I have a few notes as a native Austinite, with no citations because I'm at work: 1. The proposal in 2000 mostly failed because CapMetro had lost the public's confidence with scandals/poor management in the 90s, which got just enough of the suburbs to vote against it. 2. If I recall correctly - the Red Line actually costs CapMetro more per passenger than the express busses it replaced. People voted in favor in part because they didn't think there was a way for CapMetro to screw it up, but I'd say it has been a failure. I've lived a ten minute walk from one of the stations for years and it's always cheaper and faster for me to take the bus downtown. 3. The MetroRapid lines get way more utilization and I wish they first built out more of those lines, rather than jump in to a rail project that will take more than a decade to see any benefits. And even then I'm not sure it'll be worth it considering our land use policies.
You are largely remembering correctly, but it's not reasonable to judge the Red Line a "failure." It's a STARTER LINE. It has already stimulated TOD at Crestview and Lakeline and construction is currently apace near Leander. When the Austin White Lime Company land ultimately gets redeveloped it will serve that community, too (I worked with Envision Central Texas on their McNeil Junction planning charettes back in March 2003). Downtown and Plaza Saltillo will also accommodate the eastern line (whatever color it ultimately gets on the maps) to Manor and Elgin when it opens. True Towns Take Time.
For as much as they paid for the Red Line, CapMetro could have paid for those riders to all take Uber until the end of time. They did what was easy and cheap, instead of what was useful.
@@texaswunderkind I'd like to see your math backing up that assertion. While you're showing your work, maybe you could also explain how MORE cars on the road helps stimulate TOD and compact, mixed-use neighborhood centers. I'm all ears.
@@colormedubious4747The Red Line is the bare minimum viable rail product. I rode it once as a novelty and it is SO FUCKING SLOW and barely serves anywhere useful unless you live in some of the far off Northern suburbs.
@@BloodRider1914 Yes, as a mostly single-tracked starter line it is Sofa King slow. There are now two major double-tracking projects in the pipeline which will nearly double frequency in the northwest and in east Austin. Trust me, it's much faster now than it was from 1987 through 2009 (because it didn't even EXIST yet).
I am currently studying at UT in Austin for the summer. Coming from Europe, I was shocked to see the state of public transportation here in Austin for such a relatively big city. Didn't even know they had a light rail line until now, since all we've been using so far is the Bus system, which also isn't great. Thanks for the video!
I worked at Austin Public Library when Formula One came to town. International tourists would come to the reference desk and ask why on earth our train didn’t connect the airport to downtown. I could only shrug.
It was designed to be a starter line to stimulate TOD and restore confidence in CapMetro's ability to run a railroad. Since it led to several redevelopments, new TOD, and a successful vote for a 7-billion-dollar transit investment, I can only conclude that you aren't conversant with the definition of the word "fail." It's a STARTER LINE.
Re. referendums to build public transit: If we had to put *highway* building up for a vote, we'd have bits and pieces of Interstates all over instead of a huge interconnected system. He said, not altogether facetiously.
Meanwhile, the HBLR is a smaller system compared to Austin's, and yet, it has far more daily ridership! The HBLR was lucky to use a lot of repurposed ROW through packed neighborhoods, though the ROW through downtown JC was built brand-new! And Jersey City has been experiencing an Austin-level housing boom, and it's more admirable for Jersey City to do it as Jersey City is much smaller than Austin! The HBLR has led to the revitalization of Hudson County, and so much TOD along its corridor! Now to be fair, JC is next to NYC, but it's still a lesson for other cities like Austin. In Q1 2024, the HBLR had 2,964 weekday riders per mile, second place behind Seattle's Link system (Link had 3,461 weekday riders per mile in Q1 2024), while the Newark Light Rail was in third place with 2,643 weekday riders per mile. Besides the subway portion downtown (which also serves Rutgers and NJIT), Branch Brook Park station is a bus hub, and of course, the Newark Light Rail's main station is Newark Penn with connections to local and intercity buses, Amtrak, NJT trains, and PATH. A big key to having great LRT ridership is having TOD and a ton of connections. And watching this, it's nice to see TOD going up near stations on the CapMetro Rail! So as Austin continues to develop its transit, modes are added, TOD is built, and stations have better connections, daily ridership will go up! While having to deal with hostile politicians, I still believe in Austin's transit future. Yup, common sunflowers are native to Texas! They're native to Mexico, the western US, and Canada. Here is some sunflower lore to honor the almighty sunflower: A universal fact people know is sunflowers are yellow. However, a sunflower’s pigment doesn’t stop there. Sunflowers can even be red and purple! A common misconception is that flowering sunflower heads track the Sun across the sky. Although immature flower buds exhibit this behavior, the mature flowering heads point in a fixed (and typically easterly) direction throughout the day. Mature sunflowers face east because they can attract up to five times more pollinators because they warm up faster than westward facing plants, and sunflowers are more productively warmed when Eastward facing. In Greek mythology, the sunflower is often associated with the myth of Clytie and Helios. Clytie was a water nymph, and deeply in love with the sun god Helios. Sadly, he left her for another goddess, and it’s said that Clytie watched Helios crossing the sky in his golden chariot for days, without any food or water. Eventually, she was transformed into a sunflower, and it’s said this is why sunflowers always face the sun.
You missed the real story about how it is caught up in a legal battle and has already been massively scaled back from what you showed. One new line that won't even reach the airport for more than all of the proposed lines would cost.
Moved to Leander in 2018 and, foolish me, took the train to downtown to catch a bus to the airport. I worked as an engineer on the commuter rail in Chicago. Me and my spiffy little carry on bought a ticket at the end of the line in Leander. Boarded the train and receiver a tour of the Austin country side as it certainly didn’t take a very direct route to downtown. Once I arrived in Austin there was a pretty nice hike to the #20 bus stop which was a nice hike, I needed the steps. The best part was that a fare inspector was going to ticket me because the ticket I bought in Leader expired before the train arrived in Austin. Whoever was on the other end of that radio call convinced him not to charge me. You could just feel the hostility and how he wanted to cuff me and drag me off to be booked. Glad he was only armed with a ticket book and pen.
I've been in Austin since the 80's and the biggest problem with getting anything done like this done Cap Metro incompetence. They trot out these bond proposals that are basically wishful thinking in terms of cost and time table. Every single time it falls apart, its not even a surprise anymore. Then then after its exploded to in cost they still can't get it to work right. The existing light rail was delayed close to year because they couldn't figure out how come their rail signals didn't work...blamed rust on the tracks and spent months cleaning it (what steel isn't going to rust again?). Light rail was their little choo choo toy so they could have something to brag about at conferences. I'll give them credit that the latest planned expansion of light rail has been paired back significantly before they started tearing up the streets. Its still probably going to end up costing 2x what was promised for 1/3 of what people voted for.
The elephant in the room is that mass transit isn’t a priority in red states. Houston, one of the largest cities in the country, has a 23 mile light rail system. And even that tiny system faced fierce opposition from a certain political party.
Yet Dallas citizens voted to tax themselves in the 90s and ended up with the most extensive light rail system in North America. But "muh red states," amirite? Grow up.
@colormedubious4747 A street running light rail system only, in one of the largest cities in the country. You're kind of proving their point. Red states, and the south in particular, are where good urban design goes to die.
Austin was incorporated in 1839, chosen to replace Houston as the capital. Chosen because of the area's hills, waterways, and pleasant surroundings. It was seen as a convenient crossroads for trade routes between Santa Fe and Galveston Bay, as well as routes between northern Mexico and the Red River. Austin is named for Stephen F. Austin. Stephen F. Austin is known as the Father of Texas, as he led the second and, ultimately, the successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families and their slaves from the US to the Tejas region of Mexico in 1825. After Texas gained independence, Austin ran as a candidate in the 1836 Texas presidential election but was defeated by Sam Houston, who had served as a general in the war and entered the race two weeks before the election. Houston appointed Austin as Secretary of State for the new republic, and Austin held that position until his death in December 1836. The Texas Capitol was built in 1885 and stands 14.64 feet taller than the nation's Capitol in Washington DC. The US Capitol measures 288 feet from the east front ground level to the top of the Statue of Freedom, while the Texas Capitol stands 302.64 feet from the south front ground level to the tip of the star of the Goddess of Liberty. The Capitol is pink because made of what is known today as sunset red granite. Originally, planners for the Texas Capitol wanted to have a limestone exterior, but the limestone chosen had high levels of iron pyrite, which rusted when exposed to moisture and air. The owners of Granite Mountain quarries, located in Marble Falls, offered to donate Texas pink granite for the construction of the Capitol in exchange for a rail line to be built to the quarries. This resulted in the extension of a narrow-gauge railroad from Austin to Granite Mountain. At the time of its construction, the capitol was billed as "The Seventh Largest Building in the World". It's the largest Capitol in the US, a fittingly big Capitol for a big state, though not the tallest! People believe there are cannonballs in the walls of the Capitol, but this isn't true. This myth probably grew from a misinterpretation of the building plans. Workers used lime mortar to bond the stones in the walls, with metal anchors used at some exterior locations to bond ornamental granite stones to the base wall. A quote from October 1884 regarding its construction states "…five eighth inch round iron shall be substituted for one inch by one quarter flat iron for the anchors in the exterior walls," which was referring to the anchors. In 1983, Texas enacted the Texas Capitol View Corridors, a series of legal restrictions on construction in Austin, Texas, aimed at preserving protected views of the Texas State Capitol from various points around the city. First established by the Texas Legislature in 1983 and recodified in 2001, the corridors are meant to protect the capitol dome from obstruction by high-rise buildings.
