'All Systems Go!' ... Very, Very Slowly

Don't cross in front of the bus. Don't try to beat the train at railroad crossings. And don't make any commitments that might cross conservative voters. So it goes at Capital Metro, which on Monday put safety first as it rolled out the final "All Systems Go!" plan it is expected to take to the ballot box in November. The transit authority's board will vote to adopt the plan and set the ballot at its Aug. 30 meeting.

As expected, the ASG "long-range transit system vision" includes passenger rail service – but no hint of the broad citywide rail network that had been part of Cap Metro's plans for more than 15 years. Though ASG labels its commuter-rail proposal – running along Cap Metro's "Red Line" from Leander to the Convention Center – a "starter line," it says little about what, if anything, would follow it. The plan does discuss additional "regional" rail along the MoPac/Union Pacific and (now abandoned) MoKan corridors, but makes no guesses as to when citizens could expect to actually see such service, or who would actually provide it. As proposed, the Red Line is a fairly low-intensity affair – not up and running until 2007, not seeing seven-days-a-week service until 2009, and not adding additional stations or extensions until at least 2010.

As for light rail – or other fixed guideway transit service, such as bus rapid transit (different from "rapid bus," with dedicated lanes and stations) or monorail – the transit authority has come as close as it ever has to abandoning it, or at least to forgetting its own previous study work supporting the "Green Line" down the Lamar/Guadalupe/ Congress corridor that was the "starter line" in the narrowly defeated 2000 rail plan. Even the May version of "All Systems Go!" included hints that its designated "rapid bus" routes (which mimicked its 2000 rail alignments) could be placeholders for future rail service. But now – in response to citizen input during the summer's workshops, Cap Metro says – the plan includes not three but 10 rapid bus routes, many on arterial streets where rail is unlikely to go in our lifetimes. (It also now includes express bus service to destinations outside the current Capital Metro service area.)

Much citizen input during the summer workshops, and up until this week, favored making at least minor extensions to the existing Red Line (on which Cap Metro currently runs freight rail service) – most notably, to or through the Mueller site, and across Downtown from the Convention Center to Seaholm, or at least to Congress, where it could connect to a proposed streetcar system. None of those suggestions have made it into the final ASG plan, despite the strength and stroke of advocates such as Liveable City, the Downtown Austin Alliance, and the Mueller Neighborhoods Coalition. Not only would Mueller not have any direct rail service, it wouldn't even have a station in its vicinity; the nine stations proposed in ASG include one at Highland Mall and one at MLK and Airport (i.e., the Featherlite tract), but nothing in between.

Both the Downtown/Capitol/UT area and the Mueller/Triangle corridor along 51st, along with the Arboretum/Pickle Campus area and the Highland Mall environs, have been designated in ASG as "transit circulation areas" that will get some sort of special treatment from Capital Metro. "Services could include a combination of dedicated shuttle routes, local bus, rapid bus, or other technologies as appropriate," the ASG plan notes. The Cap Metro board urged staff to present language that committed the agency to begin studies on these "circulation areas" immediately if a rail plan passes in November – but not before that.

In a further safety move, board members made clear on Monday their intention to not seek any further extensions of rail service – even on a small scale – without going back to the voters in the future, after real people have gotten to ride real trains. Possibly testing out a slogan for the campaign to come, Lago Vista alderman Fred Harless, a member of the Cap Metro board, noted, "Let's ride, and then decide."

Board members did express confidence that the ASG plan would be approved by voters in November, but signs are already appearing – at least among urban-core constituents – that the agency may have set its sights too low. On Monday night, the city Urban Transportation Commission unanimously called for a nonbinding referendum on the November ballot allowing citizens to vote for either Downtown streetcars or a Green Line monorail as part of the ASG plan.