Tag Archives: Austin urban rail

Can Austin Taxpayers Afford To Build A Whole New City?

3 Replies

By Bill Oakey – July 9, 2014

Late in the spring, tens of thousands of Austinites were stunned by the high property tax appraisals that they received in the mail.  Even if your appraisal did not increase at all, you were treated to daily newspaper stories about a looming City tax increase, two types of upcoming water rate increases, a 4.4% Austin Energy fuel increase for the second year in a row, a parade of utility add-on fee increases and so on.  Even Texas Gas Service managed to slide in a $1.69 monthly increase.  But the homeowners who saw their tax appraisals spiral out of control are the most worried, and rightfully so.  AISD would have to lower their tax rate to break even with last year’s revenue.  But they won’t because they are thrilled to have the extra money coming in from appraisal increases.

Then we were told that a double-decker boatload of bond propositions will come at us in November.  $1 billion for urban rail and roads, plus another $386 million for ACC.

What If I Told You That All of That Is Just the Front Edge of the Tip Of the Iceberg?

Between 2011 and 2013, I began compiling archived material on affordability with the intention of publishing a comprehensive report.  That report, which you can read here, ended up being just a bump in the road.  When I published it last August, I had no way of knowing that the avalanche of planned cost increases would soon reach levels that look not only unsustainable, but so wildly unimaginable as to be absurd.

Let’s cut to the chase and look at some examples:

1. The Capital Area Metropolitan Transit Organization (CAMPO) estimates that it will cost $32.4 billion to build roads, rail, and other transportation infrastructure between 2015 and 2040.  That comes out to $1.3 billion per year.  And, here’s the craziest part.  The local government share of those costs is pegged at 80%!  If you haven’t fallen off your chair yet, click here and see the projections on Page 7 of this report.  Even a good science fiction or fantasy writer would not abuse his readers with that level of tomfoolery.

2. The Travis County Downtown Campus Plan calls for over a billion in spending:

New Civil and Family Courthouse: $200-$300 million

Criminal Justice Center expansion and renovation: $512 million

New Central Booking Facility: $192 million

Renovation of Sweatt Travis County Courthouse: $92 million

Renovation of Ned Granger building and parking garage: $29 million

Plans, Plans, and More Plans

For every local taxing authority, there are ambitious and aggressively expensive plans.  Attempting to digest all of them at once would not be advisable for health reasons.  But they are highlighted in the discussion below, if you care to wade into them cautiously:

1. Imagine Austin Plan.  This is the all-encompassing Master Plan that envisions a new future city, divided into “mixed-use activity centers.”  This one is closely tied to the CodeNEXT zoning replacement plan and the Project Connect Strategic Mobility Plan.  In a nutshell, these plans call for clusters of super high-density multi-family housing units located near proposed rail stops.  One example of an “activity center” would be the ACC Highland Campus with private business partners and row after row of “new urbanist” apartment and condo buildings along Airport Blvd.  These might have some merit in theory.  However, the plans are designed to attract hundreds of thousand of new residents over time, and you and I will be asked to contribute billions of dollars in taxes, utilities, roads, trains, and buses to help pay for them.

2. The Corridor-ization of Austin.  This future city that will probably still be called Austin, is already being reshaped into “corridors.”  You’ve probably heard that the City is working on a major re-write of the Land Development Code.  CodeNEXT was and still is supposed to accomplish that.  However, it is gradually being implemented even before it is formally adopted.  I have been told that this is being done legally, through the use of “overlays.”  The zoning jargon is not my area of expertise, but suffice it to say that we are being CodeNEXT-ed before the new code policy is formally vetted and approved.  From the taxpayers’ perspective, we were given a clue on June 26, when the City Council adopted Chris Riley’s Resolution # 20140626-089.  The key phrase for taxpayers and utility ratepayers is this one:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

“The City Manager is directed to report the timeline for getting financing for public infrastructure on the mall site such as streets, streetscapes, water and wastewater amenities in place by the end of 2014. The report should also include a single point of contact for the partnership, a timeline for the form-based code for the Highland Mall site and the corridor, as well as plans to finance improvements along the corridor. This report should come to Council by August 1, 2014.”

