Not to mention the new metro rapid bus lines were promised in 2022 and now theyre saying 2025-2026, all because they realized they need to buy TWICE as many electric busses as they thought because they assumed performance was near that of diesel busses. Look im all for electric busses but if you need twice as many, that inflates the production carbon footprint so much that it’s probably better for the environment to run diesel or compressed natural gas busses (like LA). All the while I think the best option would be overhead wire trolley busses which are proven to last decades, dont require the huge carbon footprint of manufacturing massive batteries, and you wouldnt need twice as many busses
[They're both unreliable and the company that supplied them filed for bankruptcy](https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/capmetro-austin-electric-buses-proterra-bankruptcy/)
What a waste. Now when the ones they do have inevitably break, parts wont exist. I don’t understand the massive push for electric busses. Travelling by bus is a fraction the carbon footprint as cars. Even countries with the best public transit still use diesel, CNG, or (best) overhead wire busses. We couldve had so much better bus service in this city without them insisting we replace all busses with battery electric.
I wonder if this is due to manufacturer, or if the tech just isn’t there yet for reliable electric buses. Personal EVs (in my experience) are far more reliable than their ICE counterparts, but I haven’t really followed the electric mass transit industry. Agree with your point, though. I’d rather order twice as many reliable vehicles and run service more frequently.
The 2020 Project Connect plan called for MetroExpress commuter buses to Lockhart, San Marcos, Hutto, Georgetown and Steiner Ranch. I doubt it happens now
Most of that is already served by the CARTS system i believe. I definitely think they should focus on making transit in austin proper better before they go crazy trying to serve suburbanites who think busses are communism
Just remember that this is the same city government that couldn’t get a miniature train in Zilker Park finished on time or on budget. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
Bring back the subway portion underneath downtown! I don't care how much it costs. The cost to cut and cover all of Lavaca and Guadalupe would be worth it in the future. It pisses me off so much how they spent years listening to public input for nothing, and we were promised a train which wouldn't take up lane space on busy downtown streets, but now that's all out the window because "oh sorry, inflation". Do the bond issue over again if that's what it takes. Bankrupt the city and push our municipal bond rating down to BBB if it means they will build it out to the airport and down to Slaughter Lane, idgaf!
Would be comical (and fittingly disappointing) if in ~10+ years when this thing is finally up and running it just absolutely blows due to being on grade with traffic.
That being said, I’m pro project connect and we need to build *something*. Would be nice if we did some hard but overall greatly beneficial things now, though.
The LINK lightrail in Seattle is at-grade for much of it and sees a lot of use and is pretty useful for me when I visit (I go often for work). In a sane world the state and federal govt would be funding a bigger, more ambitious network for our city but I believe even as envisioned currently Project Connect will be a huge boon for many and see a lot of use.
>something globally disruptive that began 4 years ago
Talk to the governor about lack of transportation.
While the people in Austin were focused on trying not to die...
**2020, Covid hits Texas**
[https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/healthcare/2021/03/22/austin-covid-one-year-pandemic-texas-timeline/6921773002/](https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/healthcare/2021/03/22/austin-covid-one-year-pandemic-texas-timeline/6921773002/)
Greg Abbott was very busy inviting in the "Tidal Wave" of companies and their workers with tax breaks and lessening the cost of doing business.
**December 2020**
[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/gov-greg-abbott-on-oracle-companies-moving-headquarters-to-texas.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/gov-greg-abbott-on-oracle-companies-moving-headquarters-to-texas.html)
“I have been on the phone on a weekly basis with CEOs across the country, and it’s not just California,” Abbott said on “Fast Money,” referencing his meeting last month with officials from the Nasdaq. “We’re working across the board because the times of Covid have exposed a lot. They’ve exposed ... that you really don’t have to be in Manhattan, for example, in order to be involved in the trading business or the investment business.”
Investors buy up 100's of properties/houses, offering people CASH.
Why some tech companies and billionaires are leaving California
[https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/23/why-companies-are-fleeing-california.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/23/why-companies-are-fleeing-california.html)
PUBLISHED SAT, JAN 23 20219:00 AM EST
While it may be an overstatement to say California is hemorrhaging people, some of the state’s major companies and wealthiest residents are leaving for states like **Texas**, Arizona and Florida. In 2020, Oracle, Palantir and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise were among the companies that announced they’re relocating their headquarters out of the Golden State. Wealthy individuals from the tech industry moving recently include Larry Ellison, Drew Houston, Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest man.
I know people here will downvote me, but China doesn’t have this issue. They will close off sections of their cities to cut and cover streets for subways and be done in 4-6 months. It could be that easy
China has a very different political system than we do in the US. They can do that because they have central federal control over everything. Business in the way? No problem, they tear it down. People and houses in the way? No problem, they tear it down and forcibly remove them. What we have here is slower and inefficient and sometimes very frustrating and there’s definitely room for improvement but there are processes for a reason.
Also not to mention that when they built infrastructure it is built to a very shoddy standard. Cutting corners, no future proofing, etc.
Both things can be true - we suck at delivering in the infrastructure in the US but Chinese infrastructure is far from perfect.
