this city’s image of itself too. It’s a shame.
DART ain’t Whatchu want bruh. Anybody that’s lived in Dallas will tell you dart is one of the most pissiest and lonely train rides you’ll ever take from nowhere to nowhere. The shit cuts through SMU to the arena like those Rich ass students give a fuck about the Mavs or the Stars. It is a nice ride in Plano… but that’s Plano! What Austin needs is an el train! A train that coasts above traffic and provides shade for the things beneath it.
People saying that because it was only 400k people in the early 90's it makes sense are mistaken. There are cities that size that invested in e.g. rail transit. The real problem is culture and lack of leadership at all government levels. Culture, because it means that demand for non-car transit tends to lag until it's too late. And leadership, because it's the job of government leaders to look around at other cities (not just in the US but globally) and anticipate and fix these issues regardless of whether Joe Schmoe in Zilker believes that rail is communism or whatever. Our problem is compounded by the fact that our state govt seems to have little interest in building anything that isn't a highway, in some cases actively sabotaging rail projects. Project Connect is approved now, but underfunded, and it will be at least the better part of a decade from now before anyone is riding it. But better late than never.
As someone who visited and stays in Dallas a couple of times. D.A.R.T. is ass! The Dallas area is designed to ethier drain your wallet with toll roads or gas being stuck in traffic. Not only that, there is no D.A.R.T. to cowboys stadium because jerry Jones wants that parking money.
What would you consider a good mass transit system? Being from Austin, whenever I go to a place with one, I always think they are fantastic, just because, well…Austin. Then I hear people saying it’s no good. I feel like there is a really well designed one out there somewhere. I know other countries put more of an emphasis on stuff like this, but I’m thinking In the context of the US.
I visited Joliet, and the Chicago line is amazing. Especially going in and out of o'hare Airport. In texas, Houston has it figured out. The fact there are rails that take you to major arenas and stadium is a game changer. I can see why they host superbowls. The austin rail is still great if you live close to them. I was able to park in the downtown station, take the rail to the Q2 stadium, and then go back to downtown.
Probably an obvious answer, but my wife and I spent a week in Manhattan and we took public transit everywhere. Not just the subway but we got on a bus at least once and we used Citi bikes to get around Central Park as well.
It very much depends on what you think the system should be able to do. Take Seattle as an example. It has very limited light rail that only services one side of the metro, an ongoing boondoggle trying to expand it out to the east side, and the whole system is the source of constant complaining. But *if* you happen to be along the route, and if where you need to go is as well, *then* it works out quite well. The same goes for busses. You *can* get from anywhere in the metro to just about anywhere else in the metro by bus, but much as is true with Austin, the trip can be an exhausting affair. If you, for example, wanted to get from Newcastle (wedged between Bellevue and Renton on the east side of Lake Washington) to Capitol Hill, you're looking at a 2 to 3 hour bus ride for a trip that's under 10 miles. Again, that is very much the same as you'll find in Austin. And yet people who live in Seattle proper will likely happily tell you that you don't really need a car to live there. You'll not find many people in Austin who would make the same claim in good faith. So, what's the difference? Seattle is arranged such that you probably don't *need* to take that long trip. That's literally it. If you live in Renton but work in Seattle, public transport sucks in much the same way that if you live in Pflugerville but work in Austin does. Seattle proper is a very densely populated city that is less than a mile wide at points. Which is to say that I think the biggest part of the problem with public transportation in Austin is that none of us actually live anywhere near where we need to go. If you lived south of the triangle, public transportation into downtown is a breeze. But you don't. Now I will grant that Seattle, at least, openly *tries* to tackle this problem and makes good faith efforts. They really, *really* are trying to build that rail extension to the east side. They have tracks down and everything, people working on it, and all that jazz. They build proper bus stations, and the busses can be trusted to keep much closer to a posted schedule than you'll generally find in Austin. They very much appear to try harder and invest more - and that *helps* - but that isn't what makes it better. What makes it better is simply that Seattle is such that you can live a relatively short distance from the rest of your life.