Make no mistake: the existing Red Line is NOT rapid transit. The time it takes from downtown to the northernmost terminal takes the same amount of time (or more) as the now-cancelled bus took for the same trip. What will be worse is the proposed “project connect” will run in urban areas mostly on existing vehicle streets without grade separations that would enable it to be quicker than the buses that run on those routes. Additionally, the line to the airport has been abandoned. That line was a major reason people voted for project connect in the first place. In summary, the public transit system will continue to be a failure.
Yep, this was what I was gonna say. They basically scrapped the project connect except for some very tiny portions of it. Like, no light rail to the airport? WTF!? They said something about prioritizing low income residents, but that's BS. Light rail should benefit everyone, and we KNOW lots of traffic will come through the airport that wouldn’t need a car EXCEPT to get to the city center. And poor people still fly.
Very concise and informative! I live just down the road in San Antonio and never knew Austin even had their little red train. Better than nothing, and I’m happy to hear about the expansion plan, whenever that ends up happening
@@colormedubious4747 it's limestone. All the buildings have 3 floors of parking garage below them. Easier to just trench down, like they do when making the roads below grade on I35.
@@andrewpast1959 It's still very expensive to dig here, regardless. It's not ALL limestone. There's quite a bit of granite as well. While the Hill Country is mostly karst, there are lots of granite extrusions (not all of them are as obvious as Enchanted Rock). There's also a notable amount of metamorphic rock in the region, as evidenced by the marble quarries around Burnet and Marble Falls. Mount Bonnell, however, is part of the Balcones Escarpment which IS primarily limestone.
@@jmlinden7 Just turn a single street into a transitway with minimal road access for some garages. It's what they did in downtown San Diego with mostly narrow streets.
As someone that has lived in Austin for almost 30 years, you have slightly misrepresented how bad this is. The problem is not only do we pay a 1% sales tax to CapMetro, we also mistakenly have passed multiple bonds (Project Connect, anyone?). I live in those hated suburbs but technically in the City of Austin. My city property taxes have basically doubled because of this disaster. Have I received any increase in services for my tax dollars? NO! There are no additional roads, buses, trains, etc. CapMetro is such a disaster that the one place that actually could use the train, the airport, probably won't get service in my lifetime. Pretty much any city that has light rail has some service that goes to the airport. In our infinite wisdom, we decided that having bike lanes was really the most important thing. It is over 100 degrees during the summer!!!! Who in the hell is riding a bike in August to work? I think people just get these ideas about environmentalism and density stuck in their heads and don't think it through. Yes, yes there are too many cars but think about why? It's because the real estate developers grease enough palms to have crazy zoning and everyone works everywhere. Force people to work in dense areas where it makes sense to have rail and buses.
One of the strangest transit agencies on earth. They are also one of the only few transit agencies that runs a public transport line for a university. I took the UT ATX bus in 2017 and was shocked by how a major university doesn't have their own bus lines.
Hey, Austinite here, a few corrections one things you said the red line failed at is speed, which is only really true south of Highland. Once you go north it really picks up speed especially considering it doesn't need to stop at red lights. Your description of project connect included a lot of things that had been cut months ago, including the link to the airport, 99% of the orange line, the link to anywhere near crestview, and there being multiple bridges across the river.
@ClassyWhale 0:25 and 1:27 correction: It stops running at 5:30pm because it is when the last train departs from Leander (except Friday and Saturday, thanks god)
Austin is a very poor city to have a good transit system. Its soil is infamously difficult to dig through, and large scale tunnelling is essentially non viable (which is way very few homes have basements and only a few very busy downtown parking garages are underground). The other issue is that downtown is already very dense, meaning that rapid transit either has to use existing street space or build elevated tracks over street(the latter being highly unlikely). Outside of downtown only a few areas could ever make sense for rail transit (the downtown to domain corridor and perhaps into East Austin), which makes approving funding from the wealthy suburbs, particularly the extremely rich but transitless western suburbs, a tough sell.
This is mostly true, but cities expand, and transit determins how they expand. Places that don't make sense now could make sense soon. It's a shame that UT is so close to downtown soon. It would be nice to at least connect it to the domain. Austin calls it downtown two, so if they are serious about that and transit, they should be connect it to everything as fast as possible BEFORE it's too built up.
Because of the rolling terrain around Austin, especially to its west, Austin's main line railroads went north to south than east to west. That short line railroad CapMetro used is the only one going westards, and it nearly goes more north than west. The Southern Pacific main line went through San Antonio, the Missouri Pacific main line went from San Antonio through Austin towards Longview and Texarkana, not directly to Dallas or Houston. The Santa Fe main line went from Clovis, NM to Lubbock to Temple to Houston, not Austin, only the MKT(Katy) went through Austin serving Dallas and Houston. Unfortunately Austin grew westwards towards the hills, and north and south along I-35.Thus any efficient light rail network requires building trams more than commuter rail in the Austin area. Trams take up highway lanes many motorists do not wish to sacrifice.CapMetro should never have bought this short line in the first place, but the Missouri Pacific line which would make a much better commuter rail line was not and will never be for sale as it is the best railroad mainline serving Austin. There is no real estate to build adjacent rails as the state of Texas built a freeway around the MoPac railroad main line. One failure leads to more failures. l shall repeat, Austin is not as flat as Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, and there in lies the problems facing light rail or trams there... Even when Austin's growth grew too much, the state chose to build a turnpike to the eastside of Austin, not to the very hilly west side...
Why do you love it. It goes to the distant suburbs which are not Austin, and does not even go to downtown. It would have made sense for the first rail line to go from downtown to the airport. So I guess if you are that bored and wanted something to do.
@@mrbillinsf It does go downtown. I am closer to the suburbs, so the train is great for me. You are right, though, it would be better being connected to the airport in some way.
Austinite here. Wanted to point out the downtown stop is on the east side of downtown, but does drop off at the convention center, so it's not as bad a destination as just being far east of central for no reason. But, not many Austinites both live along the rail line and need to go to the Convention Center that often, so not that helpful. And since it doesn't really go from the Center to the airport or nearby hotels, it's not all that useful for people coming into town for conventions, either. That said, I'm glad we have it, and glad we're getting more, but they did a TERRIBLE job selling it in the initial proposals. Even in 2000, everyone was baffled why it wasn't going to the airport to start with. Or to campus. Or the Capitol complex. Or to Zilker park (that would quadruple ridership overnight). Or one of our (then) thriving malls, etc. Even on the vote that did pass, most people didn't really grasp how a line from Crestview to the Convention Center benefited the city (save to get the light rail momentum started). There was another failed vote in 2014 before the 2020 one passed, and that was probably due to wanting to hike property taxes to pay for it and we were already getting crushed on those. And there are two other factors: 1. How to get TO the trains. Like you said, they did expand some bus lines, but a lot of people who *might* be willing to at least drive to a local station and then take the train the rest of the way can't because there is often no parking. Some stops have dedicated lots, but many-like Crestview and Highland-don't. Crestview is a neighborhood development and they do have some pay parking spaces, but you can't afford to leave a car there all day every day. 2. It gets hot here. Like REALLY HOT (mid-90s this week, but it was 109F last week). From mid-May to mid-October, you aren't going to want to walk very far. We HAVE to get more stops or tighter, more reliable buses to where people want to go to make the system work. No one want to take the train into downtown for work and get dropped off 5 or 6 blocks from their office so that they roll in having already sweat through their clothes before 9am. You add up the limited access, the heat, the lack of desirable stops, the property tax increases...and it has been a hard sell-especially to the more suburban voters who would pay the cost but be nowhere near a line they could utilize. It is a real shame it didn't gain momentum in the late 80s or early 90s before the population boom when there were more options for creating new lines before property values (and population saturation) shot through the roof. Sadly, I had a good friend who moved here specifically to work on urban rail development and city planning around urban rail. Lived here from around 2000ish to 2015, when he moved back home to California because he realized he was just never going to have real rail projects to work on in Texas. He was hopeful by the 2004 vote, but it was an existing line. After that, plan after plan got shot down. His company had him supporting projects in Houston and Dallas in the interim, but after the 2014 vote, he threw in the towel on Texas and visionary rail projects.