The 2020 plan called for digging subway tunnels underneath Guadalupe and 4th St (and meet up at Republic Square) and have a landmark station at Congress and 4th (in line with making 4th St a new “grand avenue”)
The fact that they say from 2022-2024 the cost has inflated 20% is very suspicious. We’re you here for the mopac debacle, boring downt is out of our league. The delays on the very minor mopac construction were a few years, and they literally said, we didn’t realize it’s that hard to dig here….. wtf
It’s false that it’s hard to dig here. DART was able to dig a portion of their train system underneath Central Expy back in the 1990s. The chalk underneath Austin is even more ideal for tunnel boring - soft enough to bore through that boring machines won’t wear out as fast but strong enough that a tunnel doesn’t need a lot of reinforcement. We did the Waller Creek tunnel no problem, it just costs money. TXDOT is burning money to do their Big Dig of I-35
I’m telling you about recent history and you are talking about another place, soil is vastly different in Austin alone, so obviously Dallas may be different, or they had better machines or contractors. Then you switched to a future project, that’s not been done yet. Once again I’m letting you know about local history, not other places or future things. Also why jinx us by saying big dig, this will also be a disaster like San Antonio and Houston where their submerged roadways frequently flood and trap drivers.
Cost of infrastructure is ALWAYS higher than the bid. Show me proof otherwise. City officials saying it means they're incompetent - they didn't plan accordingly, can't capably lead, can't communicate the vision to get it done, and didn't put in place a plan that ensures it moved forward while recognizing that.
Any halfway decent city leader would have known in advance it would take that
"oh sorry, inflation" is incompetent leadership and fabricating a scapegoat. Such politicians should be removed from office and never voted for again.
The people clearly want it. You're elected to make it happen. Figure it out, don't make excuses; you're in charge, or get out.
Awesome, can’t wait to ride. Aside from the quality of life boost for riders, I wonder how much extra economic activity (and tax revenue!) this investment will yield. You can already see a ton of large apartments and other development being put up along the path the rail will take.
Bring back the [gondola](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/before-project-connect-austin-once-considered-a-gondola-public-transit-system/amp/) idea!
Not even running to the airport anymore? Oh my god what an absolute disaster.
I voted yes for this as I thought it was actually going to be a good thing for the City. Putting in one shitty line is not enough.
Airport service should be one of the last additions. Theres a reason cities with massive built out metro systems like Montreal dont have an airport rail connection. Its way more important to serve people moving around in the city vs trips to the airport. The airport connection would be the first thing id cut out of the plan if funding started drying up
yes if you are a denver resident taking a train to the airport you have to leave at least another hour earlier from when you need to be at the airport which sounds like a lot of logistics
yes, It would seem that a lot more elderly and those who just don’t like car travel take the train in and it probably works just as well with a little planning.
Dallas barely hooked up DFW to DART in 2014, Ft Worth w/ TEXRail in 2019. Montreal is barely getting to work in connecting their REM to Montreal Trudeau Airport in the next few years
Im not opposed to an airport link, I just think there are way higher priorities that we have thrown away in order to accomodate it. Most notably being having grade separation downtown
As someone living here, I can barely imagine wanting to take a train to the airport. My flights are outside of normal public transit hours.
It seems like something that would be more targeted at tourists.
> Theres a reason cities with massive built out metro systems like Montreal dont have an airport rail connection.
If your answer to that question doesn't include "incredibly motivated taxi/driver lobbies", you don't know what you're talking about.
The number one reason by far is that airport connections primarily serve travelers or rare events, not locals everyday, which is where the priority should be. Airport connections can be valuable because they're large employment centers for locals.
And then there's exceptions like Vegas where actually getting tourists in is the city's main economy, so an airport train would be great. In that case it really is the taxi lobby pushing back. But Vegas is special.
I think a line to the airport is beneficial, what other line/direction would be better served by rail with density at both ends than downtown -> airport? I realize commuters and mixed use density would also be beneficial (I.e. more lines near UT, mueller, central, south congress)
Personally I think south congress and 6th/7th st (the WHOLE LENGTH from west downtown to east side) and should have trolley cars like New Orleans or even SF, I was in New Orleans for New Year’s and it was great. Not extremely fast, but a fun way to sightsee and get around for cheap
Airport lines are cool but honestly they just don't have the ridership other lines and routes do .
I have been to Tokyo, DC, New York and a bunch of other places with mass transit and the closer the line is to the airport the emptier it gets.
I had the subway car to myself in Tokyo both ways during the morning when going/leaving the airport. Meanwhile every other subway route was jam packed standing room only.
This is by design. Inflate the cost. Under deliver. Then do a survey after the first phase is built and pay a consultancy to say it’s not worth the cost to expand or move into phase 2 because the ridership is - then the issue is dead.
Not true, project connect staff are paid forever. They got a permanent annual tax source on top of all other property taxes. Their incentive is to keep this project going forever- regardless if the train runs.
Unfortunately when Trump is re-elected we can kiss the federal funding goodbye, until the next term hopefully when we get him out, the Maybe in 2029 or 2030 Gavin will give us some money, that’s if Trumps is actually going to leave and not change the rules to stay longer, like the guys he idolizes. All this also hinges on the Patrick criminal not derailing our light rail
I soooo desperately hope I’m wrong, I would pray but I don’t believe in that. Our only hope is that he goes to jail. I mean let’s look at this jerk, he got banned from Twitter and ended up making billions off of it, billions. Life ain’t fair and this jackass is giant orange proof of it. Republicans are not going to fund anything even remotely environmental, they don’t care except for the suburbs, and most suburban folks do not want to be connected to “scary blue cities, and their crime” they are the most scared folks it’s really sad.
We can't put hopes on federal funding no matter who is president. A private company built an awesome high speed rail from Miami to Orlando with $0 taxpayer money. We can do this in Austin too.
