I originally wrote this post in February 2021, just a few months after voters approved a 22% property tax increase to pay for Project Connect. Later in 2021 news outlets reported that the projected price of Project Connect had increased from $7.1 billion to over $10 billion. Then last month, August 2022, officials from CapMetro and the Austin Transit Partnership, who are co-managing Project Connect, said cost for just the light rail components of the plan have increased 77%, from $5.8 billion to $10.3 billion. And completion of the Orange Line from north to south Austin may now require a tunnel under Lady Bird Lake which will cost an additional $1.3 billion. So if you are doing the math, the cost of Project Connect is already 82% over-budget, and the only thing that has started are improvements to the east Austin MetroRapid bus lines, that were planned before Project Connect was approved.
So what are we supposed to be getting? Project Connect consists of the creation of a Blue light rail line from the airport to west of downtown, a Gold light rail line from downtown to the capitol complex and the UT campus, the Orange light rail line on the west side from north to south Austin, and tunnels under downtown Austin connecting everything.
The Blue Line is a supposed to be a HIGH-CAPACITY light rail line that is primarily designed to connect Austin Bergstrom International Airport to downtown, and then will extend through the west Austin area, along Guadalupe to North Lamar. The Orange Line would run along this same west Austin corridor north and south, and then continue south from downtown along South Congress to south Austin. The Orange line converts most of the existing MetroRapid bus line 801 to light rail. The Blue Line would also connect with a new Gold line in downtown Austin at Trinity Street, allowing travel on to the State Capitol, Dell Medical School and the East University Campus (and DKR Memorial stadium).
An unknown for all of these light rail lines, including the Blue Line, is what infrastructure has to be built and how much will it cost? While the routes have been outlined in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan, it has not been decided if they would be an expansion of existing right-of-way, elevated transitways, or perhaps even run in current traffic lanes. We don’t know how the Blue Line will get across Lady Bird Lake. So, no one really knows what the actual cost will be. That is a big deal, but I think even more important are ridership projections and operating revenue. Should we take a lesson about proposed ridership and operating revenues from MetroRail which was described in an article in Forbes magazine as “perhaps America’s leading transit failure?”
I traveled for business for about 30 years, thru 5-6 airports per week. I traveled to all the major cities in the US, including those in the northeast, where there is a lot of mass transit. I tried traveling to downtown Philadelphia from the Philadelphia International Airport once, and never did it again. The trip took me two hours total, and would have been 20 minutes by taxi. I also tried traveling from the O’Hare Airport Hyatt to downtown Chicago on the “L” once, and only once. That trip took 2 ½ hours, and would have been 25 minutes by taxi (now the trip by taxi takes 40 minutes, but still much faster).
The Blue Line is supposed to run from ABIA every 10 minutes. But frequency of departures is not the problem. I count 8 stops on the way to Trinity Street downtown. Most of these stops are in east Austin along Riverside Drive. I cannot imagine much travel from these neighborhoods to downtown or the airport. But the train will stop for a handful of people. I predict the ride will take about 40 minutes, and there will be an average of another 20 minutes walking or otherwise catching a ride to your final destination in the downtown area. That is a one-hour trip, which currently takes 20 minutes by ride-share or taxi.
Proponents will argue that traveling by the train will be cheaper. Most people traveling from ABIA into Austin will be on an expense account like I was. Or the difference in cost will be meaningless to them (all those people who come to the Formula 1 races, and our politicians). Or they will be traveling in a group, in which case sharing a ride-share will be cheaper than train tickets. I will also have to tell you that I live downtown and traveled to the airport regularly, and I rarely even used ride-share. It was easier just to get in my car, drive 15 minutes to off-airport parking, let them take 10 minutes busing me to the airport, and I was still generally through security in 30 minutes. I expensed the parking.
The proposed underground tunnels would go from approximately the Travis County Courthouse on Lavaca Street, south to about 4th Street, and then east to Trinity Street and then north to about 11th Street (access to the State Capitol and office complex). There is a stop on the west side at Republic Square and at the Trinity Street MetroRail station on the east side. Otherwise, it looks like an underground walk from Lavaca Street to Trinity Street. There will be shops and restaurants in the tunnel for your enjoyment. But do we need the expense of an underground tunnel to make room for more shops and restaurants than we already have above ground?
Which brings us again to the issue of unknown expense. There has never been a tunnel project in the United States that has come in on budget. Look at our own experience digging a short tunnel for the Mopac HOV lanes. The original bid for the roadway was for $137 million, but ended up costing over $171 million because of the short tunnel. The contractor found that the rock in west Austin is actually pretty hard. They asked for an additional $100 million to dig the tunnel, and construction was delayed two years while they worked out an agreement with TX DOT. Or look at the most recent large scale urban project, the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. It was originally budgeted at $2 billion, ultimately cost at least $3.2 billion, and was delayed four years because the drill bit hit an underground pipeline.
I live downtown and I could have a Blue Line stop very close to me. But looking at the map, I cannot imagine why I would get on a light rail line. The lines do not go anyplace that I would want to go (I do not anticipate going to a soccer game at McKalla Q2 Stadium). Even if I wanted to avoid parking a car at the airport for a personal trip with my wife, do I really want to haul her suitcases (plural) on and off of the Blue Line? No.
For more information on Project Connect go here: https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/transportation/2022/08/05/project-connect-planners-reviewing-hard-choices-for-light-rail-rollout-amid-rising-costs/
Waterloo to Austin 