My Comment:  We know that many other such corridors are already in the works.  To the extent that some of the activity centers might foster job training and paid internships, they could fulfill a useful purpose.  But there is certainly a limit to how much existing residents can afford to contribute  for new trains, buses, utilities, “streetscapes,” and other amenities for tens of thousands of high-density, mostly luxury housing units.

Do You Need a Calculator to Figure This Out?

No, not really.  It doesn’t take advanced math skills to determine that Austin would have to defy gravity and the rest of reality in order to sustain the costs for this litany of plans.  There are others, such as the University of Texas Medical District Master Plan, which calls for replacing Brackenridge Hospital and the Frank Erwin Center.  Travis County recently passed a Growth Guidance Plan.  And there’s the Downtown Austin Plan, which envisions turning Congress Avenue into the Champs Elysees, among other things.  And nobody knows yet what AISD will do about the bonds that failed to pass last year.

What we do know is that Austin’s hyper-growth may be showing signs of strain.  Forbes Magazine reports in its June 27 issue that Austin’s housing prices are the fifth most overvalued in the country, at 13%.  None of our local leaders want to consider the fact that successful private businesses never practice the policy of “build like crazy and hope for the best.”  If they continue to ignore the public’s ability to pay in all of their planning processes, I suppose they will eventually discover that Austin can’t defy gravity after all.

American-Statesman Readers React To Rail Plan

1 Reply

By Bill Oakey – July 2, 2014

In its online edition, the Austin American-Statesman has published a brief compilation of negative reader comments on the Project Connect urban rail plan.  These reflect the very tough sell that the mayor and other supporters of the plan will face in trying to promote the November bond proposition.  Although the paper’s editorial board has endorsed the plan, the piece that appears today shows their respect for the views of their readers.

Posted: 12:00 a.m. Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Urban rail and roads plan

By Staff

Special to the American-Statesman

Last week, the Austin City Council officially endorsed a plan for a $1 billion mixture of rail and road projects that includes the proposed urban rail line running from Highland Mall to south of Lady Bird Lake and continuing east along Riverside Drive. With the endorsement, rail planners for the city and Capital Metro can initiate an environmental study of the proposed 9.5-mile line.

Ryan Holden: They should really be on separate propositions. I’d vote for the road proposition, but not the railway proposition.

Donna Rene Johnston: Well, thank goodness they are building a line from Riverside to Highland Mall, because I travel between those two points all the time. SAID NO ONE EVER!

Katie Gorbea Araguz: They should be required to put pedestrian safety first … they need more SIDEWALKS especially in South Austin … a new ”rail” would just be a waste of money down the dang toilet … I’ll be telling City Council OFF if they get this over sidewalks and pedestrian safety!

Sunny Conditt Williams: I think the urban rail is a super good idea — quick, relatively safe — too bad it only runs to Highland Mall — and by the way, why there????

Joseph Iley: I vote no, unless the city implements a monorail plan. … Traffic is bad enough, taking lanes away to be installing rail defeats the purpose.

Shaunt Attarian: Hard to get excited about this rail proposal. The big dollars being put behind this project would be much better suited to build an effective rail line that serves areas where people need to go. Building a rail line along Lamar or Lavaca/Guadalupe would be a much better investment. Too bad our city leaders lack the daring and foresight to propose such a line. And why this train doesn’t go to the airport is frankly beyond comprehension. Second, why doesn’t this proposal include biking and pedestrian improvements in Austin? If we are trying to get cars off the road, we should be expanding transportation options that can replace cars, and building infrastructure that can support these alternatives.

Russell Dreyer: Why does this rail go from one ACC to another? Horrible planning, like always (MoPac should be interesting.) Good idea though. Reroute it.

Jeremy King: This is being shoved down our throats by a lame duck council on their way out! They aren’t listening that this route isn’t wanted and it will show up in Nov.!

————————————————————————————————————

Now, what was that old saying about lipstick…?

Lipstick On a Pig

Urban Rail Facts And Fantasy – What You Really Need To Know

2 Replies

By Bill Oakey – July 1, 2014

As the Project Connect PR campaign begins to heat up, it is important for people to take a close look at the facts and fictions behind the massively expensive bond proposal.  The best way to do that is to listen to the Project Connect team in their own words.  The video below is from the June 17th joint meeting of the Austin City Council and the Capital Metro Board.

