Austin's Rail History & Route Choice Problem Part 2: Politics

Now that we're through the history in the last post and know the ropes.  Let's chat about the current politics that are pushing the corridor in the direction it is headed instead of where we think the logical choice of corridor is located, down Guadalupe and Lamar streets.

Politics - Politics always plays a part of planning for a major infrastructure investment and this decision is no different.  There are several groups that have a specific interest in the routing of the transit line, and while not nefarious in their push to get the line through their land (it's an honest belief that it will help these parts of the city) , it seems to continue to push the project in the direction it is going.

And while its fair that each of these political pushes has merit enough for future extensions, it doesn't mean that these alignments should be the first ones in the ground. Consider the map of the current Urban Rail plan below in Orange.

Map Courtesy of the Austin Chronicle

The main line goes from the Mueller redevelopment project through the University of Texas on San Jacinto Street right next to Memorial Stadium and down south to Riverside where the line would run out to the Airport.  For some reason airports are always wanted for rail extensions even though they aren't major trip generators in the region compared with other areas.  Again, while my preferred corridor is Guadalupe/Lamar, we'll go through that issue later. 

University of Texas' Stake

The University of Texas has a strong presence in the Austin area.  Of course one of the largest institutions of higher education in the country would, but UT is specifically strong.  And it sees itself sometimes as its own little island.  Below is a map of the university campus.  Most students take classes in the sections labeled 1,2,4,5 in the top left quadrant of the campus area.

The yellow line above represents the Guadalupe/Lamar corridor which now is traversed by the #1 Route bus.  The orange line is the Urban Rail plan as it currently stands.

However the University sees itself as the whole campus, and their center is along San Jacinto street, which is the road that splits sections 5 and 6.  Since planning for rail began, the campus master planners at the University have always wanted rail on this street, even though it would be a round about route for students coming from the North or South trying to get to classes to sections 1 and 2.  Also the Forty Acres bus loop that takes students between housing on the west side of Campus (some of the densest neighborhoods in the city) is the second highest patronized bus line in the city after the #1 bus meaning that on any given day, about 8,000 students hop a bus to loop around campus because its convenient, and they don't want to walk up the huge hill from the stadium to Gregory Gym.  But the goal of the University of the line down San Jacinto was to be able to expand East as property allowed denser development for students and space on the west side disappeared.  This is in my mind why they continue to push for a San Jacinto alignment, it's the center of their future master plans.

Another wrinkle though occurred to me when visiting with Campus Planner John Rishling in 2004. He mentioned that at some point UT would also want to connect to the Pickle Campus as students could be housed there and expansion could take place to create a research village on 425 acres when space got to be a premium on the 40 Acres.  This is in UT's longer term plans and is unlikely to cause them to push for a corridor down Guadalupe anytime soon.  Additionally, unless the current Red Line is retrofitted a two seat ride would be required to get to Pickle, which is currently within walking distance to the Red Line itself, but not a stop.  Any future plans to make Pickle into a campus that needed to be directly connected to the 40 acres would have to consider transportation, but they are not there quite yet.

Images Courtesy of Dhiru Thadani

Map Courtesy of UT

 

Mueller Airport Redevelopment's Stake

Mueller Politics - Mueller is the first new urban neighborhood in the central city for a very long time. The planning for this site took years after the airport left the site for Bergstrom Air Force Base in Southeast Austin in 1999.  The Master Development Agreement was signed in 2004 and development started in 2007.

Throughout that time representatives at Mueller had pushed for rail to run into the development.  The development density was limited by a traffic impact analysis, and in order to increase densities a transit line needed to be constructed through the site to reduce the total trips.  According to the Capital Metro Future Connections Study for the 2006 streetcar alternatives analysis, that meant densities could increase by 12% if that rail line were constructed (PDF PG 15). 

The agreement with the City of Austin sets a traffic impact expectation on the basis of  proposed land use levels and the presence of existing transit services in the Mueller area. The introduction of measures that moderate vehicular travel to and from the site allows the developer to increase development density to the extent that traffic quantities are not increased above the expected level.