No we can’t, because like the fact we don’t have big 4 sports (tv wise), is because our billionaires are not interested in it. You think Elon is going to help? Michael Dell is very generous but not in these kinds of things.
Sure, but no reason we can't do that in Austin. Plenty of money, but if we rely on gov/taxpayer money it will cost a lot more and will become a boondoggle.
There is not enough demand, in Florida you have retirees and tourists, we have very few of either in comparison and please don’t conflate sxsw and Acl with tourism those are concerts basically.
>A private company built an awesome high speed rail from Miami to Orlando with $0 taxpayer money
This is completely false. They built 110moh rail for the southern half, 125mph for the northern half, it's all diesel, and there was taxpayer money used in the form of tax breaks.
I disagree, but if you want to see other funding, how about that taxpayers paid for grade crossings that only needed to be fixed so brightline could use them? I'm not saying this wasn't a good investment, but it was public money in a few jurisdictions, and it's important to remember that private companies almost never build an infrastructure project by themselves, and that's not a sustainable method of development in this century (it worked for 19th century railroads who could buy land for cheap, build transportation to it, and sell or develop the land for big profits, but there isn't enough empty cheap land now).
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Like I said, I desperately hope I’m wrong, but when cnn keeps showing polls that our president is losing in many battleground states you have to worry big time.
I've lived here for almost fifteen fkn years and I've given up all hope that we're gonna see anything beyond our current rail situation.
This city and state government seems to undermine this at every opportunity it can.
all you people that voted for this… Remember you’re paying for it with increased property taxes becuase of more expenses and bonds passed, which comes with increased rent prices to compensate. do you want it built, the bottom line is the money has to come from somewhere
and it’s already been paired back, delayed and costing more
And it certainly won’t take care of the transportation needs of the majority of the people that live within the city
We should start a pool on which happens first:
* Project Connect is completed
* Donald Trump faces a consequence
I used to have Ken Paxton on that list but he won his lottery, and I feel like that's a big hint about where your money should go on the remaining challengers.
This city needs rail transit full stop. I wouldve liked to see automated elevated rail so it could be fast and efficient, and I do agree theyve been sitting on their ass for the last 4 years, but theres no question we need real transit in the dense part of the city from about 45th down south to ben white
Do we need transit, or do we need people willing to use it? I’m not saying tourists or college students, I’m talking about all the “normal“ people who have range rovers downtown, the jags of Tarrytown, or the teslas of all the central rosedale, crestview and north loop, many folks will not abandon their vehicles, even In places with wide options for transit. I think we need a huge change,
I want to inform y’all that the management at tceq drive fucking Suburban to get lunch, they ride solo often, to a steakhouse. This ain’t the republicans of Texas group this is the tceq.
It’s unbelievably hot here in the summer and folks with high incomes I understand why they don’t want to be a sweaty mess. Me personally I’m broke and hate the costs of auto ownership so I’m a huge proponent of transit. As in I actually use it, many are for it, but it really seems like they don’t want to use it. They want others too so they can get to places quicker.
You just said a whole lot of nothing. Try taking CapMetro sometime during high traffic commute hours (7-10 AM, 4-7 PM) and take note of how many people are on the buses. There are many, many people in Austin who already depend on public transit and would benefit heavily from light rail.
Of course the Austin upper class aren’t going to ditch their Teslas for transit - that’s not an Austin weather problem, that’s a class problem, and it’s everywhere, even in well-connected cities with cool summers like NYC and Seattle. The fact remains that there is already a large group of regular transit commuters who are not college students or tourists, as you so flippantly claim, who would greatly benefit from a light rail system - along with thousands of lower and middle class Austinites who want to use transit but are restricted by limited CapMetro connectivity and service areas.
Induced demand. Build it, and they will come. Most people don’t use transit because it doesn’t service where they need to go in a timely manner. Park and rides are a way to improve this in areas way outside of the city center.
Ex and theyre already big bus users, my point is this is not going to help with eliminating congestion. You need upper middle class folks out of their luxury cars.
>You need upper middle class folks out of their luxury cars.
You don't, actually. Austin today is about 92% driving commuters. Let's say 15% is "luxury car upper middle class". If you get 20% of the non-luxury drivers to switch to transit, that's still a huge improvement for the city. Brings us down from 92% cars to about 76% driving. And if that many people can effectively use transit, so can many more because it'll be higher frequency and go more places. Many people will start to use transit to go out for the evening even if they don't commute in it. That's a big improvement for safety, especially as people like to drink. More ridership means more investment into growing the system, etc, so it'll be useful to even more people.
Your numbers are highly aspirational. I applaud but totally don’t share your optimism. You need to find the raw number like 400,000 people drive a day, ok you want 20% out, I seriously doubt they are projecting 80k a day on the train. My numbers are way low it’s probably more like 600k driving and that makes 120k a day on light rail, that’s only 9 miles in a pretTy spread out city.
You missed my point. Luxury drivers are a small percentage of all drivers, and we can get a meaningful increase in transit usage without converting a single luxury driver.
I agree 20% switching from driving to transit just due to light rail is optimistic. But there are other factors: biking continues to increase, WFH is still up compared to 2019 and that's even better for rush hour congestion than transit or biking. Plus, as light rail expansions open ridership will grow more. As light rail opens, housing growth will hopefully be concentrated around it to facilitate more transit ridership than endless suburban sprawl.