Taxpayer Advisory:  Some of this material may cause stress and anxiety for taxpayers.  View With Caution

Here is a link to the joint meeting on June 17th.

The discussion begins with an overview of the East Riverside to Highland Mall route for the rail line.  You may have already heard some of the radio ads touting the notion that this plan for urban rail will “take hundreds of cars off the road.”  There are many organized pro-rail groups in Austin with some members that have been studying Austin rail for as long as 30 years.  These people are not against mass transit.  In fact they support it wholeheartedly.  It is for that very reason that we all need to carefully consider whether the Project Connect proposal gets it right.

Or whether it doesn’t.

Below is a quick summary of some of the most significant statements by the Project Connect team from the video, and what we can learn from them:

1. They list congestion as the #1 public concern.  Yet they openly admit that their ridership projections depend on new growth, which the rail will help generate. That’s a built-in contradiction! What it means is they have to literally BRING IN THE ADDITIONAL CARS THAT THEY ARE PROMISING TO TAKE OFF THE ROADS!

2. Their plans call for submitting the application for Federal funds three years from now.  There is already a long waiting list ahead of us.

3. They state that one of the most important factors in winning the competition for Federal funds is being able to show that the rail serves TRANSIT DEPENDENT RIDERS WHO LIVE IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING.  Where are the numbers in their projections to support that requirement? Where in the gentrified future of the eastern route will this “affordable housing” be?  What plans from the City can they point to that will accomplish that?

4. There was a huge gulf of uncertainty surrounding their discussion of projected operation and maintenance costs.  They talked about increasing fares, having Capitol Metro go into debt, and future increases in sales tax revenue.

5. Vague references were made to “partnering” with the City of Austin. (Code for taxing us).  One partnering method suggested was taking some of Austin’s parking revenues.  Of course, any funds sucked out of the Austin City Budget must be replaced by the taxpayers.

Maybe this group should change their name to “Project Collect.”

The truth is that they don’t know where the money will come from to pay for the operations and maintenance.  A better way to say that is that they don’t know which one or our pockets it would come from.  Another proposal has been floated to let the Austin Water Utility and Austin Energy “share” the cost of relocating utility lines along the rail route.  And guess who would wind up “sharing” those costs on their utility bills?

Going beyond the cost issues is the more fundamental question of value for the dollar.  Austin doesn’t need a bunch of naysayers running around yelping against urban rail simply because it will cost something to build and maintain.  What we do need is a thoughtful planning process that works with reliable and transparent data to back up the assumptions about ridership and cost.  And we need an open and inclusive process that is grounded in the principles of consensus-building among the stakeholders.

Since none of those things have been presented with the Project Connect plan, let’s vote NO on the bonds in November and work with the new district City Council members to get the job done right.

A Sad Day For All Sides In The Urban Rail Debate

1 Reply

By Bill Oakey – June 27, 2014

Early in the week, several citizen transit organizations were given a promise from the City Council.  They were told that no limit would be placed on the number of speakers at the Thursday meeting, and that they could count on the urban rail discussion commencing at 4:00 PM.

For two days, these groups coordinated with their members to line up speakers and prepare their presentations.  It seems very odd that the City would not have a standard policy to hold a public hearing on any major project slated to be placed on the bond ballot.  Especially one that includes both rail and roads and carries a price tag of a billion dollars.

Sadly, citizens were relegated to contacting various Council offices and asking for an answer to the haphazard guessing game of agenda item timing and whether the number of speakers could be unrestricted. Once the promise was granted, it was taken in good faith.

Then at the Council meeting, a bait and switch tactic was pulled.  A last minute decision was made to limit the number of speakers to 30 minutes for “each side.”  They took a vote on the matter and it passed 5-2, with Council Members Kathie Tovo and Chris Riley opposed.

The overflow crowd of citizens was understandably upset about the broken promise.  They did not even like being divided into “for” and “against.”  Many of them have years of experience as transit advocates. They wanted to have an honest discussion on the pros and cons of various aspects of Project Connect’s plan.  Some of these folks have worked in leadership positions or served on boards and commissions, earning them valuable expertise.  On Thursday they were summarily given a slap in the face.

