TJ -- you're looking at bigger concepts involving mass transit in general. i understand your concerns about a spread out city investing money in rail....but when i see cities like dallas and atlanta with effective systems and high ridership, i tend to think it CAN work. hell, even cities like DC and Chicago that have rail spreading out as far as what Katy or the Woodlands would be comparable to our city. this is the first piece. no one said the first piece would ease anyone's congestion on I-10. it's a first step. and it's design is to reduce bus congestion in that corridor and to promote new high density growth around rail lines. there is evidence that has happened elsewhere, dallas in particular. you have to start somewhere. and if you're going to provide alternatives, rail is a nice one. particularly when you consider the numerous studies on rail bias... the proclivity of upper-income people to ride rail, though they won't ride a bus for the very same trip.
Ideally, I'd like to get a subway something that runs underneath I-35, that has stops on 1st, 5th, 11th, 15th, MLK, 26th, 38th, etc. Imagine the kind of relief on I-35 if the subway went north to Round Rock.
Never worked any in that area, although I drive through there alot. You are talking about near Champions Forest and Richey???
Pretty close, ya. Right where the star is people come across the divided highway and stop at the median to go left and straight from both directions as cars fly by at 60 and also try to turn left into the neighborhoods. Very dangerous.
Who cares? The longer you wait to begin a system, the longer it will take to "complete it" (they're never fully complete with the suburban growth we have here) and the more expensive they will be. Austin is a prime place for rail of one kind or another.
TJ, Big Texx and other anti-rail posters, I repeat... If someone ignores a stop sign, or a red light, or a do not turn sign, and pulls out in front of you, and you hit them, is it your fault?
When the biggest monkey-poo slinger in the D&D calls me "perhaps (light rail's) strongest supporter", I'm prepared to say that perhaps T_J has scrambled eggs for brains. SCRAMBLED? PERHAPS
When there are 50 accidents in only 7 months, you simply cannot blame the driver every time. The signage and design of the rail are not adequate to inform drivers of what is right and what is wrong. Oh, and to address those people who are claiming the Main St line is the important "first step": take a look at the rail plan that was voted on last November. The rail won't even come close to reaching the suburbs by 2020! That's where the congestion is coming from, yet there will be no rail access to the suburbs by 2020! Sometimes I wonder if the people who voted for the rail even bothered to look at the map of what was planned!
Oh goodness. Let me explain something to you. MetroRail cost money to build. That money could (and should) have gone to building increased freeway capacity, yet instead it went to the Wham-Bam-Tram. Therefore whenever I am stuck in traffic, I wish for that extra lane to provide much-needed relief. Instead, probably the same people who used to take the bus down Main street are enjoying their ride on a "cool looking" train.
Can you believe it. Can you believe it?? We're going to pay hundreds of dollars a year in tolls to go over an overpass that was already funded and more than half built! A bloody OVERPASS!!! I am so livid about that. I get worked up just thinking about it. I want to know every stupid sucker who voted for that idiotic toll plan and put them on a list, adding stupid, idiot RICK PERRY who refuses to raise taxes to build our bloody freeways and openly supports tolls and appointed the idiots who forced this BS down Austin's throat. I AM MAD!!! Anyone who knows what I'm talking about, like DaDa and Cohen, are plenty mad themselves. I can't believe we stopped ****ing Wal-Mart from building a store in our neighborhood and we are going to get dumped on like this. Somebody is gonna regret it come election day... a bunch of somebodies! (i wish i could say i feel better now, but i don't)
Why do 'people' fear TRUE VISION? Why do 'people' fear a leader who can see the BIG PICTURE? Why do 'people' fear the release of Home Alone 4?