The analysis indicates that the Circulator, along with the MLK Rapid Bus, would attract increased transit use to the extent of reducing the RMMA traffic impact by 7,820 vehicle trips. On that basis, there could be additional development to the extent that 7,820 vehicle trips would result. If the development mix of additional development was the same as in the approved plan, the trip reduction would support a 12 percent increase in development without exceeding the vehicular travel target of 73,969 trips (assuming the current mix of land use is uniformly densified).

As the redevelopment project moves towards development, that allowance is cut short not by the trips, but the land available to build more density than originally planned.  So time is of the essence for Mueller but ultimately this type of incentive is backwards.  What they should have programmed is density allowances where increased value or bonus funding was funneled into a funding source that would have built the transit line to the development rather than having to wait for the line to get there before developing.   As it stands now that opportunity is disappearing, and the push for Mueller is a priority for increased value to the city and developers. 

State Politics & Space

Of course if you read the history you would see that there is a lot of animosity towards Capital Metro at the state level.  For a period of time they were trying to take away the quarter cent.  But for those who think the corridor would be a good thing, they want to redevelop the East side of the State Capital since the West is already developed. 

Of course the State provides parking in these garages and has a lot of excess capacity, which means that there is very little incentive to take transit other than existing traffic issues.  According to a 2010 parking study by the Texas Facilities Commission, any employee who works for the state at least four hours a day is eligible for a parking pass.  In 2009, approximately 25% of the spaces were vacant. According to the report...

This parking supply of 9,529 spaces serves approximately 10,101 full time employees (FTEs) in the Capitol Complex during a non-legislative year.

That's not a lot of transit usage but the report recommends that all that free parking is costing the State a LOT in lost revenues. Additionally this suggests that there is a missing demand for transit that could be met by a new line.  However the question will be how much of the population that works at the state is located along the Mueller Corridor as opposed to the Guadalupe/Lamar corridor and points north.

Image Courtesy of Austin American Statesman

With the state also hard up for money (as every other state in the country), the Texas Facilities Commission led by notorious Capital Metro detractor Terry Keel had been working on a public private partnership plan to bring 7 million square feet of space to the Capital.  This would include replacing a number of parking garages with new space which would be bolstered by the Urban Rail proposal. The parking report above also mentions the possible reuse of underutilized resources for redevelopment.

Additional whispers suggest that a UT Medical School campus could also be on the docket in this space, producing a long awaited Medical School that I've always wondered why it didn't exist in Austin.  State Senator Kirk Watson, who was on the Transit Working Group for a time is also pushing for the Medical Campus.   That's a lot of pressure to keep the line on San Jacinto and/or Trinity streets versus the already built out areas around Guadalupe and Lamar. 

The 2000 Burn

Finally there is the political ramifications of getting burned in the 2000 election which saw the voters in the City of Austin approve the Guadalupe/Lamar corridor, but the service area voted against (read the suburbs).  People in Austin continue to be scarred by that election and scared of the state's power to take away funding and make the city dance.  Not only was it the election that brought George W. Bush to the White House, it was also the one that almost wiped out half of Capital Metro's funding, and gave the anti-rail crowd more power in the city to say that the public wasn't interested.  Again, Of course the people of Austin were interested, just not those outside the city limits. Now that this isn't Capital Metro's line, something tells me the voters of the city will still have the City's back for a ridership proven line. 


The Push for Riverside

I really don't take issue with Riverside because its about an equal corridor with South Congress.  It will actually help alleviate concerns from Rob Lippencot (Guero's owner) and Max Nofziger who opposed development of Light Rail in 2000 on South Congress.  Additionally there is space for dedicated lanes in the median as well.  The Airport doesn't need to happen right away but that could be discussed at a future time.

Next Post - The Corridor That Should be the Focus

Austin's Rail History & Route Choice Problem Part 1: History

This last week there have been flurries of articles and tweets about a subject that is near and dear to my heart.  Austin's push for rail transit was the reason I started thinking about these issues and part of the reason why I started this blog.  I even wrote my Master's Report (Source of some of the Timeline below) on the politics and history of this movement that has caused so much consternation to local advocates since the early 80s. 