What Austin witnessed on Thursday was an example of government at its worst.  We are left with an expensive urban rail plan that ended up being contentious and controversial. Instead of inviting the stakeholders to the table early in the process, and seriously attempting to craft a community consensus plan, the mayor let politics rule the process. This is a “my way or the highway” plan promoted by Mr. Leffingwell.  It passed on Thursday, but voters will have the last word.

Austin is a community that places high value on citizen involvement.  By casting that aside on one of our most pressing challenges, the supporters of the rail plan have sewn the seeds of its defeat in November.

This isn’t a matter of “Rail or Fail.”  It’s more like “Rail for Sale to No Avail.”  Let’s do the process better with the new City Council and get it right.

That new Council that we elect in November can take a lesson from this experience.  Voters will be crossing their fingers and clinging to some hope for a refreshing spirit of respect, transparency and inclusiveness. I say please bring it on!

Speak Against The Urban Rail Plan On Thursday

1 Reply

By Bill Oakey – June 24, 2014

Citizens who have called for a chance to speak on the urban rail plan will get their wish this Thursday.  The City Council has set the time for 4:00 PM, with no limit on the number of speakers.  The good news is that this will not be a post-midnight meeting.  The Council has decided to hear three major topics that will draw speakers, with the urban rail plan being one of those.  After that they will most likely adjourn and finish the rest of the crowded agenda on Friday.  This scheduling update was provided by Council Member Kathie Tovo’s office.

You Can Sign Up Now To Speak Against Item #64

You can sign up at City Hall, 301 W. 2nd Street, anytime between now and whenever the item is called after 4:00 on Thursday.  Here are just a few of the reasons to oppose the current urban rail plan:

1. Many of us would like to support mass transit, but this is not the best plan for Austin.  The route from Highland Mall to East Riverside is not a densely populated area, and would do more to help land speculators and developers hoping to attract newcomers than current residents. The population patterns behind the 2000 urban rail route along Guadalupe and Lamar still make sense.  That ballot initiative passed within the City of Austin, and only failed at the polls because of opposition from outlying towns.

2. The $1 billion price tag would land you a property tax increase of $160 per year within five years on a $200,000 home.  That would come on top of a multitude of other tax increases between now and then.

3. The City Council is likely to bundle a 60 / 40 split for rail and roads into a single bond proposition for the November ballot.  The $1 billion cost would cover both.  Voters should not be forced to accept a questionable and highly unpopular rail plan in order to vote for road improvements. The hastily throw-together batch of mostly I-35 improvements was contrived only for the purpose of “sweetening” the rail vote, and citizens should reject that tactic outright.

4. Those who say “We have to start somewhere” should be informed that if the bonds pass in November, Project Connect plans to install permanent concrete dedicated bus lanes along the competing Lamar / Guadalupe route, closing it off forever to urban rail.

5. Project Connect has come up with a new humdinger of a deal to reduce the cost of the rail plan.  If you like paying your water and electric bills now, you will love this great idea!  They have decided to “share” the cost of relocation of utility lines along the rail route with the Austin Water Utility and Austin Energy.

A better sharing plan would be to email this blog posting to your friends and share it on Facebook and Twitter.

Can The People Take Control Under The New 10-1 City Council?

7 Replies

By Bill Oakey – June 23, 2014

We often hear that the City of Austin is at a crossroads.  Some call it a tipping point.  Water, traffic, and affordability have overwhelmed the community.  And unless we do something to change direction, the status quo threatens to put our neighborhoods and our very way of life at risk.

The new 10-1 district representation system for the Austin City Council offers an unprecedented opportunity for people at the grassroots level to take control of their destiny.  After all, the citizens are listed at the top of the City’s official organization chart.  But for far too long, we have been subjugated to the whims of special interests, most often with the assistance of their hand-picked outside consultants.

Austin maintains a council-manager form of government, rather than the strong-mayor type. Our mayor simply chairs the meetings, and has no more power than the other members.  However, most major decisions voted on by the City Council are filtered through the city staff at the behest of a very powerful city manager.  Our current city manager, Marc Ott, has often been depicted as a puppet of the powerful big business and real estate interests.  He manifests his control over the City in part by refusing to provide detailed responses to written questions from boards and commissions, or even to questions from our elected council members.

How Can the People Wrest Control Away From the Special Interests?