I moved to Austin in 2006, so I missed some of the early attempts at creating light rail in the city. But I have some thoughts. Austin is a city of sprawl like most Texas cities. The city core is surrounded by a hundred square miles of low-slung car-centric single-family suburbs. It has dozens of massive state government office buildings, bringing tens of thousands of commuters downtown each day. The University of Texas has 50,000 students and 20,000 employees, again bringing huge numbers of people into the core of the city. No matter how many times they expand I-35, Mopac, HWY 183, or build toll roads like 130, traffic will never, ever be "solved" in the city. Single-rider commuter gridlock is the one thing you might want light rail to address. But there are no obvious locations for suburban rail stops that would allow people to walk to their nearest station on foot. At best they would all be park-and-ride stations, requiring riders to leave their cars in the hot Texas sun unattended all day, victim of break-ins and such. The stops would have to be close, safe, affordable, and convenient enough for commuters to take the extra time to use. Building the single commuter line on a disused freight track meant it did not go where the people needed. Freight lines, due to their noise and pollution, tend to repel development rather than attract it. Thus, most of the stations on the Red Line have nothing around them. Because owners of expensive condos don't want to live near a loud freight train. The city hoped that development would follow the train stations, and to a degree it has, but I doubt that has contributed even a hundred people to the daily ridership of the line. Furthermore, building the rail line at surface level, where it had to compete with street traffic, slowed it down significantly. As the video pointed out, they managed to design a system that was actually slower than just driving yourself. A ten-mile route should take ten minutes, excluding stops. It should fly you to your destination, and it doesn't. I don't have an easy solution. Because the metro area of two million people is so built-out now, building a system the right way would require hundreds of properties to be demolished using eminent domain, which would cost a fortune and keep CapMetro tied up in litigation into the next millennia. So they either need to jump in with both feet, and do it right, or they need to forget about the hippie trains and make the bus system the best they can. I rode the bus the first year I lived in Austin, and it actually is a pretty good system.
Some notes for your observations. Austin’s sprawl only extends at best 30 miles to the north and south, not 100 miles in every direction (that would put you past San Antonio, at Waco and to Columbus Texas). Compared to other major Texas cities, Austin still has a lot of space around it to the west (because of the hill country), and east. The old existing rail line that Cap Metro took over had been abandoned for over 20 years if not more by the time that the first light rail trains ran on those tracks east of downtown. The presence of freight rail was never an issue for development on the southern end of the line.
I lived in Austin for 7ish years and used this rail line and other mass transit pretty extensively. I lived off of pleasant valley and Lakeshore and worked right next to the domain. This rail line is honestly kind've useless except for specific use cases. It wasn't even technically the fastest option for me, but the bus service was so awful that I opted to walk 40ish minutes (2miles) to the train station since that was a much nicer experience. Eventually I got fed up with commuting and my circumstances changed so I moved up north close to the domain. I still lived without a car but lived in walking distance from work, shopping etc. and found the high rent cost worth it. In my last few years I used the transit system sparingly, generally only to head into downtown/campus for various reasons. I love Austin, I genuinely think it's the best city in Texas but it's relatively okay density and smaller size work against it without a competent transit system and high car dependency.
incredible that they chose to make it a diesel powered train, if you want to keep operating costs low electricity is the way to go! (although in Texas I imagine the gas is pretty cheap at least)
lived in austin for 24 years, grew up in japan and just got back from a vacation there. as someone who just bought a house basically in Webberville, this video fills me with an unfathomable rage
I'm saving up to buy a house in Eugene Oregon. At least it's safe to bike there. Later Austin 👋 enjoy the tech bros. This city is becoming a nightmare to live in
If they get one of the drivers to sing Dolly Parton songs through the PA then ridership will take off! Melbourne, Australia had a singing tram driver for a while
Curitaba buss rapid transit was presented to austin planners. Check out how Curitaba developed vs Austin. BRT changes pattern of development and later the dedicated buss roads can be converted to light rail. It is bad when there are hubristic types in government.
As a relatively new transplant to Austin area from NYC tri-state area (mostly Long Island), I see this project very differently. On very first glance it has nothing to do with in-city tram lines. It goes to great (and growing!) commuter reservoir between Leander and Cedar Park. It brings those people to the central area where the work presumably is. Very similar concept as LI Commuter Rail on Long Island. But, lack of users? - As any good system this one was built before dramatic need have arisen, as demand comes it will cover it. But, faster by car (and maybe cheaper)? Guess what, even dense LI Commuter train on similar distance (Babylon LI to NYC) is always slower than by car ... and more expensive than by car (ordinary average MPG car with just one passenger!). Trust me, lived there for decades, thousand tests, slower and more expensive. Hence, typical commuter rail in early stages, thinking ahead of needs to come, good thing.
Project connect isn’t going to end up being even a fraction of what was promised. I would be surprised if they have any functional light rail within the next 15 years. They’ve already axed in the airport line for the first entire phase of the project. It seems like it’s at a standstill right now while they face multiple legal battles.
if you ever find yourself back in austin (or another city where you have to use lime scooters) be sure to purchase a "ride pass". They'll save you a ton of money
3:20 I’m from Austin, born and raised and the comment ‘the people who voted against light rail are white and suburban’ is really silly. It’s not because they’re white, it has to do with the fact people don’t want to pay for something they’re not going to use. If you want rail mass transit in Austin put the rail out to the suburbs with park and rides, connected to a functioning network that will get them to work on time and there would be success. You need a master plan that everyone can use when it’s all constructed. And idk how you’re going to work out putting a train on streets, especially with Austin’s traffic 😬
i have to ride the red line a few times a month, and its not great. the stop i have to take, howard, is a big parking lot with a few bus stops and the only where to go being the highway
two corrections: 2:00 that railroad might've been used to haul material for the capitol's construction, but it wasnt the granite. The granite was mined by convicts at the aptly named Convict Hill, out past Oak Hill, south and west of downtown. You can find traces of that purpose-built rail line if you know where to look. 7:28 there'll never be an expansion of any rail lines to go street-level down Lamar or Guadalupe, nor out to the airport, nor anywhere south of the river. so that means no blue line or orange line. Green line might have a chance precisely because no one cares about Elgin. But honestly I doubt they'll ever lay a single inch of new track. Austin doesnt have the political willpower to override the legal obstructionists... or to do anything other than keep building towers for rich people and widen I-35.
Per Wikipedia - "Construction reached Burnet, Texas, by 1882 and the line was later extended to Granite Mountain by 1885 - when the railroad was contracted to haul pink granite for the new Texas State Capitol building in Austin"
The granite came from Llano and hauled on the railcars on that line. If you ride the steam train on weekends to Burnet there are still large chunks of granite at trackside that fell off the cars. The limestone came from Convict Hill blasted and chistled out by convicts. If you look at the cliffs you'll see they are limestone.
This is how thing in Texas. You got a Gov. that only cares about all the people in the state when it's voting time. But look at his Emergency Preparedness plan enforcement you get the Idea. You better have can good and matches for your gas stove or stock up on charcoal and lighter fluid or buy peanut butter and bread. He will block anything that help all the people. He will help donors though.
the line to the airport only goes right before the airport across the highway at the end of riverside. where you have to get out get a city bus or uber to the airport. again halfway doing the project or maybe they just dont want to do that part till the airport is rebuilt in 15 years.
its a dumb diesel commuter train so silly. quite useless imo. but if you look at the map there are transit oriented developments @ every station. so idk fun fact were stuck with this piece of junk. they cant extend the hours of operation either cause its a legal binding too lmao.
As a native Austinite who used to actually use the train to get to my day job. Can confirm… it kinda sucks, but if you can work around the fact it only goes in basically a straight line from Leander to downtown. It doesn’t suck as much to use.
Elon musk says he wants to invest in cyber cabs for Austin but he also said he wants America to have clean buses so maybe there will be robot buses in Austin in the future
I've seen Cap Metro improve over 40 years and it's still a disgrace for the 11th largest city in the US. I love riding the Red Line, it's jam-packed at rush hour, though. The biggest fly in the ointment for any proposed new road or transit line is that Austin suffers massively from NIMBY.
The Red Line is disappointing, I agree. I live in the northern suburbs and go to downtown each weekend, this line has been saving me a bit of money, pollution, and frustration of driving. The booths also reek of diesel exhaust sometimes, it sticks to your skin and clothes, pretty bad stuff.
Austin is in a very tricky situation. The red line costs are rising. We’re the orange line chosen or built first, we’d be in a better position for expansion. The timeline for these projects is pretty depressing, but at least the city is making inroads with improving the bus network. I just can’t see a good way forward without grabbing the commuters from outside the urban core; Georgetown, manor, Elgin, Kyle, round rock need to be connected to the city or I-35 widening will retain high support.
And, like everywhere across the US, we’re seeing municipal budget cuts. It’s going to take a moment of people to put pressure on government officials. I think “urbanists” are often stuck only thinking of “urbanism” as government tweaks instead of a larger political project about quality of life in a modern metropolis.
@@ClassyWhale Nope not even at the station. If you have to go. You will have to hop off and find a restaurant or a gas station. Then Hop back on (Get a Day Pass or Depends).
Interesting schedule: what is the name of this cycle? Is it part of the imperial measurement system? Where I live, trains leave at exactly the same minute every hour, often every 30 or even 15 minutes. Not like that in Austin... 😅
the redline is . . .basically useless, unless you are commuting from Leander to downtown. The line have been over capacity with just the monthly pass holders since shortly after it opened, so you cant even buy a day ticket, there are no ticket machines at most of the stations outside of downtown
High ridership doesn’t work on street running if it’s not elevated or underground IT WILL FAIL. Want to boost the red line improve buses that link to it.
I think this is an argument for not allowing a vote for necessities like transportation. If there was not a vote involved but rather a larger group of people making the plans (maybe not just the overly rich), a lot more would get done. Thats just my opinion, if I’m wrong then oopsie poopsie
This train was a disaster. We had a new bond to build more trains and the big hook they used to get the voters to vote for it was they would build a train to the airport. Once again, we got hosed because now that the bond has passed, they decided that it would be to much to build the train to the airport. The voters are stupid enough to vote for these bonds and most of it is a waste.