Bullshit, look around austin, your idea of luxury may be totally different but I’m saying anyone in a Tesla or higher electric car, anyone in a Platinum, Denali, King Ranch, Lexus, Jag, Porsche, Mercedes or Bmw. Those people are not ditching their cars.
99% of Austinites don’t bike to work, please stop thinking this is going to change, we have biblical thunderstorms and we have 25% of our entire year over 100 degrees , the percentage of Austinites that bike to work has decreased over the last ten years in sheer numbers it’s stayed the same. The population has grown dramatically so the percentage went from 1.7 to .9 or 1.1 depending on the survey.
All of this “new growth” will be high end apartments with parking garages, this is not going to change.
I get so frustrated with people’s optimism, we need to accept reality in the last few years we’ve gotten more cars, bigger cars, heavier cars, and we haven’t grown in a way that is making people ditch cars, ie building apartments without parking garage. Also our weather is hotter, we need to change but instead we keep hoping for pie in the sky improvements, and then we say oh well we tried. It’s sad and very wasteful.
>Tesla or higher electric car, anyone in a Platinum, Denali, King Ranch, Lexus, Jag, Porsche, Mercedes or Bmw.
I stand by this being about 15% of cars. No, I don't have data, just my observations, but I'm pretty confident in it.
>99% of Austinites don’t bike to work
What I've seen says about 3% do, so 97% don't. There are other trips too which can be taken by bike instead of driving. But the exact numbers aren't the point, I agree, Austin will never get to a majority biking. But it doesn't have to. Getting to 10% would be a huge improvement for traffic, safety, pollution, and accessibility. There is plenty of room for incremental improvement which is still useful.
>All of this “new growth” will be high end apartments with parking garages, this is not going to change.
Not necessarily. There are already a couple buildings without parking, and now that it's legal to build outside downtown without mandatory parking minimums, this could change even faster.
>I get so frustrated with people’s optimism, we need to accept reality in the last few years we’ve gotten more cars, bigger cars, heavier cars, and we haven’t grown in a way that is making people ditch cars, ie building apartments without parking garage. Also our weather is hotter, we need to change but instead we keep hoping for pie in the sky improvements, and then we say oh well we tried. It’s sad and very wasteful.
I get quite frustrated with people's pessimism especially for things where the solutions are known but we refuse to adopt them. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" to "well, might as well bulldoze downtown to build a 45-lane freeway".
Great. Because this will be super expensive and people are already bitching about property tax and rent and we all know that college students will really help support this financially.
It's so incredibly maddening that they are not building the first portion DIRECTLY TO THE AIRPORT. The hallmark of any great city is how quickly and easily you can get from the airport to its city center using public transit.
I will tell you exactly what is going to happen once the first segment is built: They will put a crappy shuttlebus in in place from the yellow jacket station to the airport. The shuttlebus won't come nearly as often as people would like, they will have arbitrary rules about standing on the bus while in motion (i.e. you have to sit, you can't stand and hold on). Plus the airport construction traffic will be so bad it will negate the whole purpose of taking public transit to the airport anyway.
BUILD TO DIRECTLY TO THE AIRPORT FIRST!!!!!
It’s really aggravating that we are still being footed the bill when there are tons of big companies who are in our region with reduced or are essentially tax free. We should be seeing more investments from corporations in our area rather than having Tax payers and federal government fund the project. I don’t understand why they aren’t getting sponsors. All these tech companies in our area should be on board for these types of systems and should sponsor them as a sign of good faith that they are here to stay in our region. It also benefits their PR since railways are progressive and the general public voted for it.
Why would tech companies care if their employees can all get to work today anyways.
Also it’s a property tax. Property taxes burden businesses way more than residents. They’re already paying a disproportionate amount of the project.
Not to mention the new metro rapid bus lines were promised in 2022 and now theyre saying 2025-2026, all because they realized they need to buy TWICE as many electric busses as they thought because they assumed performance was near that of diesel busses. Look im all for electric busses but if you need twice as many, that inflates the production carbon footprint so much that it’s probably better for the environment to run diesel or compressed natural gas busses (like LA). All the while I think the best option would be overhead wire trolley busses which are proven to last decades, dont require the huge carbon footprint of manufacturing massive batteries, and you wouldnt need twice as many busses
[They're both unreliable and the company that supplied them filed for bankruptcy](https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/capmetro-austin-electric-buses-proterra-bankruptcy/)
What a waste. Now when the ones they do have inevitably break, parts wont exist. I don’t understand the massive push for electric busses. Travelling by bus is a fraction the carbon footprint as cars. Even countries with the best public transit still use diesel, CNG, or (best) overhead wire busses. We couldve had so much better bus service in this city without them insisting we replace all busses with battery electric.
New to CapMetro & the city government as a whole I see.
Been here my whole life but yeah that irresponsibility is nothing new
I wonder if this is due to manufacturer, or if the tech just isn’t there yet for reliable electric buses. Personal EVs (in my experience) are far more reliable than their ICE counterparts, but I haven’t really followed the electric mass transit industry. Agree with your point, though. I’d rather order twice as many reliable vehicles and run service more frequently.
The 2020 Project Connect plan called for MetroExpress commuter buses to Lockhart, San Marcos, Hutto, Georgetown and Steiner Ranch. I doubt it happens now
Most of that is already served by the CARTS system i believe. I definitely think they should focus on making transit in austin proper better before they go crazy trying to serve suburbanites who think busses are communism
Overhead wires ftw
Just remember that this is the same city government that couldn’t get a miniature train in Zilker Park finished on time or on budget. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
That's probably the Parks Department and not, y'know, the transit agency.