I've written about these issues in Austin many times before. (Alignment, VMT Reduction, and Starter Technology Decisions)   Some of you might be getting sick of my Austin posts, but ultimately the point of this blog is to bring information to the forefront and get folks to think about the decisions they are making about transit and technology.

This is going to be a multi-post series so first let's go through the basics.  Let's do a timeline to catch you up quickly...


1960s -  In the 60's, as happened all over the country, major arterials in cities were slated to become freeways.  While many cities built an initial freeway network and loop roads, Austin's neighborhoods pushed back on getting sliced in half and limited freeway development to two major north/south corridors and East/West corridors that were far away from the city center, making arterial streets the major corridors.  Texas Freeway has historical pictures and documents. This meant that getting east to west in central Austin has to be done on surface streets. 

1973 - The Texas State Legislature, understanding that regions were growing and cities alone were too small a jurisdiction to support regional transit systems, passed a law allowing Metropolitan Areas over 600k people create a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). At the time Austin did not have enough population.

1981 - Austin lobbies successfully to get State Legislature to allow cities over 325k people to get an MTA.

1983 - An interim agency named the Austin Area Rapid Transit System was created to be the predecessor to the RTA. A Transit service plan created in 1984 consisted of a short and long term plan.  The short term was for increases in bus service as the long term consisted of rail planning. As part of the long term rail planning for the RTA, the agency began discussions to purchase existing freight rights of way from Southern Pacific.  Additionally, there were discussions on forming a Metro Government and a bill was written by Representative Terrel Smith but never filed.

1985 - Replacing the Austin Area Rapid Transit System, Capital Metro Transportation Authority (Capital Metro) was created and given the ability to levy a cent sales tax, which was chosen instead of an emissions tax or a gas tax increase.  The first day of service and the resulting bus parade down congress made a lot of locals angry, and set Capital Metro off on the wrong foot with many at the local level as well as the state. 

1986-87 - Flush with cash from the cent sales tax, Representatives in the Legislature started trying to redistribute half the sales tax value that was being saved up for future rail construction.  Representative Terrel Smith sought to give the half cent back to relieve property taxes in the district.

1989 - Board members voted to reduce the sales tax a quarter cent to quell criticism.  While rail supporters wanted Capital Metro to keep saving for a future rail plan, others such as Travis County wanted the extra money to pay off road debts.

1990 - Funding was allocated to study rail in Austin and the board stated that a referendum would be had if they got a positive outcome from the study.  A referendum was pushed back but CAMPO put rail planning in its long range plan that year.  That very same year was the break out of Austin's growing environmental movement.  Tired of seeing developers ravage the land above the Edwards Aquifer and its recharge zones, Austinites came out in droves to an all night meeting that saw the end of a single Barton Creek Planned Unit Development, but a start to the environmental machine in Austin politics. 

1995 - Planning for a rail line, the board decided to raise the sales tax back up to a cent, which drew criticism from enemies still existing including Gerald Daugherty.  Even though an overwhelming amount of the speakers at the meeting spoke on behalf of the increase, the Austin American Statesman and others criticized the board for not having a referendum in place for rail before making the vote.  The general manager even decided to leave when the Statesman kept going after the agency. 

1997 - Because of accountability issues stemming initially from the board vote on the tax increase, the Legislature decided to restructure Capital Metro's board.  This would not be the only time the board structure would be changed. Instead of a citizen board, it would be populated by elected officials, who would be seen as more accountable to the public.  Additionally, Representative Sherri Greenburg passed a bill in the legislature that would require a referendum before the agency would be allowed to issue debt. At the same time, planning for a commuter rail line that looks like the current one would be studied, as well as others that look a little familiar.