1500 per day? Houston’s light rail is 10 miles shorter and has almost 29 times the daily ridership. By the way, Dallas’s DART light rail is 4 times longer than Houston’s MetroRail, yet has just barely 1 1/2 times Houston’s daily ridership.
If the city had dedicated bus lanes everywhere we could maybe get the ridership and speed up to levels where people believe in public transit. Buses without dedicated lanes are doomed to fail, same with rail that has to go slower than cars. You can’t remove the advantages of transit and get people on board. NIMBYs ruin everything
As a regular bus user here the dedicated lines which exist only help a bit. The roads are just terribly maintained in general here, and the bigger issue really is the traffic lights which block the flow of traffic. What's more important in my opinion is just having the bus network run more frequently for ease of use than building more frankly unnecessary dedicated lanes
@@qolspony *was With Los Angeles's A, C, E, and K lines, LA currently (as of Aug 2024) has a 152.1 km length for its light-rail system, while Dallas has 150 km! Not to mention the expansions on the way for LA!
I see that rail line every day passing West Parmer Lane and it is always completely empty. And Austin is currently LOSING population because its become the most expensive city in Texas and is becoming a little more dangerous and a little more unlivable. So this rail line is doomed as people are fleeing Austin proper for the suburbs out north and south, and to other states like Tennessee and Florida. Even California is seeing a minor growth from people that moved here FROM there and are moving back. Hell, even Tesla halted further annexation of land and cut jobs, Google left, Oracle, Indeed might leave, less population means bye bye train.
Houston's light rail is almost as useless....I guess I could park downtown and ride it to UH Football games this fall....since parking around campus is a nightmare on game days. Maybe someday it'll stretch down to Hobby Airport...it'll reach Hobby before IAH (Bush Intercontinental).....I would've thought building rail out to Austin-Bergstrom airport would be the logical choice but I guess not.
These trains absolutely suck they are slow top speed is 77 miles per hour that’s slower than most light rail trains. They have a bad build quality the rail operator here has to replace them after just 25 years of use.
Top speed of the train is really not that important for this kind of line. Most light rail and metro trains top off at around (100kph/60mph). The train probably doesn’t even reach the 77mph top speed between most of the stations. For one, the line is incredibly windy, which generally limits speeds and then it’s single tracked, so useful speed can also be limited due to where the passing loops are. And secondary these heavy diesel trains just have terrible acceleration, which is why the vast majority of frequently stopping services worldwide is electrified. For this alignment electrification and light rail vehicles would be a serious improvement in speed because they can get up to speed much faster after stations and slow zones.
@@TheAdrr1 Yeah... I'm not sure I'm buying that explanation. The name of the street was misspelled, along with Nueces, San Jacinto, Sabine, Brazos and Lavaca, by a surveyor from New Orleans named L.J. Pilié. Pilié had been brought to Austin by Edwin Waller. His misspelling, "Guadeloup" isn't even correct for French, by the way. It's missing the "e" on the end that's necessary for the "loop" pronunciation. Without the "e" it would be pronounced "loo" in French. The current pronunciations of the other street names don't correspond to his misspellings. Anyway, it's a good way to detect newcomers to Austin.
This is certainly an interesting line! I’m glad they’re planning to expand the network! The issue of political will reminds me of what happened with the Tide light rail in Hampton Roads (where the City of Norfolk built its half of the network and the City of Virginia Beach decided to bail before building anything). Hopefully, once these new lines in Austin get built, especially that section more directly serving downtown, people will realize the benefits of rail transit! It’s hard to get people to support building more when the current system is an unattractive travel option!
Raleigh is like Virginia Beach and Durham is like Norfolk. Durham wants a light rail, but Raleigh doesn't. Raleigh is a more important city than Durham. Virginia Beach is a more important city than Norfolk. Although Norfolk is a lot closer in importance than Durham to Raleigh. It is the business hub of the area, which is why I think it went ahead and built the light rail, which I think it didn't need. Raleigh is a more important city than the above. However, Norfolk (and Durham to some degree) is significantly more urban than Raleigh and Virginia Beach. Norfolk is closer to Baltimore in landscape than any of the cities on the list. Durham downtown is really nothing compared to Raleigh and Norfolk. Norfolk has two malls in it downtown. Although Virginia Beach downtown is nothing. It is the coastline beach tourism that put it ahead of everyone else. And this what Norfolk was hoping this line would extend to. But now, the line is completely useless except for the Amtrak station it serves and a possible military site it plans to extend to. Raleigh is a suburb of houses and it can't seem to justify a light rail line. But there might be one city that could justify it: Richmond.
@@qolspony Norfolk could definitely function without the light rail, but it is nice to have. I think it would’ve been better if they built it in a more heavily-traveled corridor and actually served the Downtown Norfolk Transit Center (If the whole thing had been built to VA Beach, it would’ve been fine). Perhaps more effective would have been building it across the James River, which sees constant traffic jams over its bridges/tunnels.
@@qolspony I definitely think a regional rail system could work, but considering the only transit options across the river currently are buses, I think something closer to rapid transit would be good, since those buses just get stuck in the same traffic.
I hate this city with a passion, too many drugs floating around, a LOT of homeless, rampant prostitution, and a LOT of typically angry citizens, been here 6 years, I’m ready to leave.
I've lived in Austin for a few years now commuting primarily by bus. I only took the red line once and I had to go out of my way to do so just so I could get the chance to ride it. Project Connect is pretty exciting, though it's likely to get further gutted in favor of expanding the bus network, bike paths, and scooter rentals. There has also been a lot of promising initiatives for better bike infrastructure and mixed-use zoning, though, so I think overall the city is decently pedestrian friendly and making great strides to become better for us.
Austin rail is the dumbest thing ever! Diesel powered dual trolleys with trackage having about 2 dozen grade crossings running at rush hour, snarling vehicular traffic royally .. that’s not rapid transit.
MetroRail is an absolute joke... More often than not, there are 30-50 cars waiting at a train crossing, while there is no one on the damn train going through the crossing. Stupidity.
Couple of things. The redline is sort of seen as an alternative to commuting from the outlying suburbs (Cedar park, Leander) as the morning and evening traffic to and fro is really, really bad. Cap metro still operates Express commuter buses to downtown and back from leander Cedar park and pflugerville to supplement this. The federal government has stepped in on project connect, getting involved in the planning of the line. the lines won't run down guadalupe through west campus. I'm not sure what way they will go but some people are glad that several community favorite food and drink spots won't be torn down. Project connect also has some legal trouble, as the measures proposed and voted on have been changed and the budget has increased without voter input.
I have a few notes as a native Austinite, with no citations because I'm at work:
1. The proposal in 2000 mostly failed because CapMetro had lost the public's confidence with scandals/poor management in the 90s, which got just enough of the suburbs to vote against it.
2. If I recall correctly - the Red Line actually costs CapMetro more per passenger than the express busses it replaced. People voted in favor in part because they didn't think there was a way for CapMetro to screw it up, but I'd say it has been a failure. I've lived a ten minute walk from one of the stations for years and it's always cheaper and faster for me to take the bus downtown.
3. The MetroRapid lines get way more utilization and I wish they first built out more of those lines, rather than jump in to a rail project that will take more than a decade to see any benefits. And even then I'm not sure it'll be worth it considering our land use policies.
You are largely remembering correctly, but it's not reasonable to judge the Red Line a "failure." It's a STARTER LINE. It has already stimulated TOD at Crestview and Lakeline and construction is currently apace near Leander. When the Austin White Lime Company land ultimately gets redeveloped it will serve that community, too (I worked with Envision Central Texas on their McNeil Junction planning charettes back in March 2003). Downtown and Plaza Saltillo will also accommodate the eastern line (whatever color it ultimately gets on the maps) to Manor and Elgin when it opens. True Towns Take Time.
For as much as they paid for the Red Line, CapMetro could have paid for those riders to all take Uber until the end of time.
They did what was easy and cheap, instead of what was useful.
@@texaswunderkind I'd like to see your math backing up that assertion. While you're showing your work, maybe you could also explain how MORE cars on the road helps stimulate TOD and compact, mixed-use neighborhood centers. I'm all ears.
@@colormedubious4747The Red Line is the bare minimum viable rail product. I rode it once as a novelty and it is SO FUCKING SLOW and barely serves anywhere useful unless you live in some of the far off Northern suburbs.
@@BloodRider1914 Yes, as a mostly single-tracked starter line it is Sofa King slow. There are now two major double-tracking projects in the pipeline which will nearly double frequency in the northwest and in east Austin. Trust me, it's much faster now than it was from 1987 through 2009 (because it didn't even EXIST yet).
I am currently studying at UT in Austin for the summer. Coming from Europe, I was shocked to see the state of public transportation here in Austin for such a relatively big city. Didn't even know they had a light rail line until now, since all we've been using so far is the Bus system, which also isn't great. Thanks for the video!
As an American who lived in Europe. It is one of the things I’m most embarrassed about
You should learn more about the country you are in.
I worked at Austin Public Library when Formula One came to town. International tourists would come to the reference desk and ask why on earth our train didn’t connect the airport to downtown. I could only shrug.
Nothing like building something that's almost perfectly designed to fail completely.