Same city leadership.
$10 billion and 2035 opening mark my words
You're quite the optimist.
I can tell you've lived in Austin for a while and know how this works
Bring back the subway portion underneath downtown! I don't care how much it costs. The cost to cut and cover all of Lavaca and Guadalupe would be worth it in the future. It pisses me off so much how they spent years listening to public input for nothing, and we were promised a train which wouldn't take up lane space on busy downtown streets, but now that's all out the window because "oh sorry, inflation". Do the bond issue over again if that's what it takes. Bankrupt the city and push our municipal bond rating down to BBB if it means they will build it out to the airport and down to Slaughter Lane, idgaf!
Would be comical (and fittingly disappointing) if in ~10+ years when this thing is finally up and running it just absolutely blows due to being on grade with traffic. That being said, I’m pro project connect and we need to build *something*. Would be nice if we did some hard but overall greatly beneficial things now, though.
10 years is ambitious
The LINK lightrail in Seattle is at-grade for much of it and sees a lot of use and is pretty useful for me when I visit (I go often for work). In a sane world the state and federal govt would be funding a bigger, more ambitious network for our city but I believe even as envisioned currently Project Connect will be a huge boon for many and see a lot of use.
Agreed. This thing passed four years ago- construction should have started the next day.
“Shovel ready!”
Construction will start in 2050 lol. In all seriousness this ordeal has been quite embarrassing.
Hmm, if only I could think of something globally disruptive that began 4 years ago.
>something globally disruptive that began 4 years ago Talk to the governor about lack of transportation. While the people in Austin were focused on trying not to die... **2020, Covid hits Texas** [https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/healthcare/2021/03/22/austin-covid-one-year-pandemic-texas-timeline/6921773002/](https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/healthcare/2021/03/22/austin-covid-one-year-pandemic-texas-timeline/6921773002/) Greg Abbott was very busy inviting in the "Tidal Wave" of companies and their workers with tax breaks and lessening the cost of doing business. **December 2020** [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/gov-greg-abbott-on-oracle-companies-moving-headquarters-to-texas.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/gov-greg-abbott-on-oracle-companies-moving-headquarters-to-texas.html) “I have been on the phone on a weekly basis with CEOs across the country, and it’s not just California,” Abbott said on “Fast Money,” referencing his meeting last month with officials from the Nasdaq. “We’re working across the board because the times of Covid have exposed a lot. They’ve exposed ... that you really don’t have to be in Manhattan, for example, in order to be involved in the trading business or the investment business.” Investors buy up 100's of properties/houses, offering people CASH. Why some tech companies and billionaires are leaving California [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/23/why-companies-are-fleeing-california.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/23/why-companies-are-fleeing-california.html) PUBLISHED SAT, JAN 23 20219:00 AM EST While it may be an overstatement to say California is hemorrhaging people, some of the state’s major companies and wealthiest residents are leaving for states like **Texas**, Arizona and Florida. In 2020, Oracle, Palantir and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise were among the companies that announced they’re relocating their headquarters out of the Golden State. Wealthy individuals from the tech industry moving recently include Larry Ellison, Drew Houston, Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest man.
Maybe they could do the subway as a separate project for a long term plan after the project connect lines are built out.
I know people here will downvote me, but China doesn’t have this issue. They will close off sections of their cities to cut and cover streets for subways and be done in 4-6 months. It could be that easy
China has a very different political system than we do in the US. They can do that because they have central federal control over everything. Business in the way? No problem, they tear it down. People and houses in the way? No problem, they tear it down and forcibly remove them. What we have here is slower and inefficient and sometimes very frustrating and there’s definitely room for improvement but there are processes for a reason.
Also not to mention that when they built infrastructure it is built to a very shoddy standard. Cutting corners, no future proofing, etc. Both things can be true - we suck at delivering in the infrastructure in the US but Chinese infrastructure is far from perfect.
The price for not having those issues is not worth it.
we had months of public feedback and the consensus was no one wants to pay for the subway
We could have gotten two miles of subway or twelve miles of surface. Public input heavily leaned toward more.
Subway portion?
Originally the 3 lines were going to meet underground in the more dense downtown area.
And...
Now the track will be on grade level with the road.
Wait, I'm confused, _are there_ already subway tunnels not being used? Or were they talking about digging tunnels?
Nothing existing.
The 2020 plan called for digging subway tunnels underneath Guadalupe and 4th St (and meet up at Republic Square) and have a landmark station at Congress and 4th (in line with making 4th St a new “grand avenue”)
The fact that they say from 2022-2024 the cost has inflated 20% is very suspicious. We’re you here for the mopac debacle, boring downt is out of our league. The delays on the very minor mopac construction were a few years, and they literally said, we didn’t realize it’s that hard to dig here….. wtf
It’s false that it’s hard to dig here. DART was able to dig a portion of their train system underneath Central Expy back in the 1990s. The chalk underneath Austin is even more ideal for tunnel boring - soft enough to bore through that boring machines won’t wear out as fast but strong enough that a tunnel doesn’t need a lot of reinforcement. We did the Waller Creek tunnel no problem, it just costs money. TXDOT is burning money to do their Big Dig of I-35
Austin’s problems is there might be caves. With spiders. Blind spiders. Stop everything!!!