Step one has already been laid in front of us with the November election of council members from neighborhood districts.  Once these grassroots candidates are elected, we should insist that they hold some neighborhood forums to introduce us to candidates for a new city manager.  If the current City Council does not appoint an interim city manager from within the existing executive team, then the new City Council should do that early next year.  Then, they should seek community input on the selection of a permanent city manager who will be accountable to all the people.

How Can the District Council Members Best Represent the Interests of the People?

We should consider establishing formal lines of communication between council members and neighborhood leaders and other interested citizens from within each district.  Status quo communication is very haphazard and disorganized.  Have you ever tried to obtain a time-certain from a Council member on when a particular City Council agenda item might come up for discussion?  The rule of thumb is that you alert your friends and neighbors of a critical issue posted for action in the upcoming week.  Then you try to organize speakers to go to the council meeting.  You could wait as long as from 10:00 AM on Thursday morning until the meeting adjourns as late as 3:30 AM on Friday morning.

Under a new system of people-centric governance, the communication between district neighbors and their council member would not have to wait until the regular council meeting.  A website or Facebook page could be used to facilitate the communication.  Liaisons within each district could communicate through newsletters and listservs about pending issues that affect their area or the City at large.  District Council Members should hold regular meetings and forums right in their districts, as well as at City Hall.  Under the current system, a typical citizen is lucky to get a Council member or a policy aide to return a phone call or email.  There is no worthwhile process for the people to be effectively heard.

The Two Biggest Projects That Will Shape Our Future

There are two huge projects that directly affect affordability and the prospect of existing residents to survive Austin’s current transformation.

1. The Urban Rail Plan – The massively expensive plan to install electric streetcars from Highland Mall through U.T.’s new Medical District and across Lady Bird Lake to East Riverside is a dream scenario for land speculators and developers in the northeastern and southeastern sectors.  It would do little to help transportation for the heavy concentration of existing residents in North, Central, and West Austin.  The important thing to keep in mind here is that most of the route for urban rail was pre-ordained in 2008 by a consultant study.  See a 2008 Austin Chronicle report here.  For an eye-opening view of the gentrification and affordability issues with Washington D.C.’s new urban rail system, click here.

Those who say that “We have to start somewhere” should be aware that if the rail bonds pass, the other competing rail route along Lamar and Guadalupe would be removed from future consideration.  Project Connect has already planned to lay permanent concrete dedicated bus lanes along that route after the bond election.  For all of these reasons, we should vote no on the bonds and let the new City Council work with the entire community on an inclusive plan that earns broad based citizen support.

2. The Revision of the Land Development Code

You have probably heard about CodeNEXT.  This was sold to us as an opportunity to streamline and modernize our outdated land development code.  It was supposed to make it cheaper and less time consuming to remodel your home or expand or remodel an existing local business. But once again, it has been commandeered by the special interests and a very clever consulting team.

Just take a look at one report that has come out of the “community involvement” process.  Click here to see the “Listening to the Community Report.”  You will see lots of charts, graphs, and categories of significant issues raised by the citizens who attended the public meetings.  But notice the carefully and skillfully designed format of the report.  You can search every line on every page and you will see no summaries of public opinions of any kind whatsoever!

Yes, all of the prevailing issues are there: affordability, walkability, compatibility.  The word “density” is sprinkled generously throughout the pages.  But absolutely nowhere will you see a gauge of public opinion on maintaining compatibility in neighborhoods, limiting density, or even a clue as to what types of changes, if any, that the neighborhood participants would like to see. All one has to do, however, is read between the lines and look around to areas of Austin that have already been transformed.  What you will see is gentrification and high density, vertical mixed use (VMU) developments, nearly all of which contain luxury-priced living units.  Expect these buildings to arrive soon at a neighborhood near you.

Even more disturbing is another CodeNEXT report, called the “Land Development Code Diagnosis.”  On Page 30 you will find a pronouncement that individual neighborhood plans are “too restrictive” and “too complex,” compared to the envisioned scenario of a one-size-fits-all system, where anybody can build anything anywhere without too many burdensome regulations!

Here again, we need the new City Council to revisit the entire concept of rewriting the land development code.  But the involvement of the community and the format of the reports need to reflect what the people really want, as opposed to the pre-ordained whims of national consultants and the local special interests who control them like puppets on a string.