It was designed to be a starter line to stimulate TOD and restore confidence in CapMetro's ability to run a railroad. Since it led to several redevelopments, new TOD, and a successful vote for a 7-billion-dollar transit investment, I can only conclude that you aren't conversant with the definition of the word "fail." It's a STARTER LINE.
Re. referendums to build public transit: If we had to put *highway* building up for a vote, we'd have bits and pieces of Interstates all over instead of a huge interconnected system. He said, not altogether facetiously.
Meanwhile, the HBLR is a smaller system compared to Austin's, and yet, it has far more daily ridership! The HBLR was lucky to use a lot of repurposed ROW through packed neighborhoods, though the ROW through downtown JC was built brand-new! And Jersey City has been experiencing an Austin-level housing boom, and it's more admirable for Jersey City to do it as Jersey City is much smaller than Austin! The HBLR has led to the revitalization of Hudson County, and so much TOD along its corridor! Now to be fair, JC is next to NYC, but it's still a lesson for other cities like Austin. In Q1 2024, the HBLR had 2,964 weekday riders per mile, second place behind Seattle's Link system (Link had 3,461 weekday riders per mile in Q1 2024), while the Newark Light Rail was in third place with 2,643 weekday riders per mile. Besides the subway portion downtown (which also serves Rutgers and NJIT), Branch Brook Park station is a bus hub, and of course, the Newark Light Rail's main station is Newark Penn with connections to local and intercity buses, Amtrak, NJT trains, and PATH. A big key to having great LRT ridership is having TOD and a ton of connections. And watching this, it's nice to see TOD going up near stations on the CapMetro Rail! So as Austin continues to develop its transit, modes are added, TOD is built, and stations have better connections, daily ridership will go up! While having to deal with hostile politicians, I still believe in Austin's transit future.
Yup, common sunflowers are native to Texas! They're native to Mexico, the western US, and Canada. Here is some sunflower lore to honor the almighty sunflower: A universal fact people know is sunflowers are yellow. However, a sunflower’s pigment doesn’t stop there. Sunflowers can even be red and purple! A common misconception is that flowering sunflower heads track the Sun across the sky. Although immature flower buds exhibit this behavior, the mature flowering heads point in a fixed (and typically easterly) direction throughout the day. Mature sunflowers face east because they can attract up to five times more pollinators because they warm up faster than westward facing plants, and sunflowers are more productively warmed when Eastward facing. In Greek mythology, the sunflower is often associated with the myth of Clytie and Helios. Clytie was a water nymph, and deeply in love with the sun god Helios. Sadly, he left her for another goddess, and it’s said that Clytie watched Helios crossing the sky in his golden chariot for days, without any food or water. Eventually, she was transformed into a sunflower, and it’s said this is why sunflowers always face the sun.
I used to take this to high school before they built the new downtown station.
You missed the real story about how it is caught up in a legal battle and has already been massively scaled back from what you showed. One new line that won't even reach the airport for more than all of the proposed lines would cost.
But don't sleep on Austin's bus network. The bus system works really well ( if you live in the right parts of town)
Not like repeating the same mistake from the original Red Line....
Moved to Leander in 2018 and, foolish me, took the train to downtown to catch a bus to the airport. I worked as an engineer on the commuter rail in Chicago. Me and my spiffy little carry on bought a ticket at the end of the line in Leander. Boarded the train and receiver a tour of the Austin country side as it certainly didn’t take a very direct route to downtown. Once I arrived in Austin there was a pretty nice hike to the #20 bus stop which was a nice hike, I needed the steps. The best part was that a fare inspector was going to ticket me because the ticket I bought in Leader expired before the train arrived in Austin. Whoever was on the other end of that radio call convinced him not to charge me. You could just feel the hostility and how he wanted to cuff me and drag me off to be booked. Glad he was only armed with a ticket book and pen.
I've been in Austin since the 80's and the biggest problem with getting anything done like this done Cap Metro incompetence. They trot out these bond proposals that are basically wishful thinking in terms of cost and time table. Every single time it falls apart, its not even a surprise anymore. Then then after its exploded to in cost they still can't get it to work right. The existing light rail was delayed close to year because they couldn't figure out how come their rail signals didn't work...blamed rust on the tracks and spent months cleaning it (what steel isn't going to rust again?). Light rail was their little choo choo toy so they could have something to brag about at conferences. I'll give them credit that the latest planned expansion of light rail has been paired back significantly before they started tearing up the streets. Its still probably going to end up costing 2x what was promised for 1/3 of what people voted for.
Yep… that first vote was about the corruption at CapMetro and the waste. I never understood why they didn’t build rail to the airport.
The elephant in the room is that mass transit isn’t a priority in red states. Houston, one of the largest cities in the country, has a 23 mile light rail system. And even that tiny system faced fierce opposition from a certain political party.
Texas is a petrostate. They want more cars and more people buying oil.
Yet Dallas citizens voted to tax themselves in the 90s and ended up with the most extensive light rail system in North America. But "muh red states," amirite? Grow up.
The state government is "Red" while Austin, an relatively urban area, is generally "Blue". Both of y'all have points. @@colormedubious4747
@colormedubious4747 A street running light rail system only, in one of the largest cities in the country. You're kind of proving their point. Red states, and the south in particular, are where good urban design goes to die.
@@colormedubious4747 And said system has awful land use with poor daily ridership. The system caters to suburbanites, not the cities.
Austin was incorporated in 1839, chosen to replace Houston as the capital. Chosen because of the area's hills, waterways, and pleasant surroundings. It was seen as a convenient crossroads for trade routes between Santa Fe and Galveston Bay, as well as routes between northern Mexico and the Red River. Austin is named for Stephen F. Austin. Stephen F. Austin is known as the Father of Texas, as he led the second and, ultimately, the successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families and their slaves from the US to the Tejas region of Mexico in 1825. After Texas gained independence, Austin ran as a candidate in the 1836 Texas presidential election but was defeated by Sam Houston, who had served as a general in the war and entered the race two weeks before the election. Houston appointed Austin as Secretary of State for the new republic, and Austin held that position until his death in December 1836. The Texas Capitol was built in 1885 and stands 14.64 feet taller than the nation's Capitol in Washington DC. The US Capitol measures 288 feet from the east front ground level to the top of the Statue of Freedom, while the Texas Capitol stands 302.64 feet from the south front ground level to the tip of the star of the Goddess of Liberty.
The Capitol is pink because made of what is known today as sunset red granite. Originally, planners for the Texas Capitol wanted to have a limestone exterior, but the limestone chosen had high levels of iron pyrite, which rusted when exposed to moisture and air. The owners of Granite Mountain quarries, located in Marble Falls, offered to donate Texas pink granite for the construction of the Capitol in exchange for a rail line to be built to the quarries. This resulted in the extension of a narrow-gauge railroad from Austin to Granite Mountain. At the time of its construction, the capitol was billed as "The Seventh Largest Building in the World". It's the largest Capitol in the US, a fittingly big Capitol for a big state, though not the tallest! People believe there are cannonballs in the walls of the Capitol, but this isn't true. This myth probably grew from a misinterpretation of the building plans. Workers used lime mortar to bond the stones in the walls, with metal anchors used at some exterior locations to bond ornamental granite stones to the base wall. A quote from October 1884 regarding its construction states "…five eighth inch round iron shall be substituted for one inch by one quarter flat iron for the anchors in the exterior walls," which was referring to the anchors. In 1983, Texas enacted the Texas Capitol View Corridors, a series of legal restrictions on construction in Austin, Texas, aimed at preserving protected views of the Texas State Capitol from various points around the city. First established by the Texas Legislature in 1983 and recodified in 2001, the corridors are meant to protect the capitol dome from obstruction by high-rise buildings.
Make no mistake: the existing Red Line is NOT rapid transit. The time it takes from downtown to the northernmost terminal takes the same amount of time (or more) as the now-cancelled bus took for the same trip. What will be worse is the proposed “project connect” will run in urban areas mostly on existing vehicle streets without grade separations that would enable it to be quicker than the buses that run on those routes. Additionally, the line to the airport has been abandoned. That line was a major reason people voted for project connect in the first place. In summary, the public transit system will continue to be a failure.
Yep, this was what I was gonna say. They basically scrapped the project connect except for some very tiny portions of it. Like, no light rail to the airport? WTF!?
They said something about prioritizing low income residents, but that's BS. Light rail should benefit everyone, and we KNOW lots of traffic will come through the airport that wouldn’t need a car EXCEPT to get to the city center. And poor people still fly.
Very concise and informative! I live just down the road in San Antonio and never knew Austin even had their little red train. Better than nothing, and I’m happy to hear about the expansion plan, whenever that ends up happening
If they specs are similar to Phoenix, a downtown tunnel would be overkill
Austin's downtown streets are much narrower than Phoenix's and don't really have enough room to add in a surface ROW for rail.
It's solid rock. Super-expensive to dig.
@@colormedubious4747 it's limestone. All the buildings have 3 floors of parking garage below them. Easier to just trench down, like they do when making the roads below grade on I35.
@@andrewpast1959 It's still very expensive to dig here, regardless. It's not ALL limestone. There's quite a bit of granite as well. While the Hill Country is mostly karst, there are lots of granite extrusions (not all of them are as obvious as Enchanted Rock). There's also a notable amount of metamorphic rock in the region, as evidenced by the marble quarries around Burnet and Marble Falls. Mount Bonnell, however, is part of the Balcones Escarpment which IS primarily limestone.