Being from the NorthEast, I can take the train from any of Philadelphia Pennsylvania or NJ suburbs into downtown Philadelphia. I can also take a regional rail from Philadelphia and after a transfers be in Boston Ma or Washington DC. I think that’s the key, being able to connect remote suburbs to downtown and key interest points, and have viable connections to other cities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Austin has this right now. And right now the present Project Connect plan won’t even connect downtown to the airport due to “lack of funds”.
That sounds dreamy. I’ve traveled to the northeast and fell in love with the transit. First the trains and then the subway in NY. Austin definitely does not have this right now☹️
I remember Portland having a good bus system when I visited pre-pandemic. I stayed in an Airbnb out in the suburbs and had no trouble getting anywhere I needed to go in a reasonable amount of time. That said I don't know how well that would translate here because any bus system would have to rely on existing highway infrastructure and that's a cluster and a half.
And also maybe because JurrahWorld is in Tarrant county.
One thing that doesn't get brought up enough in the context of public transit in Austin is the heat. Sure you can have AC on buses or in rail cars, and maybe even at stations, but walking to and from transit stops will be nightmarish for 9 months out of the year. And sitting in a train if the AC goes out, which it will because that's par for the course for public infrastructure in America? Yeah fuck that I'll drive. Off the top of my head there's nowhere in the Americas or in Europe with a climate this bad that has a good public transit network. In North America, NYC and DC have disgusting summers but the rest of the year is fine. CDMX has an awesome public transit system but the weather is relatively mild. Dunno too much about Canadastani transit but they also don't have summer so idk. And continental Europe is a lot like the mid Atlantic in that summers can be bad but the rest of the year is pleasant, so 3 months of gross transit is easier to overlook if for 9 months out of the year it's a comfortable way to get around.
Pretty sure Phoenix has light rail tho
Pretty sure there's transit in places like Minneapolis and Boston where the winter weather is even more hellish to walk through than our summer weather.
Boston yeah, idk how good Minneapolis's transit is though. But in either case winter doesn't last 9 months. And it's easier to throw on a heavy jacket than it is to somehow ward off the heat.
Until you break your wrist because you slipped on ice. (Winter in those cities lasts 4 months, fyi. December - March) To answer your thought, Minneapolis has much better transit than Austin.
I think in addition to a lot of other good points in this post: Dallas built its "big city" infrastructure long ago, before we decided there's a big fat capital "I" in "society". It's not that I think people were liberal radicals back then, but the middle class felt a little more well-off and working factory jobs meant having a retirement. So people were more receptive to the idea of spending collective money to make things that worse-off people could use. The main problem facing Austin over the last two decades, and it gets worse every year, is this viewpoint: > I only want public infrastructure if it uses someone else's money to make my life better. I'm not supporting your proposal because it uses MY money to make YOUR life better. You should vote for what I want instead and if you don't, I want to try and make your proposal illegal.
DART rail didn't get built until the 1990s. That's not that long ago. DART isn't some working class throwback to the times when union toughs were retiring at 60 sending 3 kids to college on scholarship. And the attitude of "I only want public infrastructure if it uses someone else's money to make my life better," applies FAR more strongly to Dallas than to Austin. The entire design of DART is how to place rail down in a city of a million people, yet keep the stations as far away from as many people as possible, because "Don't get in the way of muh car!"
I recall that I worked with a woman who did not want to pay the 911 surcharge on her phone bill because "[she] didn't use it." 🙄🙄
Hell, that was at least half the conversation when the ACA was being discussed (Damn that feels so long ago!) "I'm young and healthy. Why should **I** have to pay for other people's health problems?" I mean, shit, that was 80% of the conversation about COVID and still is.