Where’s The City Council Public Hearing On Urban Rail?

2 Replies

By Bill Oakey – June 17, 2014

On Thursday June 26, the Austin City Council is set to make one of the biggest decisions in modern Austin history.  They will vote on a resolution to approve the “Project Connect” urban rail plan, including the Riverside to Highland Mall route and the proposed funding.  The actual wording of the November bond proposition will come in a separate vote in August.

But there is one crucial omission in this process – a public hearing.

The City Council and the Capital Metro Board met this morning in a joint session to discuss the final urban rail plan.  This meeting will be broadcast on the City’s cable channel at 2:00 PM today, and a video of the meeting will be posted soon to the City of Austin’s website.

Many voters may not be aware of what exactly constitutes “Project Connect.”  It is a group of representatives from local governing bodies and their staffs that has been working on an all-encompassing mass transportation plan for the Austin area.  It includes rapid buses, commuter rail, and regional rail, in addition to the proposed urban rail project.  If you happen to belong to a community organization that hosted a Project Connect open house, or if you knew who they were and went to their website or Facebook page, then you might have a better idea of what is at stake in this major transportation initiative.

Unfortunately though, the urban rail project has not been communicated well enough yet for the average person on the street to understand what the proposal entails.  Just yesterday at the grocery store, a person mentioned that he had heard about the plan but did not know much about it.  “Does it go to the airport?” he asked me.  Nope.

There are two interesting things that I just learned about the plan within the past few days.  One is that Project Connect only decided towards the end of the planning process to include a tunnel at the north end of route near Hancock Center.  Somebody realized that there are other railroad tracks in that neighborhood, and that a new rail system would have to get over, under or around them somehow.  The other is that Project Connect’s plan includes constructing two permanent, dedicated bus lanes along the rapid bus route on Guadalupe / Lamar.  So, if anyone was looking at this fall’s bond election as “We have to start somewhere,” while assuming that more urban rail would soon be coming to a neighborhood near you, then keep these facts in mind.

Now, we are only days away from a City Council resolution that will set in stone the route and the funding plans for one of the biggest projects that Austin voters have encountered in at least 14 years.  (Since the last urban rail vote in 2000).  But the Council is planning to consider that resolution without a public hearing.

If you think a public hearing would be helpful, please use this link to contact all of the City Council members and ask for one to be scheduled at or before their June 26th meeting.

Who Do You Know That Supports The Highland Mall To Riverside Rail Plan?

4 Replies

By Bill Oakey – June 6, 2014

Quick question – How many friends, neighbors and acquaintances do you know that plan to vote for the Highland Mall to Riverside urban rail bonds in November?

What was that…say again…?

Try asking that question the next time you are at a restaurant, a backyard gathering, a party, or a civic function.  The first thing you might hear is that they haven’t really thought enough about it.  Or, you might hear that they need to wait and see what the City Council decides to put on the ballot.

What you probably will not hear is a resounding chorus of support for the proposed rail plan and the staggering stair steps of annual property tax increases that come along with it.  (The Austin American-Statesman reported that the tax bite could raise our property taxes by 15% over the next six years).

I’ve been to enough public events over the past year to know that the kind of broad support needed to pass the rail bonds is simply not there.  The core voters who turn out for every Austin election do not have the “yes word” on their lips when the subject comes up.

What’s even more telling is how seldom the subject comes up at all.

We all hear a lot about traffic and transportation, and how Austin needs to find a way to deal with it.  But in all my discussions with various City Council candidates for the districts and the mayor’s race, not a single one has voluntarily brought up the Highland Mall to Riverside rail plan or told me that they were clamoring for it to pass.

And I will go another step further.  I’ve had numerous appointments with current City Council members on affordability issues since last year.  Not a single one of them has urged me to support the urban rail plan.  This tells me that at least some of them probably dread the fact that they are up against an August deadline to make a decision on what to put on the November ballot.  I strongly suspect that several Council members toss and turn at night, wishing that the issue would simply go away.  With the possible exception of Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

So, Where Does That Leave Austin After The Rail Bonds Fail?

That will be the subject of my blog posting on Monday.  You might be very surprised at the positive outcome that I will predict.