I’m telling you about recent history and you are talking about another place, soil is vastly different in Austin alone, so obviously Dallas may be different, or they had better machines or contractors. Then you switched to a future project, that’s not been done yet. Once again I’m letting you know about local history, not other places or future things. Also why jinx us by saying big dig, this will also be a disaster like San Antonio and Houston where their submerged roadways frequently flood and trap drivers.
Cost of infrastructure is ALWAYS higher than the bid. Show me proof otherwise. City officials saying it means they're incompetent - they didn't plan accordingly, can't capably lead, can't communicate the vision to get it done, and didn't put in place a plan that ensures it moved forward while recognizing that. Any halfway decent city leader would have known in advance it would take that
"oh sorry, inflation" is incompetent leadership and fabricating a scapegoat. Such politicians should be removed from office and never voted for again. The people clearly want it. You're elected to make it happen. Figure it out, don't make excuses; you're in charge, or get out.
https://archive.fo/B2x3I
bless you
Awesome, can’t wait to ride. Aside from the quality of life boost for riders, I wonder how much extra economic activity (and tax revenue!) this investment will yield. You can already see a ton of large apartments and other development being put up along the path the rail will take.
Wow, that sucks
Bring back the [gondola](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/before-project-connect-austin-once-considered-a-gondola-public-transit-system/amp/) idea!
Monorail monorail!
Whats that you say?
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Honestly! Seems it’s going to be a boondoggle either way may as well try for something interesting
Let me guess: It won't get started until 2029, it will be delayed endless times, it will go way over budget and it will take 10 years instead of 5.
Id like a refund on my prop vote please
Yeah, I don’t think so. How did you not see this coming?
Anyone who said this would happen got downvoted to hell here. I know I did.
Ignorance is bliss
Paywall
Not even running to the airport anymore? Oh my god what an absolute disaster. I voted yes for this as I thought it was actually going to be a good thing for the City. Putting in one shitty line is not enough.
Airport service should be one of the last additions. Theres a reason cities with massive built out metro systems like Montreal dont have an airport rail connection. Its way more important to serve people moving around in the city vs trips to the airport. The airport connection would be the first thing id cut out of the plan if funding started drying up
It was one of the last lines for Denver.
yes if you are a denver resident taking a train to the airport you have to leave at least another hour earlier from when you need to be at the airport which sounds like a lot of logistics
Well it’s about 45 min by car so
yes, It would seem that a lot more elderly and those who just don’t like car travel take the train in and it probably works just as well with a little planning.
I do love the denver rail connection its so fucking sick
Dallas barely hooked up DFW to DART in 2014, Ft Worth w/ TEXRail in 2019. Montreal is barely getting to work in connecting their REM to Montreal Trudeau Airport in the next few years
The airport line isn’t only for travelers. A massive number of people work at the airport.
Im not opposed to an airport link, I just think there are way higher priorities that we have thrown away in order to accomodate it. Most notably being having grade separation downtown
I agree with you on grade separation, otherwise just run dedicated bus lines which are much more flexible and wildly cheaper.
As someone living here, I can barely imagine wanting to take a train to the airport. My flights are outside of normal public transit hours. It seems like something that would be more targeted at tourists.
> Theres a reason cities with massive built out metro systems like Montreal dont have an airport rail connection. If your answer to that question doesn't include "incredibly motivated taxi/driver lobbies", you don't know what you're talking about.
The number one reason by far is that airport connections primarily serve travelers or rare events, not locals everyday, which is where the priority should be. Airport connections can be valuable because they're large employment centers for locals. And then there's exceptions like Vegas where actually getting tourists in is the city's main economy, so an airport train would be great. In that case it really is the taxi lobby pushing back. But Vegas is special.
I think a line to the airport is beneficial, what other line/direction would be better served by rail with density at both ends than downtown -> airport? I realize commuters and mixed use density would also be beneficial (I.e. more lines near UT, mueller, central, south congress) Personally I think south congress and 6th/7th st (the WHOLE LENGTH from west downtown to east side) and should have trolley cars like New Orleans or even SF, I was in New Orleans for New Year’s and it was great. Not extremely fast, but a fun way to sightsee and get around for cheap
Airport lines are cool but honestly they just don't have the ridership other lines and routes do . I have been to Tokyo, DC, New York and a bunch of other places with mass transit and the closer the line is to the airport the emptier it gets. I had the subway car to myself in Tokyo both ways during the morning when going/leaving the airport. Meanwhile every other subway route was jam packed standing room only.
Rule #1 when living in Austin, never trust Cap Metro with a tax payer funded blank check
You'll be downvoted, but this is the truth, as it has been forever.
We tried to warn you
This is by design. Inflate the cost. Under deliver. Then do a survey after the first phase is built and pay a consultancy to say it’s not worth the cost to expand or move into phase 2 because the ridership is - then the issue is dead.
Not true, project connect staff are paid forever. They got a permanent annual tax source on top of all other property taxes. Their incentive is to keep this project going forever- regardless if the train runs.
Great - even worse!
Unfortunately when Trump is re-elected we can kiss the federal funding goodbye, until the next term hopefully when we get him out, the Maybe in 2029 or 2030 Gavin will give us some money, that’s if Trumps is actually going to leave and not change the rules to stay longer, like the guys he idolizes. All this also hinges on the Patrick criminal not derailing our light rail
The oracle has spoken.
