Austin ponders its urban rail future

As with so many things these days, how to pay for it is a big issue.

The Austin City Council, looking at a daunting $1.3 billion tab to build a proposed urban rail system, voted Thursday to spend $100,000 for a study on how to pay for it.

The council also approved a measure effectively delaying a bond election on rail to at least 2012 from 2011 , a date Mayor Lee Leffingwell had endorsed earlier this year. That resolution, which like the rail study contract was approved unanimously and without discussion at Thursday’s meeting, directs the city staff to prepare for what would likely be a massive bond election to authorize borrowing money for parks, libraries, public safety and other city needs in additional to rail.

[…]

Capital Metro, its finances tight after building the MetroRail commuter line that opened in March , probably would be able to contribute little or nothing to this second and much different rail project. The city in effect took over planning and construction of urban rail in 2007 .

The line would be 16.5 miles long, with almost 34 miles of track because it would have dual lines throughout, according to a Thursday presentation to the council.

[…]

City officials said they estimate the line will have 27,600 boardings each weekday by 2030 — at least a decade after its first segment would open. MetroRail’s ridership so far has been less than half the 2,000 boardings a day that Capital Metro predicted for the first year when voters approved that project in 2004 .

Aside from the $1.3 billion price tag to build it, officials project annual operating costs of up to $25 million . The city estimates the electric-powered trains would run seven days a week, including 16 hours each weekday, with 10 minutes between trains. The trip from each end to downtown, the city says, would take just over 30 minutes.

I’ll leave it to Mike Dahmus to explain why this is worse than it looks for Austin and its rail future. Metro and Houston’s light rail network are not where I want them to be right now, but when you consider where Austin and Dallas are, we could be a lot worse off.

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