@@jmlinden7 Just turn a single street into a transitway with minimal road access for some garages. It's what they did in downtown San Diego with mostly narrow streets.
As someone that has lived in Austin for almost 30 years, you have slightly misrepresented how bad this is. The problem is not only do we pay a 1% sales tax to CapMetro, we also mistakenly have passed multiple bonds (Project Connect, anyone?). I live in those hated suburbs but technically in the City of Austin. My city property taxes have basically doubled because of this disaster. Have I received any increase in services for my tax dollars? NO! There are no additional roads, buses, trains, etc. CapMetro is such a disaster that the one place that actually could use the train, the airport, probably won't get service in my lifetime. Pretty much any city that has light rail has some service that goes to the airport. In our infinite wisdom, we decided that having bike lanes was really the most important thing. It is over 100 degrees during the summer!!!! Who in the hell is riding a bike in August to work? I think people just get these ideas about environmentalism and density stuck in their heads and don't think it through. Yes, yes there are too many cars but think about why? It's because the real estate developers grease enough palms to have crazy zoning and everyone works everywhere. Force people to work in dense areas where it makes sense to have rail and buses.
One of the strangest transit agencies on earth. They are also one of the only few transit agencies that runs a public transport line for a university. I took the UT ATX bus in 2017 and was shocked by how a major university doesn't have their own bus lines.
Hey, Austinite here, a few corrections
one things you said the red line failed at is speed, which is only really true south of Highland. Once you go north it really picks up speed especially considering it doesn't need to stop at red lights.
Your description of project connect included a lot of things that had been cut months ago, including the link to the airport, 99% of the orange line, the link to anywhere near crestview, and there being multiple bridges across the river.
@ClassyWhale 0:25 and 1:27 correction: It stops running at 5:30pm because it is when the last train departs from Leander (except Friday and Saturday, thanks god)
Austin is a very poor city to have a good transit system. Its soil is infamously difficult to dig through, and large scale tunnelling is essentially non viable (which is way very few homes have basements and only a few very busy downtown parking garages are underground). The other issue is that downtown is already very dense, meaning that rapid transit either has to use existing street space or build elevated tracks over street(the latter being highly unlikely). Outside of downtown only a few areas could ever make sense for rail transit (the downtown to domain corridor and perhaps into East Austin), which makes approving funding from the wealthy suburbs, particularly the extremely rich but transitless western suburbs, a tough sell.
This is mostly true, but cities expand, and transit determins how they expand. Places that don't make sense now could make sense soon. It's a shame that UT is so close to downtown soon. It would be nice to at least connect it to the domain. Austin calls it downtown two, so if they are serious about that and transit, they should be connect it to everything as fast as possible BEFORE it's too built up.
Because of the rolling terrain around Austin, especially to its west, Austin's main line railroads went north to south than east to west. That short line railroad CapMetro used is the only one going westards, and it nearly goes more north than west. The Southern Pacific main line went through San Antonio, the Missouri Pacific main line went from San Antonio through Austin towards Longview and Texarkana, not directly to Dallas or Houston. The Santa Fe main line went from Clovis, NM to Lubbock to Temple to Houston, not Austin, only the MKT(Katy) went through Austin serving Dallas and Houston. Unfortunately Austin grew westwards towards the hills, and north and south along I-35.Thus any efficient light rail network requires building trams more than commuter rail in the Austin area. Trams take up highway lanes many motorists do not wish to sacrifice.CapMetro should never have bought this short line in the first place, but the Missouri Pacific line which would make a much better commuter rail line was not and will never be for sale as it is the best railroad mainline serving Austin. There is no real estate to build adjacent rails as the state of Texas built a freeway around the MoPac railroad main line. One failure leads to more failures. l shall repeat, Austin is not as flat as Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, and there in lies the problems facing light rail or trams there... Even when Austin's growth grew too much, the state chose to build a turnpike to the eastside of Austin, not to the very hilly west side...
That’s such BS. Yall aren’t Houston, you can dig under it just fine.
I'm an Austinite and I love the Red Line. It sucks though. We need WAY more.
Why do you love it. It goes to the distant suburbs which are not Austin, and does not even go to downtown. It would have made sense for the first rail line to go from downtown to the airport. So I guess if you are that bored and wanted something to do.
@@mrbillinsf It does go downtown. I am closer to the suburbs, so the train is great for me. You are right, though, it would be better being connected to the airport in some way.
Austinite here. Wanted to point out the downtown stop is on the east side of downtown, but does drop off at the convention center, so it's not as bad a destination as just being far east of central for no reason. But, not many Austinites both live along the rail line and need to go to the Convention Center that often, so not that helpful. And since it doesn't really go from the Center to the airport or nearby hotels, it's not all that useful for people coming into town for conventions, either.
That said, I'm glad we have it, and glad we're getting more, but they did a TERRIBLE job selling it in the initial proposals. Even in 2000, everyone was baffled why it wasn't going to the airport to start with. Or to campus. Or the Capitol complex. Or to Zilker park (that would quadruple ridership overnight). Or one of our (then) thriving malls, etc. Even on the vote that did pass, most people didn't really grasp how a line from Crestview to the Convention Center benefited the city (save to get the light rail momentum started). There was another failed vote in 2014 before the 2020 one passed, and that was probably due to wanting to hike property taxes to pay for it and we were already getting crushed on those.
And there are two other factors:
1. How to get TO the trains. Like you said, they did expand some bus lines, but a lot of people who *might* be willing to at least drive to a local station and then take the train the rest of the way can't because there is often no parking. Some stops have dedicated lots, but many-like Crestview and Highland-don't. Crestview is a neighborhood development and they do have some pay parking spaces, but you can't afford to leave a car there all day every day.
2. It gets hot here. Like REALLY HOT (mid-90s this week, but it was 109F last week). From mid-May to mid-October, you aren't going to want to walk very far. We HAVE to get more stops or tighter, more reliable buses to where people want to go to make the system work. No one want to take the train into downtown for work and get dropped off 5 or 6 blocks from their office so that they roll in having already sweat through their clothes before 9am.
You add up the limited access, the heat, the lack of desirable stops, the property tax increases...and it has been a hard sell-especially to the more suburban voters who would pay the cost but be nowhere near a line they could utilize. It is a real shame it didn't gain momentum in the late 80s or early 90s before the population boom when there were more options for creating new lines before property values (and population saturation) shot through the roof.
Sadly, I had a good friend who moved here specifically to work on urban rail development and city planning around urban rail. Lived here from around 2000ish to 2015, when he moved back home to California because he realized he was just never going to have real rail projects to work on in Texas. He was hopeful by the 2004 vote, but it was an existing line. After that, plan after plan got shot down. His company had him supporting projects in Houston and Dallas in the interim, but after the 2014 vote, he threw in the towel on Texas and visionary rail projects.
I fucking hate how it runs every 35 minutes, I miss one train, I’m late to school
I moved to Austin in 2006, so I missed some of the early attempts at creating light rail in the city. But I have some thoughts.
Austin is a city of sprawl like most Texas cities. The city core is surrounded by a hundred square miles of low-slung car-centric single-family suburbs. It has dozens of massive state government office buildings, bringing tens of thousands of commuters downtown each day. The University of Texas has 50,000 students and 20,000 employees, again bringing huge numbers of people into the core of the city.
No matter how many times they expand I-35, Mopac, HWY 183, or build toll roads like 130, traffic will never, ever be "solved" in the city. Single-rider commuter gridlock is the one thing you might want light rail to address. But there are no obvious locations for suburban rail stops that would allow people to walk to their nearest station on foot. At best they would all be park-and-ride stations, requiring riders to leave their cars in the hot Texas sun unattended all day, victim of break-ins and such. The stops would have to be close, safe, affordable, and convenient enough for commuters to take the extra time to use.
Building the single commuter line on a disused freight track meant it did not go where the people needed. Freight lines, due to their noise and pollution, tend to repel development rather than attract it. Thus, most of the stations on the Red Line have nothing around them. Because owners of expensive condos don't want to live near a loud freight train. The city hoped that development would follow the train stations, and to a degree it has, but I doubt that has contributed even a hundred people to the daily ridership of the line.
Furthermore, building the rail line at surface level, where it had to compete with street traffic, slowed it down significantly. As the video pointed out, they managed to design a system that was actually slower than just driving yourself. A ten-mile route should take ten minutes, excluding stops. It should fly you to your destination, and it doesn't.
I don't have an easy solution. Because the metro area of two million people is so built-out now, building a system the right way would require hundreds of properties to be demolished using eminent domain, which would cost a fortune and keep CapMetro tied up in litigation into the next millennia. So they either need to jump in with both feet, and do it right, or they need to forget about the hippie trains and make the bus system the best they can. I rode the bus the first year I lived in Austin, and it actually is a pretty good system.
Some notes for your observations. Austin’s sprawl only extends at best 30 miles to the north and south, not 100 miles in every direction (that would put you past San Antonio, at Waco and to Columbus Texas). Compared to other major Texas cities, Austin still has a lot of space around it to the west (because of the hill country), and east.
The old existing rail line that Cap Metro took over had been abandoned for over 20 years if not more by the time that the first light rail trains ran on those tracks east of downtown. The presence of freight rail was never an issue for development on the southern end of the line.
