Unsustainable Austin

Austin (which the Antiplanner visited last week) is the latest city to discover that rail transit is unsustainable transportation. A recent state audit of Capital Metro finds that the agency “has a history of uncontrolled costs and overspending that cannot be sustained.”

Symptoms shown by a patient suffering from low semen volume are advised to consume Spermac capsules regularly. find content now viagra samples As much as your partner wants you to believe that cheapest price for levitra all those vices don’t reach beyond the moment, that’s just not true. Mental hindrances to assume an cheap levitra awesome part. You don’t have to waste your time waiting in long lines before offline stores and spend your money cialis line order on gas to go there by car. The cost of the region’s commuter-rail line, which just opened in March, “climbed from $60 million to almost $140 million.” This dragged the agency’s reserve fund down from $200 million to less than $5 million, and it could go negative next year due to the high costs of operating a commuter-rail line that carries only a few hundred round trips a day. Moreover, the agency faces further unexpected obligations: the line uses a number of older bridges that are deteriorating and, in the judgment of the auditors, pose serious safety hazards.

Capital Metro responds that the rail line is safe and claims it is addressing the other issues. But most of its actions are mere window dressing: creating new committees, interagency agreements, and so forth. Probably the best thing the agency can do is simply abandon the commuter-rail line, which would save taxpayers around $10 million a year.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

17 Responses to Unsustainable Austin

  1. Scott says:

    Great public transit choice, hey fellas?
    We sure more expensive choices like this.

    Whataya know?
    People have chosen away from public transit for generations.
    How about that?

    You pro-transit imbeciles, pay for your frikin choice.

  2. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    > Probably the best thing the agency can do is simply abandon
    > the commuter-rail line, which would save taxpayers around
    > $10 million a year.

    Do you know if this thing is operated and maintained by public-sector employees, or are operations and maintenance contracted to the private sector?

  3. OFP2003 says:

    It’s like a CARGO CULT. If we build a train then we’ll be cosmopolitan like New York City.

    “Build it and they will come.” Definitely a CARGO CULT mentaltiy.

  4. bennett says:

    “Moreover, the agency faces further unexpected obligations: the line uses a number of older bridges that are deteriorating and, in the judgment of the auditors, pose serious safety hazards.”

    There is a partnership with this line. During the commuting hours, CapMetro has the tracks, and on off peak hours the line still has freight operating on it. Who is to foot the bill for these repairs is still in question, and will most likely result in a shared expense with CapMetro and the freight carriers.

    I’m watching closely to see the fate of this line.

  5. TexanOkie says:

    Amen, AP. It should also be noted that this line was originally supposed to open in March 2008, and it only went online this March. 2 years passed date, 230% over budget, all so you can get downtown in MORE time than it takes on the 183 Express bus. It takes a lot to maintain this facade of “hip Austin”…

  6. bennett says:

    “It takes a lot to maintain this facade of “hip Austin”…”

    If by “a lot,” you mean sitting around listening to Gurf Morlix records and talking about how great Austin was in the 60’s and 70’s, then yes I agree.

    I’ve never been to a place that claimed to be so “progressive” but is anti-everything at the same time. People in Austin want a train, just not near their house. They want street connectivity, just not in their neighborhood. The want world class music venues as long as they can’t hear the music. They want Austin to stay the hip little college town it was in 1969, regardless of the fact that everyone and their mother is moving here to get in on the “hip facade.”

  7. TexanOkie says:

    bennett, that is what I was talking about. The facade is just a facade, and doesn’t accurately portray what Austin’s really like. The mythos is false, yet it’s endlessly perpetuated by visitors who see the Hill Country and the 6th Street scene and by complicit residents who want to feel good about themselves. Austin is extremely overrated.

  8. bennett says:

    “Austin is extremely overrated.”

    You have no idea how good it is to know that somebody else feels this way. Thank you.

  9. Spokker says:

    Is $10 million per year really too much to spend on a rail line? If local taxpayers find value in a commuter rail line, then why can’t they choose to pay for it?

  10. Borealis says:

    Spokker, I am not bothered by the commuting voting to fund the commuter line, but I am bothered that the vote doesn’t seem to be informed by the real cost. The Antiplanner has posited that almost all commuter rail projects are sold to the public with significant underestimates of their cost. If that is true, that is a big problem and I would expect that professional planners would also be bothered by ill informed decisions.

  11. Scott says:

    What level of public spending for commuter rail is fair?
    At 35% farebox recovery?
    Over 1/2?
    Is it just to have general taxes pay to benefit 10,000 riders? At 26,000 riders?
    At what portion of the regional population are these riders?
    The median income for commuter rail riders is usually above the regional avg.

    There are many questions; most don’t seem to be considered (or just ignored) for the planning stages.

  12. Dan says:

    I would expect that professional planners would also be bothered by ill informed decisions.

    Absolutely. Every time. But big projects bring big votes and often are free publicity for the business community.

    But “ill-informed’ by whose standards? is a much stickier issue. The decision-makers are acting rationally. It is in their best interests to make shiny things. People like shiny things.

    DS

  13. Borealis says:

    The public is only going to absorb a limited amount of information about a project. I think all of us can agree that is not good when the public is told that a project will cost $X, and it ends up costing $X + 50%. That happens for road projects too, of course.

  14. Dan says:

    That happens for road projects too, of course.

    And stadiums built with PPPs. And grey infrastructure. And, and, and. Health care increases, materials increases, holdouts…contingency %ages should be higher in my view. And it happens in the private development sector as well. Quite often here in Colo.

    DS

  15. mattb02 says:

    Amen, AP. It should also be noted that this line was originally supposed to open in March 2008, and it only went online this March. 2 years passed date, 230% over budget, all so you can get downtown in MORE time than it takes on the 183 Express bus. It takes a lot to maintain this facade of “hip Austin”…

    What a total indictment. How bad does rail have to get before the planners finally decide enough is enough?

  16. bennett says:

    “What a total indictment. How bad does rail have to get before the planners finally decide enough is enough?”

    This is a funny question, since some of the most fierce opposition to this rail line has come from professional planners in the Austin area. How long will antiplanners continue to blame planners for projects that are politically driven? Planners didn’t build the CapMetro commuter rail.

  17. Dan says:

    Bennett, I read matt’s comment to mean he knows full well that planners had nothing to do with the light rail line (how could he not know this?).

    Rather, he wants them to risk their family security, abandon their mortgages and quit out of protest. Presumably matt has quit 2-3 jobs in protest over his companies’ private-sector decisions and understands the impact of his brave stances.

    DS

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