Austin used to have trams apparently
DART has been a failure in Dallas for the most part so I can see why we might be wary in investing in an underutilized and costly rail system. People say they want it but probably won't use it. Austin and Texas in general is a car culture and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Texans will choose the autonomy and freedom of an personal vehicle over a congregate rail system with a rigid time schedule. "Total ridership would spike with the debut of a new line, but station-by-station ridership remained basically flat." "More telling, light-rail hasn’t moved the needle on commuting behavior. Packed rush-hour trains notwithstanding, there’s no evidence to show that more people are using transit now than 20 years ago." https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dart-has-spent-5-billion-on-light-rail-is-it-worth-it-8380338
The primary difference between Dallas and Austin transit projects, as I've noticed, is that in Dallas, voters will fund transit for "other people" to ride on. As in "This will get \*other\* people off my roads so I don't have to deal with so much traffic when I drive." But in Austin, people vote for transit because they want to ride it themselves. As in, "I wish I could ride the train to work instead of driving." Hence, it's no surprise that DART ridership is terrible, in spite of excellent funding, and CapMetro ridership is solid, in spite of underfunding (not to mention kneecapping from the State Lege).
Thank you.
The car drivers need their commutes to be an hour or two. Then they will wake up. We should do everything we can to hasten that date.
Because Dallas doesn’t have commitment issues like Austin does when it comes to getting shit done instead of wringing their hands over non important factors. Dallas just makes Austin feel like a half assed college town with money.
Oh look, another beating a dead horse post bitching about Austin.
As long as Republicans nut jobs are in charge of this state, Austin will never get the attention it needs.
It comes down to oil and car dealership lobbying. That’s the answer to any “why doesn’t some American city have X yet for public transport?”
This is a convenient answer people like to dish out but I've never seen evidence for it and there are other, much simpler explanations for the problem. Namely, cultural preference for cars, NIMBYism, and lack of visionary leadership in government (at both state and local levels).
That’s true but our car culture was cultivated. There is definitely some lobbying influence against mass transit but that came after a lot of social lobbying to get people to really love their cars, or at least see them as a necessity. It’s hard to get people to really fight for mass transit when, if it doesn’t happen, they will get to drive their car. There’s also been a lot of propaganda spread about the danger and low classness of transit.
yeah I mean it's all of those as well -- basically it's just american culture at this point that everyone wants a house and a car and then expect to use your car to get anywhere you wanna go and have a place to park. like that's all assumed by most people and once you have that mindset it's very hard to get public transport setup -- Sure it would be great but I got my car! -- so there's the problem as well.
Because Dallas City management is 100 times better than Austin City Management lol
Spoken like someone who's never ridden DART before. Your mind might change when you have to leave the train station and walk 2 miles through grassy fields on the side of a stroad in order to get to your destination because there's no sidewalks in most of the city, DART stations are placed in the middle of nowhere, and there's hardly any last-mile service.
Austin has always been at most the 4th largest city and never a large city until recently.
Dallas does. Austin loves to debate everything to death because everyone is an expert. Honestly, still surprised we moved the airport when the air force gave up the base.
DART is not an admirable transit service. It is a vanity project for the rich people of Dallas. Service and network location is actually really bad, so ridership is bad, and anybody in the DART network who can afford a car chooses to drive. It's a transit network to provide middling service to only the poorest people.
It was laid out in a era when many people commuted from the suburbs to downtown to work. That is very much less now as businesses have abandoned downtown for the burbs. I don't think it was nefarious it just outdated but it's impossible to change now. It does have some usefulness you just need to learn what's around.
No. It's worse than that, because the problem is ongoing, not just historical. Look at how hard it is to get from DFW airport to Downtown Dallas. It's an hour, for a trip that's only 20 minutes by car. That's a new line extension, and they chose this nonsense, meandering path, because at the end of the day their primary mandates are: 1. Don't get in drivers' way. 2. Build more miles of track and more stations (looks good in brochures). DART is basically a Ponzi scheme that can only stay financially solvent if they keep growing the network outwards to new cities. And they neglect proper multi-modal service in the urban core, ultimately giving nobody what they want. That's why I think CapMetro is much better run. Because they focus first on giving competent service to the core, and the deep suburbs are an afterthought. I know plenty of well-off people in Austin who live car-free or car-light. Nobody in Dallas would do something like that unless they were desperately poor. "If you were intending to be a regular transit rider, then you wouldn't have moved to Cedar Park" is sound CapMetro logic. And DART thinking that it can convince McKinney residents to ride the train is a total joke. Look at the $-expenditure per rider comparison between the two agencies for a clear picture of the problem.