I lived in Austin for 7ish years and used this rail line and other mass transit pretty extensively. I lived off of pleasant valley and Lakeshore and worked right next to the domain. This rail line is honestly kind've useless except for specific use cases. It wasn't even technically the fastest option for me, but the bus service was so awful that I opted to walk 40ish minutes (2miles) to the train station since that was a much nicer experience.
Eventually I got fed up with commuting and my circumstances changed so I moved up north close to the domain. I still lived without a car but lived in walking distance from work, shopping etc. and found the high rent cost worth it. In my last few years I used the transit system sparingly, generally only to head into downtown/campus for various reasons.
I love Austin, I genuinely think it's the best city in Texas but it's relatively okay density and smaller size work against it without a competent transit system and high car dependency.
incredible that they chose to make it a diesel powered train, if you want to keep operating costs low electricity is the way to go! (although in Texas I imagine the gas is pretty cheap at least)
Being GOP Texas , thought they would use a coal engine from the 1800s😂
To clarify, the A&NW was not abandoned when Cap Metro took over. Freight trains were still running, and continue to run to this day.
Looking forward to this. The thumbnail and title describe it perfectly.
love the maps yet again haha - great coverage of history with in-person visits, exactly the kind of stuff I love to watch + try and make :)
@@TheFlyingMooseCA dude you make the kind of stuff I wish I could haha
@@ClassyWhale just add more maps and some baseball and it's basically the same 🤡
lived in austin for 24 years, grew up in japan and just got back from a vacation there. as someone who just bought a house basically in Webberville, this video fills me with an unfathomable rage
I'm saving up to buy a house in Eugene Oregon. At least it's safe to bike there.
Later Austin 👋 enjoy the tech bros. This city is becoming a nightmare to live in
If they get one of the drivers to sing Dolly Parton songs through the PA then ridership will take off! Melbourne, Australia had a singing tram driver for a while
Been here 20 years and I’ve met just one person to take the train-and he was from out of town going to ACL.
We should build more trains to nowhere… and then develop the nowhere.
Curitaba buss rapid transit was presented to austin planners. Check out how Curitaba developed vs Austin. BRT changes pattern of development and later the dedicated buss roads can be converted to light rail. It is bad when there are hubristic types in government.
As a relatively new transplant to Austin area from NYC tri-state area (mostly Long Island), I see this project very differently. On very first glance it has nothing to do with in-city tram lines. It goes to great (and growing!) commuter reservoir between Leander and Cedar Park. It brings those people to the central area where the work presumably is. Very similar concept as LI Commuter Rail on Long Island. But, lack of users? - As any good system this one was built before dramatic need have arisen, as demand comes it will cover it. But, faster by car (and maybe cheaper)? Guess what, even dense LI Commuter train on similar distance (Babylon LI to NYC) is always slower than by car ... and more expensive than by car (ordinary average MPG car with just one passenger!). Trust me, lived there for decades, thousand tests, slower and more expensive. Hence, typical commuter rail in early stages, thinking ahead of needs to come, good thing.
Project connect isn’t going to end up being even a fraction of what was promised. I would be surprised if they have any functional light rail within the next 15 years. They’ve already axed in the airport line for the first entire phase of the project. It seems like it’s at a standstill right now while they face multiple legal battles.
Agree. But what is worse is that we are already being subject to property taxes for a transit system that many of us will never use.
A lot of people voted against the proposition because they thought cap metro was corrupt and not trustworthy.
It was and still is.
So, like Sprinter and ARROW in Southern California, I guess. Although those have Sunday service and a little more destinations to go to.
if you ever find yourself back in austin (or another city where you have to use lime scooters) be sure to purchase a "ride pass". They'll save you a ton of money
Because that's where the tracks were. They didn't build anything.
3:20 I’m from Austin, born and raised and the comment ‘the people who voted against light rail are white and suburban’ is really silly. It’s not because they’re white, it has to do with the fact people don’t want to pay for something they’re not going to use. If you want rail mass transit in Austin put the rail out to the suburbs with park and rides, connected to a functioning network that will get them to work on time and there would be success. You need a master plan that everyone can use when it’s all constructed. And idk how you’re going to work out putting a train on streets, especially with Austin’s traffic 😬
i have to ride the red line a few times a month, and its not great. the stop i have to take, howard, is a big parking lot with a few bus stops and the only where to go being the highway
two corrections:
2:00 that railroad might've been used to haul material for the capitol's construction, but it wasnt the granite. The granite was mined by convicts at the aptly named Convict Hill, out past Oak Hill, south and west of downtown. You can find traces of that purpose-built rail line if you know where to look.
7:28 there'll never be an expansion of any rail lines to go street-level down Lamar or Guadalupe, nor out to the airport, nor anywhere south of the river. so that means no blue line or orange line. Green line might have a chance precisely because no one cares about Elgin.
But honestly I doubt they'll ever lay a single inch of new track. Austin doesnt have the political willpower to override the legal obstructionists... or to do anything other than keep building towers for rich people and widen I-35.
Per Wikipedia - "Construction reached Burnet, Texas, by 1882 and the line was later extended to Granite Mountain by 1885 - when the railroad was contracted to haul pink granite for the new Texas State Capitol building in Austin"
The granite came from Llano and hauled on the railcars on that line. If you ride the steam train on weekends to Burnet there are still large chunks of granite at trackside that fell off the cars. The limestone came from Convict Hill blasted and chistled out by convicts. If you look at the cliffs you'll see they are limestone.
ok my bad, I mixed up the granite and the limestone
I stand by the 2nd correction
This is how thing in Texas. You got a Gov. that only cares about all the people in the state when it's voting time. But look at his Emergency Preparedness plan enforcement you get the Idea. You better have can good and matches for your gas stove or stock up on charcoal and lighter fluid or buy peanut butter and bread. He will block anything that help all the people. He will help donors though.
i feel like a regular light rail or streetcar would be fine. Austin is growing fast, and the traffic is pretty bad so they need to do something soon
the line to the airport only goes right before the airport across the highway at the end of riverside. where you have to get out get a city bus or uber to the airport. again halfway doing the project or maybe they just dont want to do that part till the airport is rebuilt in 15 years.
But now the new lines are caught in legal mumbo jumbo.
It's effectively a monorail that takes longer to get downtown than it does to drive.
Here in Manchaca we are enjoying avoiding downtown.
ITS STILL TEXAS
Similar to Trimet's WES in Portland.
It does not run on Sundays, except on Austin FC soccer games
its a dumb diesel commuter train so silly. quite useless imo. but if you look at the map there are transit oriented developments @ every station. so idk fun fact were stuck with this piece of junk. they cant extend the hours of operation either cause its a legal binding too lmao.
As a native Austinite who used to actually use the train to get to my day job. Can confirm… it kinda sucks, but if you can work around the fact it only goes in basically a straight line from Leander to downtown. It doesn’t suck as much to use.
At least it goes to Q2 stadium? But there’s only so many MLS games in a year
Elon musk says he wants to invest in cyber cabs for Austin but he also said he wants America to have clean buses so maybe there will be robot buses in Austin in the future
That’d be great if expanded to Elgin. Hope stops in Manor
I've seen Cap Metro improve over 40 years and it's still a disgrace for the 11th largest city in the US. I love riding the Red Line, it's jam-packed at rush hour, though.
The biggest fly in the ointment for any proposed new road or transit line is that Austin suffers massively from NIMBY.
If the train went to Kyle then you could go to Cabela's . 7:55
The Red Line is disappointing, I agree. I live in the northern suburbs and go to downtown each weekend, this line has been saving me a bit of money, pollution, and frustration of driving.
The booths also reek of diesel exhaust sometimes, it sticks to your skin and clothes, pretty bad stuff.
Your Lucky the powers that be, did not go to coal fired engines 😂
If the train went to Kyle then you could go to Cabela's .
when i visited austin a few years ago i was really impressed by the the 801 rapid bus on lamar. the red line not so much lol
Austin is in a very tricky situation. The red line costs are rising. We’re the orange line chosen or built first, we’d be in a better position for expansion. The timeline for these projects is pretty depressing, but at least the city is making inroads with improving the bus network. I just can’t see a good way forward without grabbing the commuters from outside the urban core; Georgetown, manor, Elgin, Kyle, round rock need to be connected to the city or I-35 widening will retain high support.
And, like everywhere across the US, we’re seeing municipal budget cuts. It’s going to take a moment of people to put pressure on government officials. I think “urbanists” are often stuck only thinking of “urbanism” as government tweaks instead of a larger political project about quality of life in a modern metropolis.
Did it have restrooms since it takes an hour?
Good question, not that I'm aware
@@ClassyWhale Nope not even at the station. If you have to go. You will have to hop off and find a restaurant or a gas station. Then Hop back on (Get a Day Pass or Depends).
how did i miss a premier AGAIN
Interesting schedule: what is the name of this cycle? Is it part of the imperial measurement system? Where I live, trains leave at exactly the same minute every hour, often every 30 or even 15 minutes. Not like that in Austin... 😅
the redline is . . .basically useless, unless you are commuting from Leander to downtown. The line have been over capacity with just the monthly pass holders since shortly after it opened, so you cant even buy a day ticket, there are no ticket machines at most of the stations outside of downtown
There's an app. Welcome to the 21st century.