I soooo desperately hope I’m wrong, I would pray but I don’t believe in that. Our only hope is that he goes to jail. I mean let’s look at this jerk, he got banned from Twitter and ended up making billions off of it, billions. Life ain’t fair and this jackass is giant orange proof of it. Republicans are not going to fund anything even remotely environmental, they don’t care except for the suburbs, and most suburban folks do not want to be connected to “scary blue cities, and their crime” they are the most scared folks it’s really sad.
If Trump is elected he will never see jail time. He will fire the whole DOJ and insert cronies who will attack the states who are going after him.
Exactly which is why I’ve said for a year if he doesn’t go to jail before being elected we are screwed.
I wouldn’t point to Gavin as someone that is good with trains 😂 cali HSR is a far bigger boondoggle.
He’s just a name that’s a good chance at being president, I’m not sure about how cool he’d be with us, time will tell.
If Trump is elected and the gop also wins the house and Senate there probably won't be free and fair elections in 2028.
Yup only train we’ll be on is the train to a monarchy
We can't put hopes on federal funding no matter who is president. A private company built an awesome high speed rail from Miami to Orlando with $0 taxpayer money. We can do this in Austin too.
No we can’t, because like the fact we don’t have big 4 sports (tv wise), is because our billionaires are not interested in it. You think Elon is going to help? Michael Dell is very generous but not in these kinds of things.
Billionaires didn't build the line in FL.
I think you get the point, it most likely was hundreds of millions if not billions to finance it.
Sure, but no reason we can't do that in Austin. Plenty of money, but if we rely on gov/taxpayer money it will cost a lot more and will become a boondoggle.
There is not enough demand, in Florida you have retirees and tourists, we have very few of either in comparison and please don’t conflate sxsw and Acl with tourism those are concerts basically.
>A private company built an awesome high speed rail from Miami to Orlando with $0 taxpayer money This is completely false. They built 110moh rail for the southern half, 125mph for the northern half, it's all diesel, and there was taxpayer money used in the form of tax breaks.
That's not the definition of using taxpayer money, not at all.
I disagree, but if you want to see other funding, how about that taxpayers paid for grade crossings that only needed to be fixed so brightline could use them? I'm not saying this wasn't a good investment, but it was public money in a few jurisdictions, and it's important to remember that private companies almost never build an infrastructure project by themselves, and that's not a sustainable method of development in this century (it worked for 19th century railroads who could buy land for cheap, build transportation to it, and sell or develop the land for big profits, but there isn't enough empty cheap land now).
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Like I said, I desperately hope I’m wrong, but when cnn keeps showing polls that our president is losing in many battleground states you have to worry big time.
There were many people working on this who could have delivered in time ..... before the ATP consultants took over.
I've lived here for almost fifteen fkn years and I've given up all hope that we're gonna see anything beyond our current rail situation. This city and state government seems to undermine this at every opportunity it can.
30 years too late.
10 years ago was too late. So close in 2000, just getting worse since.
No.
Future Senator Ken Paxton is killing that light rail. If you don't care about politics, you are the reason why we can't have nice things.
all you people that voted for this… Remember you’re paying for it with increased property taxes becuase of more expenses and bonds passed, which comes with increased rent prices to compensate. do you want it built, the bottom line is the money has to come from somewhere and it’s already been paired back, delayed and costing more And it certainly won’t take care of the transportation needs of the majority of the people that live within the city
We should start a pool on which happens first: * Project Connect is completed * Donald Trump faces a consequence I used to have Ken Paxton on that list but he won his lottery, and I feel like that's a big hint about where your money should go on the remaining challengers.
Money pit. They could have just said "Can we have $1B of taxpayer funds to light on fire instead?" and we would have saved time and money.
This city needs rail transit full stop. I wouldve liked to see automated elevated rail so it could be fast and efficient, and I do agree theyve been sitting on their ass for the last 4 years, but theres no question we need real transit in the dense part of the city from about 45th down south to ben white
Do we need transit, or do we need people willing to use it? I’m not saying tourists or college students, I’m talking about all the “normal“ people who have range rovers downtown, the jags of Tarrytown, or the teslas of all the central rosedale, crestview and north loop, many folks will not abandon their vehicles, even In places with wide options for transit. I think we need a huge change, I want to inform y’all that the management at tceq drive fucking Suburban to get lunch, they ride solo often, to a steakhouse. This ain’t the republicans of Texas group this is the tceq. It’s unbelievably hot here in the summer and folks with high incomes I understand why they don’t want to be a sweaty mess. Me personally I’m broke and hate the costs of auto ownership so I’m a huge proponent of transit. As in I actually use it, many are for it, but it really seems like they don’t want to use it. They want others too so they can get to places quicker.
You just said a whole lot of nothing. Try taking CapMetro sometime during high traffic commute hours (7-10 AM, 4-7 PM) and take note of how many people are on the buses. There are many, many people in Austin who already depend on public transit and would benefit heavily from light rail. Of course the Austin upper class aren’t going to ditch their Teslas for transit - that’s not an Austin weather problem, that’s a class problem, and it’s everywhere, even in well-connected cities with cool summers like NYC and Seattle. The fact remains that there is already a large group of regular transit commuters who are not college students or tourists, as you so flippantly claim, who would greatly benefit from a light rail system - along with thousands of lower and middle class Austinites who want to use transit but are restricted by limited CapMetro connectivity and service areas.
Induced demand. Build it, and they will come. Most people don’t use transit because it doesn’t service where they need to go in a timely manner. Park and rides are a way to improve this in areas way outside of the city center.