1998 - With a restructured board and possible bills that would strip Capital Metro of its cent sales tax coming at an even faster pace, rail was considered again and consultants came up with the idea for the Green Line, which would go directly through the heart of Austin.  The line was supported more than the Red Line, which would circumvent major destinations downtown but would be cheaper due to its route on existing rights of way.  It was at this point that Capital Metro started officially stashing away money to pay for future rail construction. 

1999 - Capital Metro promised legislators who continued to write bills to take funding away from the agency that they would have a referendum in 2000. Representative Mike Krusee from Round Rock and others including Representative Terry Keel continued to hammer the agency and push bills that would take away funding authority.  Krusee's bill would require a referendum on half of the sales tax, essentially stripping Capital Metro of its ability to save money for rail plans.  This was also the year that Austin Bergstrom Airport was completed and the Mueller Airport, a few miles outside of downtown on the east side was left open for redevelopment. Planning included future stops on a yet to be named rail line.

2000 - The decision was made to have the referendum during the 2000 presidential election, in which Texas' Governor George W. Bush was on the Presidential ballot.  The hard fought contest brought out the anti-rail groups in droves, with Texas getting special visits from Wendell Cox and others to push for the rail line's failure with the hope that the extra money would go to roads.  Kirk Watson, then Mayor even wanted to put road bonds on the ballot to satiate the Road Warriors but anti-rail leaders like Gerald Daugherty wanted rail money for roads, claiming other bond money would be insufficient.

Before the election, the Federal Transit Administration gave its stamp of approval, saying other cities would be in line for New Starts funding behind Austin in the process due to the high ridership drivers.  2025 estimates put the ridership estimate at 37,400 riders (17,000 new).  Consequently, some lines from that FTA PE class (no pun intended) have gone on to be super successful, including Minneapolis' Hiawatha Line, Cleveland's Euclid BRT Line, Denver's T-Rex Line, Houston's Main Street Line, Portland's Interstate Max, and Seattle's Central Link.

But even after choosing the correct route and a majority of City of Austin residents voting for the line, the Capital Metro service area voted against the proposal.  The rail vote lost by less than 2,000 votes in a Presidential Election which had over 300,000 voters.  By that time, Capital Metro had saved over $120m for rail construction. Mike Clark Madison (Who wrote many of the linked to articles above) documented the spatial approval over at the Chronicle.

2001 - After the election, to quell mounting pressure from the legislature, Capital Metro decided to rebate a quarter cent that had been saved up back to the cities for mobility projects.  The agency continued to plan for light rail and a deal was brokered between Representative Krusee, who was the Chair of the Transportation Committee, and Capital Metro which resulted in a bill that would require Capital Metro to rebate the quarter cent until a referendum was passed.  Additionally, Representative Krusee helped to get a bill pass that would establish Regional Mobility Authorities (RMAs) that would give locals more authority to build toll roads. 

2002 - Karen Rae, who had signed on to be Capital Metro's general manager in 1998 and make the push for rail stepped down and Fred Gilliam took on those duties.  Planning for light rail continued with a new name (Rapid Transit Project) however it was decided that a referendum would not be held in 2002 due to a lack of consensus for the project.

2003 -  Representative Krusee, who had been named Chairman of the State Transportation Committee,  had his own ideas about what the next rail plan should look like.  The Austin American Statesman suggested that he would like Capital Metro to stop studying the Green Line corridor and focus on the Red Line, which consultants had chosen against in planning for light rail in 1998.  In 2000, the Austin American Statesman, quoted Krusee as saying "I wish they would be open to alternatives to light rail"  We know now that meant planning for light rail along the best possible corridor would stop and planning for a corridor that went directly to his constituents in Round Rock (which doesn't pay into Capital Metro) would commence. At the same time, Envision Central Texas was having its coming out party as a way for the Austin region to organize itself.  Unfortunately unlike Utah's process, teeth were not present.