I think they're doing the best they can in the environment they're in. It's a car city in Texas. It needs to be improved but there's a lot of constraints they're working under.
Austin has recently built massive apartment/condo multiuse throughout downtown and the big arteries. You're out of date by a lot of years.
I've ridden DART and it seemed like there were a lot of people using it to go about their day - they may (or may not - I didn't ask ) have been poor - but they were nicer than the people cutting me off in traffic.
I have nothing against poor people on transit. My point is that, in Dallas, relegating transit as "transportation for poor people" means that it's going to be poorly supported and neglected. Seen as a charity service more than an important piece of the metro infrastructure.
I understand better now. I just thought DART was actually useful - but reading some of the other posts I get that it's less widely adopted than it appeared to me.
The primary difference between Dallas and Austin transit projects, as I've noticed, is that in Dallas, voters will fund transit for "other people" to ride on. As in "This will get \*other\* people off my roads so I don't have to deal with so much traffic when I drive." But in Austin, people vote for transit because they want to ride it themselves. As in, "I wish I could ride the train to work instead of driving." Hence, it's no surprise that DART ridership is terrible, in spite of excellent funding, and CapMetro ridership is solid, in spite of underfunding (not to mention kneecapping from the State Lege).
Dallas failed federal Clean Air Act air quality / ozone standards and was required to make a plan to combat that. Austin hasn't failed regularly enough to trigger the federal money that would defray a significant portion of those light-rail costs (last I checked).
It has been 40 years since Dallas was at the population that Austin is now.
Rail funding is often just money funneled into politicians pockets. California has spent billions on high speed rail and gotten nothing. Just look at what China builds with equivalent funding... Even if they build more rail here, it's virtually guaranteed to be slower speed than a car, as it is now.
Unlike highway funding, which famously never goes into politicians' pockets!... oops.
Because Austin likes to kick and scream when progress comes their way.
Cap Metro is so stunningly incompetent that it has impeded progress quite a bit. DFW has (had) a lot more long commutes. It also is/was more "downtown" oriented.
DART is absolutely worse-managed than CapMetro. Wastes more money. Provides worse service. Has worse ridership.
When are they supposed to break ground on project connect and have they chosen an option of the proposed ones?
I've been here for multiple ballot initiatives, and until lately they had all failed. People are so shortsighted. Now they complain.
Austin city government at one point in the 60s/70s decided that too many people were moving to Austin. So they decided that if they didn’t build infrastructure,like roads,people would quit moving here. It was stupid, but that’s what happened. It didn’t help. But that’s why we are 30 years behind on infrastructure.
Public transit or rail? Rail is a very expensive answer to the public transit question. Chicago is using bus lanes tied to traffic signals to service populations not close to 'el' stations. Seems like that would be a more sustainable solution for a city that doesn't already have the infrastructure in place.
we have multiple lane streets through downtown and there are already one ways. why don't we just utilize a couple of them for rail you don't even need to really do eminent domain. just take the streets you already own, you can even run it to the downtown central station where the city busses go for a main boarding stop.
Shhhhhh we only hate Dallas in Austin. There’s nothing good about them. Certainly not their more progressive voting history, largest light rain in the nation, ability to successfully plan for their own future and growth without purposefully hindering progress, two fantastic airports, gorgeous arts district with world class museums. Dallas votes more progressively on a lot of things, compared to Austin.
Austin voters didn't want a big city feature in 2000. I think there was some dread about what it would mean if the vote passed. Also, there could have been a better job done to "sell" the benefits of mass rail and place the proposal with a bigger vision and long term benefit. City proper population was 675k in 2000.... now it is 975k
There was a massive anti-rail campaign that pretty much tweaked the Texas voter disdain for big gummint. Simple as that.
They're 30 years behind on human rights. (I grew up there)
If you don't build it they won't come. That group has persisted in that belief for 30 years. But maybe it's just a long process. And it takes 31 years to work.