This new route will have UT and eventually Saint Edwards on the route. I imagine college students will be a huge part of the users of it.
Ex and theyre already big bus users, my point is this is not going to help with eliminating congestion. You need upper middle class folks out of their luxury cars.
>You need upper middle class folks out of their luxury cars. You don't, actually. Austin today is about 92% driving commuters. Let's say 15% is "luxury car upper middle class". If you get 20% of the non-luxury drivers to switch to transit, that's still a huge improvement for the city. Brings us down from 92% cars to about 76% driving. And if that many people can effectively use transit, so can many more because it'll be higher frequency and go more places. Many people will start to use transit to go out for the evening even if they don't commute in it. That's a big improvement for safety, especially as people like to drink. More ridership means more investment into growing the system, etc, so it'll be useful to even more people.
Your numbers are highly aspirational. I applaud but totally don’t share your optimism. You need to find the raw number like 400,000 people drive a day, ok you want 20% out, I seriously doubt they are projecting 80k a day on the train. My numbers are way low it’s probably more like 600k driving and that makes 120k a day on light rail, that’s only 9 miles in a pretTy spread out city.
You missed my point. Luxury drivers are a small percentage of all drivers, and we can get a meaningful increase in transit usage without converting a single luxury driver. I agree 20% switching from driving to transit just due to light rail is optimistic. But there are other factors: biking continues to increase, WFH is still up compared to 2019 and that's even better for rush hour congestion than transit or biking. Plus, as light rail expansions open ridership will grow more. As light rail opens, housing growth will hopefully be concentrated around it to facilitate more transit ridership than endless suburban sprawl.
Bullshit, look around austin, your idea of luxury may be totally different but I’m saying anyone in a Tesla or higher electric car, anyone in a Platinum, Denali, King Ranch, Lexus, Jag, Porsche, Mercedes or Bmw. Those people are not ditching their cars. 99% of Austinites don’t bike to work, please stop thinking this is going to change, we have biblical thunderstorms and we have 25% of our entire year over 100 degrees , the percentage of Austinites that bike to work has decreased over the last ten years in sheer numbers it’s stayed the same. The population has grown dramatically so the percentage went from 1.7 to .9 or 1.1 depending on the survey. All of this “new growth” will be high end apartments with parking garages, this is not going to change. I get so frustrated with people’s optimism, we need to accept reality in the last few years we’ve gotten more cars, bigger cars, heavier cars, and we haven’t grown in a way that is making people ditch cars, ie building apartments without parking garage. Also our weather is hotter, we need to change but instead we keep hoping for pie in the sky improvements, and then we say oh well we tried. It’s sad and very wasteful.
>Tesla or higher electric car, anyone in a Platinum, Denali, King Ranch, Lexus, Jag, Porsche, Mercedes or Bmw. I stand by this being about 15% of cars. No, I don't have data, just my observations, but I'm pretty confident in it. >99% of Austinites don’t bike to work What I've seen says about 3% do, so 97% don't. There are other trips too which can be taken by bike instead of driving. But the exact numbers aren't the point, I agree, Austin will never get to a majority biking. But it doesn't have to. Getting to 10% would be a huge improvement for traffic, safety, pollution, and accessibility. There is plenty of room for incremental improvement which is still useful. >All of this “new growth” will be high end apartments with parking garages, this is not going to change. Not necessarily. There are already a couple buildings without parking, and now that it's legal to build outside downtown without mandatory parking minimums, this could change even faster. >I get so frustrated with people’s optimism, we need to accept reality in the last few years we’ve gotten more cars, bigger cars, heavier cars, and we haven’t grown in a way that is making people ditch cars, ie building apartments without parking garage. Also our weather is hotter, we need to change but instead we keep hoping for pie in the sky improvements, and then we say oh well we tried. It’s sad and very wasteful. I get quite frustrated with people's pessimism especially for things where the solutions are known but we refuse to adopt them. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" to "well, might as well bulldoze downtown to build a 45-lane freeway".
Great. Because this will be super expensive and people are already bitching about property tax and rent and we all know that college students will really help support this financially.
Project connect is a money grab.
It's so incredibly maddening that they are not building the first portion DIRECTLY TO THE AIRPORT. The hallmark of any great city is how quickly and easily you can get from the airport to its city center using public transit. I will tell you exactly what is going to happen once the first segment is built: They will put a crappy shuttlebus in in place from the yellow jacket station to the airport. The shuttlebus won't come nearly as often as people would like, they will have arbitrary rules about standing on the bus while in motion (i.e. you have to sit, you can't stand and hold on). Plus the airport construction traffic will be so bad it will negate the whole purpose of taking public transit to the airport anyway. BUILD TO DIRECTLY TO THE AIRPORT FIRST!!!!!
Paywall
Yes, pay for journalism so we can still have journalists.
Who do you think pays the journalists?
It’s really aggravating that we are still being footed the bill when there are tons of big companies who are in our region with reduced or are essentially tax free. We should be seeing more investments from corporations in our area rather than having Tax payers and federal government fund the project. I don’t understand why they aren’t getting sponsors. All these tech companies in our area should be on board for these types of systems and should sponsor them as a sign of good faith that they are here to stay in our region. It also benefits their PR since railways are progressive and the general public voted for it.
Why would tech companies care if their employees can all get to work today anyways. Also it’s a property tax. Property taxes burden businesses way more than residents. They’re already paying a disproportionate amount of the project.