2004 - Planning for light rail on the Guadalupe corridor stopped sometime in January.  Campus planners at the University of Texas stated they stopped hearing from Capital Metro at that point.  Route choices considered at the time were down San Jacinto street, on the other side of campus from Guadalupe, because UT considered San Jacinto to be the center of an expanding campus.  The push for rail on the other side of campus would continue to today.  Later discussions from interim CEO Doug Allen in 2009 suggested that there was not enough time to get an adequate cost estimate and firm up engineering before having the election.  He also believed that the line should have been double tracked at a potential cost of $300 million per mile to build it out properly, likely to not have to worry about retrofitting the line at a future date. 

In March of 2004, Commuter Rail was announced the community and Capital Metro planned for a referendum during the Presidential election that fall.  Advocates pushed for streetcar connections and other alternatives, but changes to the commuter rail plan were set by Capital Metro and planners for the agency after a few discussions were not allowed to interact with staff as they wanted to keep the line as bare bones as possible to court a winning vote.  Lee Walker, then Chairman of the board, believed that going over $60m for the cost of the system would be too much for the voters and Representative Krusee hinted at the time that he would be able to get the voting requirements for extensions rescinded if the rail system was kept to just the commuter rail line.  The line passed in a referendum that fall with 62% of the vote (operations began in 2010).  Contrary to the previous election, neighborhood groups on South Congress and others were not as active in opposition because they wouldn't see transit construction on their streets.

Also after the election, the Mueller Airport Master Development Agreement was signed, which would determine the terms of the redevelopment of the airport property that left over a large amount of empty land proximate to downtown.

2005 - The thought in the transit community was that 2004 would be the last chance to pass a rail referendum in Austin.  Once the line was passed, it was believed whether right or wrong, that it could be fixed with extensions and additions such as streetcars.  Capital Metro went on to study streetcars. In addition the the commuter line which was the center piece of the 2004 election, the All Systems Go plan also included BRT corridors and enhancements.  Planning for those corridors began in earnest as well.

2006 - Streetcar planning continued and a route was chosen through an alternatives analysis.  Pushes to get the Mueller redevelopment into the mix created a route the connected downtown with the east side of the state capital full of parking garages, the University down San Jacinto street through the stadium complex and out towards Mueller.  As for Rapid Bus, some finally started to take note that getting the FTA to buy new buses and shelters without giving the line a dedicated lane was not really rapid.  Council Members Brewster McCracken and Lee Leffingwell pushed back on the idea and asked the agency more questions. 

2007-08 - CAMPO, the regional MPO for the Austin area decided to take major rail planning away from Capital Metro for the time by creating the transit working group (TWG).  The 15 member group would be made up of State Representatives, State Senators, Mayor Will Wynn, advocates, the University of Texas, and other groups.  This was on the heels of Wynn calling for a rail election in 2008, though as with most every other call for election in Austin's early rail history, that idea would not come to pass.  At this point the streetcar plan began its metamorphosis into the urban rail plan, with ROMA design taking up planning for alignments and continuing to push a Mueller alignment while also bringing in a Bergstrom Airport/Riverside alignment that was similar to other plans in the 1990s.  ROMA was attached to this planning because of their initial task of creating the Downtown Austin Plan.

2009-10 - Planning continued on Urban Rail and more alignments were discussed but it failed to go to the ballot again due to the lack of a financial plan.  Capital Metro, once rolling in cash, had drawn down its reserve to build the Red Line and thus stopped funding mobility projects with the quarter cent. (The sordid background tale is here).  Also, another state audit brought more news that the agency had been mismanaged under recently retired Fred Gilliam's watch and the board was restructured again to include someone with financial experience.  At this same time, Capital Metro did its first ever look at all the routes in the bus system calling it service plan 2020.  Ridership along the 1 route continued to outpace all others with over 17,000 including the 101 that will soon be replaced by 'Rapid Bus'. That is more than double the next highest ridership non UT line (7). The long awaited Red Line would open in 2010 to service just under 1,000 riders.

2011-2012 - And here we are. Still planning for urban rail and still trying to figure out how to pay for it.  The TWG continues to look at different corridors while the city focuses on Urban Rail.  In February, Todd Hemingson laid out the process at the TWG for planning future corridors but still not much mention of the most congested and highest ranking ridership corridor in the region. 

