Texas Transit Association

The term is commuter rail, not light rail.

In the second expansive transportation plan to be unveiled for the greater Austin area in less than a month, Capital Metro on Tuesday, May 11, revealed a long-range bus and rail plan intended to pull together far-flung parts of the city and its suburbs.

ARTICLE I:
No new taxes for rail, says Cap Metro
Agency launches effort to sell Austin on commuter trains, buses
By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 12, 2004

“It’s truly a first draft, a preliminary vision of the future,” Capital Metro board member John Trevino said as the agency kicked off a months-long effort to convince Austinites of the wisdom of the plan, the first such campaign since voters defeated the agency’s light-rail plan in November 2000.

Capital Metro officials cast this plan, called All Systems Go!, as a response to a recent Envision Central Texas study that determined that transportation is the region’s most important concern.

The other plan attracting attention is a $2.2 billion regional toll road plan. The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization heard details of that plan last month; it will vote in July.

Although Cap Metro offered few specifics about costs or funding for the plan because details of All Systems Go! may change, it promised no new taxes.

“Our plan does not require additional funds,” said Fred Gilliam, Capital Metro’s president and chief executive officer. “It would be funded with grants and local resources that we currently have.”

The plan proposes two types of rail service to alleviate traffic and prepare for the hefty population growth predicted for the Austin area. The first, called the Northwest Corridor and known as commuter rail urban service, would run from Leander to downtown Austin on existing freight tracks. Under the Capital Metro plan, passenger and freight trains would coexist on the line.

Capital Metro said it would have to build a maintenance facility and four stations — at the Leander Park & Ride; the Northwest Park & Ride, near U.S. 183 and RM 620; Plaza Saltillo in East Austin; and the Austin Convention Center downtown. It estimates the costs for that construction and for track work at $48 million to $60 million. Initial annual operating expenses are expected to be about $5 million.

Another rail line, known as commuter rail regional service, would use existing tracks along MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and the unused MoKan railroad corridor east of Austin to provide express service from Georgetown to San Marcos.

Rapid bus service would run along Texas 71 from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to Oak Hill and along Congress Avenue, Guadalupe Street and Lamar Boulevard.

Buses outfitted with technology that keeps traffic lights green as a bus approaches would run on those routes. Such buses cost up to $50,000 more than a standard bus, Gilliam said. A normal bus costs an average of $300,000, said Rob Smith, Capital Metro’s planning director.

The plan also calls for expanded express and local bus service around Central Austin and along highways leading to the city’s outskirts.

The Capital Metro board will probably decide in July exactly what language will appear in its election notice. Remembering the narrow failure of its light-rail plan, which was often criticized as lacking specifics, Capital Metro officials said they will offer voters a concrete proposal.

“The plan will be refined with the community’s input,” Gilliam said. “At the point in time a referendum is called, you’ll know specifically what you’re voting for.”

But the agency will have to win over some lukewarm Austinites.

“I absolutely reject it on its own merits because of the benefits for people who don’t pay and the lack of benefits for people who do pay,” said Mike Dahmus, a member of the Urban Transportation Commission, an advisory board for the Austin City Council.

He said the plan would shortchange the large number of city residents who provide the agency’s tax base in order to serve residents of the suburbs. Plus, he added, “the commuter rail doesn’t go anywhere near the University of Texas or the densest urban core.”

The bulk of Capital Metro’s budget comes from a 1-cent sales tax levied in Austin and a few surrounding communities that are part of the agency’s service area.

But state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, who worked with Capital Metro on the plan, said the system could be a catalyst for downtown development.

“If the old anti-rail slogan was ‘Does too little, costs too much,’ we joke critics will now say, ‘Does too much, costs too little.’ ”

Leander Mayor John Cowman, a land developer, said the proposal is good news. Between 2000 and 2003, his city’s population grew nearly 50 percent, to more than 11,000, according to Texas State Data Center estimates.

Cowman hopes that voter approval of a commuter rail referendum in November will push along a local project that’s gathering steam: transit-oriented development on 2,300 acres around the Northwest Corridor rail head. Cowman and others envision higher-density residential development, mixed-use zoning and pedestrian-friendly design there.

“I let those CAMPO board members know that our town is growing,” he said, referring to that agency’s public meeting Monday night. “And what we have is not adequate. This appeals to us.”

ARTICLE II:
Cap Metro making plans to ease traffic
By: Crestina Chavez 5/11/2004 News 8

Everyone’s been there: Stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on I-35 or MoPac. It’s not going to get any better. The population in Central Texas is expected to double in the next 20 years.

Capital Metro is laying out its plans to help ease traffic woes before they get any worse. They want to make it better and easier for folks to get around town.

The bus service wants to bring new high-tech buses that go faster and hold traffic lights green.

Capitol Metro’s vision also includes a commuter rail. Capital Metro already owns a line called the Northwest corridor. It runs from Leander to Downtown Austin. It currently carries freight.

Capital Metro thinks why not carry passengers, too?

“The track has already been improved and what we’ll do is schedule the freight at different hours. We’ll continue to move freight, but move passengers,” Capital Metro CEO Fred Gilliam said.

Capital Metro announced plans for a new mass transit system on Tuesday, but the proposal is just that: a proposal. Capital Metro is counting on residents to help make it fit community needs.

“It’s a starting point. It’s what things might look like 25 years down the road. And it really requires citizen input for it to become a much more robust plan,” Rick L’Amie, with Capital Metro, said.

Most bus riders said they wouldn’t mind some improvements.

But it’s up to the voters to decide. Commuter rail might end up on a November ballot. That means from start to finish the community will decide where mass transit is headed in the future.

Capital Metro says its plans would not interfere with the region’s toll road proposal. The bus service is starting a series of public open houses and workshops on its mass transit plans.

To see the plans and find out the schedule of open houses log on to Capital Metro’s web site.