I lived in Guangzhou, China from 2005 to 2012. I never needed a car. I never missed having a car either.
…but you had to live in Guangzhou, China, so…
@@Cyanmauve Yep, kind of my point.... The US will never spend the money needed for public transportation.
@@rickrandazzo Its a communist plot 😂😂
@@Michaelcj-m2d 😂
High ridership doesn’t work on street running if it’s not elevated or underground IT WILL FAIL. Want to boost the red line improve buses that link to it.
Ahem, it’s “GuadaLUP”, not “Guada’luPAE”… You are clearly not from Austin.
@@warpathh I have been known to revert to Spanish when pronouncing Texan cities 😂 see the comments on my Dallas video...
@@ClassyWhale u da best
I think this is an argument for not allowing a vote for necessities like transportation. If there was not a vote involved but rather a larger group of people making the plans (maybe not just the overly rich), a lot more would get done.
Thats just my opinion, if I’m wrong then oopsie poopsie
This train was a disaster. We had a new bond to build more trains and the big hook they used to get the voters to vote for it was they would build a train to the airport. Once again, we got hosed because now that the bond has passed, they decided that it would be to much to build the train to the airport. The voters are stupid enough to vote for these bonds and most of it is a waste.
Plenty of good outdoor spaces😭
1500 per day? Houston’s light rail is 10 miles shorter and has almost 29 times the daily ridership. By the way, Dallas’s DART light rail is 4 times longer than Houston’s MetroRail, yet has just barely 1 1/2 times Houston’s daily ridership.
According to Wikipedia, Houston’s MetroRail is number 6 in the US for average boardings per mile weekdays, Q1 2024.
I love your video's is there a bud or train from Boston Massachusetts to Cleveland Ohio other than greyhound or Amtrak
If the city had dedicated bus lanes everywhere we could maybe get the ridership and speed up to levels where people believe in public transit. Buses without dedicated lanes are doomed to fail, same with rail that has to go slower than cars. You can’t remove the advantages of transit and get people on board. NIMBYs ruin everything
As a regular bus user here the dedicated lines which exist only help a bit. The roads are just terribly maintained in general here, and the bigger issue really is the traffic lights which block the flow of traffic. What's more important in my opinion is just having the bus network run more frequently for ease of use than building more frankly unnecessary dedicated lanes
Kudos to Dallas. But now suburbs are trying to pull funding for DART. Big sigh.
Is this what you meant by "austins trying?"
It's Austin. Of course they did 😂
San Antonio is the new star
DART has over 90 miles of track one the the largest light rails in the United States
It is the largest.
@@qolspony *was
With Los Angeles's A, C, E, and K lines, LA currently (as of Aug 2024) has a 152.1 km length for its light-rail system, while Dallas has 150 km! Not to mention the expansions on the way for LA!
I see that rail line every day passing West Parmer Lane and it is always completely empty. And Austin is currently LOSING population because its become the most expensive city in Texas and is becoming a little more dangerous and a little more unlivable. So this rail line is doomed as people are fleeing Austin proper for the suburbs out north and south, and to other states like Tennessee and Florida. Even California is seeing a minor growth from people that moved here FROM there and are moving back. Hell, even Tesla halted further annexation of land and cut jobs, Google left, Oracle, Indeed might leave, less population means bye bye train.
NIMBY tech billionaires. Enough said.
Houston's light rail is almost as useless....I guess I could park downtown and ride it to UH Football games this fall....since parking around campus is a nightmare on game days. Maybe someday it'll stretch down to Hobby Airport...it'll reach Hobby before IAH (Bush Intercontinental).....I would've thought building rail out to Austin-Bergstrom airport would be the logical choice but I guess not.
well, at least it's in the future plans.....rail to AUS will help.
I’ve been on it in 2016. Safe to say I had a nice nap 😅
before 10k.
I asked so long for this
You're welcome
7:02 platform screen doors!!!!!
These trains absolutely suck they are slow top speed is 77 miles per hour that’s slower than most light rail trains. They have a bad build quality the rail operator here has to replace them after just 25 years of use.
Top speed of the train is really not that important for this kind of line. Most light rail and metro trains top off at around (100kph/60mph). The train probably doesn’t even reach the 77mph top speed between most of the stations.
For one, the line is incredibly windy, which generally limits speeds and then it’s single tracked, so useful speed can also be limited due to where the passing loops are. And secondary these heavy diesel trains just have terrible acceleration, which is why the vast majority of frequently stopping services worldwide is electrified. For this alignment electrification and light rail vehicles would be a serious improvement in speed because they can get up to speed much faster after stations and slow zones.
@@eechauch5522 hope they go for a Siemens or Alstom LRV because the Stadler ones suck.
I’m not sure about that the Stadler GTW rides pretty nice it’s just a shitty line
@@lol-tk3vd They ride nice but in the rush hour only having one set of doors per car is NOT very nice.
well yes they should have bought the 2/8 variants instead of the 2/6
Guadalupe in Austin is pronounced gwa-duh-loop. 🤷🏼♂️
The reason we pronounce it like that is because it's based on the French pronunciation, not Spanish.
@@TheAdrr1 Yeah... I'm not sure I'm buying that explanation. The name of the street was misspelled, along with Nueces, San Jacinto, Sabine, Brazos and Lavaca, by a surveyor from New Orleans named L.J. Pilié. Pilié had been brought to Austin by Edwin Waller. His misspelling, "Guadeloup" isn't even correct for French, by the way. It's missing the "e" on the end that's necessary for the "loop" pronunciation. Without the "e" it would be pronounced "loo" in French. The current pronunciations of the other street names don't correspond to his misspellings. Anyway, it's a good way to detect newcomers to Austin.
This is certainly an interesting line! I’m glad they’re planning to expand the network! The issue of political will reminds me of what happened with the Tide light rail in Hampton Roads (where the City of Norfolk built its half of the network and the City of Virginia Beach decided to bail before building anything). Hopefully, once these new lines in Austin get built, especially that section more directly serving downtown, people will realize the benefits of rail transit! It’s hard to get people to support building more when the current system is an unattractive travel option!
Raleigh is like Virginia Beach and Durham is like Norfolk.
Durham wants a light rail, but Raleigh doesn't. Raleigh is a more important city than Durham.
Virginia Beach is a more important city than Norfolk. Although Norfolk is a lot closer in importance than Durham to Raleigh. It is the business hub of the area, which is why I think it went ahead and built the light rail, which I think it didn't need.
Raleigh is a more important city than the above. However, Norfolk (and Durham to some degree) is significantly more urban than Raleigh and Virginia Beach.
Norfolk is closer to Baltimore in landscape than any of the cities on the list.
Durham downtown is really nothing compared to Raleigh and Norfolk. Norfolk has two malls in it downtown.
Although Virginia Beach downtown is nothing. It is the coastline beach tourism that put it ahead of everyone else.
And this what Norfolk was hoping this line would extend to. But now, the line is completely useless except for the Amtrak station it serves and a possible military site it plans to extend to.
Raleigh is a suburb of houses and it can't seem to justify a light rail line.
But there might be one city that could justify it: Richmond.
@@qolspony Norfolk could definitely function without the light rail, but it is nice to have. I think it would’ve been better if they built it in a more heavily-traveled corridor and actually served the Downtown Norfolk Transit Center (If the whole thing had been built to VA Beach, it would’ve been fine). Perhaps more effective would have been building it across the James River, which sees constant traffic jams over its bridges/tunnels.
@@29downtheline I agree with everything until you got to James River. That is an entirely different market for commuter rail.
@@qolspony I definitely think a regional rail system could work, but considering the only transit options across the river currently are buses, I think something closer to rapid transit would be good, since those buses just get stuck in the same traffic.
Absolute waste of taxpayer money, they never learn.
I hate this city with a passion, too many drugs floating around, a LOT of homeless, rampant prostitution, and a LOT of typically angry citizens, been here 6 years, I’m ready to leave.
I've lived in Austin for a few years now commuting primarily by bus. I only took the red line once and I had to go out of my way to do so just so I could get the chance to ride it. Project Connect is pretty exciting, though it's likely to get further gutted in favor of expanding the bus network, bike paths, and scooter rentals. There has also been a lot of promising initiatives for better bike infrastructure and mixed-use zoning, though, so I think overall the city is decently pedestrian friendly and making great strides to become better for us.
meow
Dart rail is also pretty poorly designed...
Austin rail is the dumbest thing ever! Diesel powered dual trolleys with trackage having about 2 dozen grade crossings running at rush hour, snarling vehicular traffic royally .. that’s not rapid transit.
MetroRail is an absolute joke... More often than not, there are 30-50 cars waiting at a train crossing, while there is no one on the damn train going through the crossing. Stupidity.
Couple of things.
The redline is sort of seen as an alternative to commuting from the outlying suburbs (Cedar park, Leander) as the morning and evening traffic to and fro is really, really bad. Cap metro still operates Express commuter buses to downtown and back from leander Cedar park and pflugerville to supplement this.
The federal government has stepped in on project connect, getting involved in the planning of the line. the lines won't run down guadalupe through west campus. I'm not sure what way they will go but some people are glad that several community favorite food and drink spots won't be torn down.
Project connect also has some legal trouble, as the measures proposed and voted on have been changed and the budget has increased without voter input.