Ok, so, I apologize in advance if I missed something about the history above.  It's totally possible (I know there must be something missing) that I did considering the number of years and number of times rail has been close to being on the ballot, new alignments were drawn out etc.

 But here is what we hopefully learned.

1. None of the alignments that Capital Metro or the City of Austin are now discussing are new.  They've all been around for a long time (see images below).  So it stands to reason that the best corridor will always be the best corridor from a ridership and therefore political perspective.  (Future posts will cover this issue)
2. Capital Metro has always been a target of regional and state ire, whether coming from state representatives who thought they had too much money, from Austin when it didn't have the money anymore, and from the Statesman, who ever since the sales tax increase in the mid-90's has hacked away at the agency, sometimes because of mismanagement, and others because of reporters that don't know the difference between a catenary and a pantograph .
3. Mike Krusee was a genius.  He was able to get rail service for his constituents in Round Rock without making them pay for it.

As for alignment histories, take a look at the maps below.  All of these plans below are from the Austin Chronicle's archives.

1995 No map. But a discussion of the Current Red Line and "Rapid Fire" buses that would bring people to the places they couldn't get.

1997 Red Line Plan and Airport Link

2000 Alternatives with Riverside Line

2000 Regional Plan - Consultants Deemed Green Line Most Bang for Buck and the Feds confirmed that point.

 

2000 Light Rail Plan

2001 Rapid Transit Project

2004 All Systems Go

2006 Capital Metro Streetcar Project

 2008 Roma Design Urban Rail

2011 Urban Rail Plan

Next up... Politics of the Current Urban Rail alignment seen above...

Ralph McQuarrie, Space Exploration, and Cities

Earlier this week there was a disturbance in the force.  Ralph McQuarrie, long time illustrator and the man who brought much of George Lucas' imagination to life has died.  Ralph was one of my favorite artists.  So much so that in high school I took Art 1 and Art 2 in consecutive years just to draw pictures of Star Wars characters in oil pastel, pencil, and prisma color.  Unfortunately my art teacher didn't see this as well rounded. I was constantly hounded to stop drawing Star Wars and try something else.  Ultimately the only pictures I've ever drawn that are framed (and hanging in the house) are Obi Won Kenobi in Prisma and an Imperial Royal Guard copied from Ralph McQuarrie's original thinking about the character.

Jawa Encampment via Wookiepedia

But I feel he can also have a profound impact on people's thinking about cities on our planet as well as others. I was listening to NPR's Science Friday, which happened to have everyone's favorite Astrophysicist from the Bronx Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he was lamenting the loss of the manned space program and imagination that is gained from exploration.  In thinking about Ralph's death this struck me as sad as well.  There is no doubt in my mind that both George Lucas and Ralph McQuarrie among others were inspired by our moon shot. In fact McQuarrie was an artist for Boeing and his illustrations graced newscasts covering the Apollo program.  Without their images and dreams, I probably would have never taken art.  Not that my taking art changes the universe but it shows that people can be influenced to do things through a national imagination for something greater.

And I agree with Tyson that space exploration shouldn't be a partisan issue and Newt Gingrich's idea of a moon base is quite intriguing.   If not for the foothold that it creates to explore other planets and worlds, it could start a new discussion about city design.  To which Ralph would certainly be an influence.  Just looking at a few of his images of cities, it starts me thinking, what would our cities on other worlds look like?

Would they be shining spires on an island like McQuarrie's vision of Aldera of Alderaan?

Aldera via Wookiepedia

Or more like the Crevasse city of that made its way onto the screen in Episode III as Utapau  (Also one of Tim DeChant's Favorites apparently.)

Crevasse City via Wookiepedia

Perhaps the moon would be our first version of Coruscant

Via Architizer

 Some of McQuarrie's other City Images via Wookiepedia.  Also visit McQuarrie's website for more.

Cloud City

 Coruscant Monuments

Ewok Tree City

We can always dream.  Fortunately McQuarrie's drawings will help us along.