Austin voters have twice rejected light rail at the polls, so naturally the region’s transit agency, Capital Metro, is eager to try again. Earlier this week, it presented a plan to the Austin city council for eleven transit corridors that could cost $6 billion to $8 billion. As if to underscore the agency’s inability to learn from history, it is calling this plan “Project Connect,” the same name it used for the plan that voters defeated by 57 to 43 in 2014.
While Cap Metro deceptively calls light rail “high-capacity transit,” the Austin American-Statesman more accurately calls it “high-dollar” transit. Light rail was rendered obsolete in 1927 when a company called Twin Coach started producing buses that could move more people for far less money than streetcars or light rail.
Bus or rail, now is not the time for Austin to spend a lot of money on transit. Capital Metro lost 20 percent of its riders between 2012 and 2016, and is down another 2.2 percent in the first six months of 2018. Continue reading
