San Antonio to Austin,Georgetown: Lone Star Rail moves ahead in Texas

As I was not able to find a real discussion thread about the Lone Star commuter rail project in Texas, except for a short one from years and years ago, a new one is started here, in case that is not adequate, please move or delete.

Since back in 2000, the citizens of San Antonio voted down a proposed light rail system, to many it might have seemed like that for decades to come, the only rail service the city of San Antonio will see, will be the daily Amtrak service to Chicago, or thrice-weekly Amtrak service towards Los Angeles and New Orleans.

For illustration, here is a link to a map of the proposed light rail system that was voted down in 2000:

http://www.lightrail.com/maps/sanantonio/sanantonio.htm

Meanwhile in 2014, there is a very concrete, promising attempt to build a streetcar system in San Antonio, which is generating much public discussion - while at the same time, the Lone Star commuter rail project that seems to move forward very quickly, seems to receive comparatively less attention. Some might think this project also would be worth it to dedicate a little attention to, especially seeing how much progress already happened in the last years.

Quoting from the Lone Star Rail District's website, here is what kind of rail service it should be:

Plans provide for LSTAR's full service schedule to include:

• Up to 32 trains a day, including midday and evening service, 7 days a week in each direction for commuters, students and other regional travelers.
• Modern, safe, clean and comfortable passenger cars with amenities including wireless Internet access.
• 75-minute express service from downtown Austin to downtown San Antonio, with stops in San Marcos and New Braunfels.
• Local service from Georgetown to the South Side of San Antonio with stops at all stations in between.
• Up to sixteen new stations in convenient locations with ample secure parking, comfortable waiting areas and connections to local transit.

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To be able to provide the passenger rail service on the current Union Pacific line, the freight service is supposed to be moved onto new tracks to be built east of the current corridor - which seems to create a double benefit: the passenger rail operations have the corridor (at least mostly) to themselves, enabling reliable operations, and freight rail moves reliably on new tracks, while the downtowns will be relieved off of the freight rail traffic going through them, which is especially important for transit oriented development around the stations.

Here is the proposed map of service, taken directly from the Lone Star Rail District's website:



Source: http://lonestarrail.com/index.php/lstar/map/

Last year, an interesting chain of events could be observed in the system's most northern city served, beautiful Georgetown, Texas.

After 6 years of being a member in the Lone Star Rail District, at its June 25 meeting, the Georgetown city council decided to leave the district.

But after a lot of feedback from the community, at its September 10 meeting, the decision was reversed, with mayor and city council voting for rejoining the Lone Star Rail district, just two and a half months later.

The following TV news report shows how the citizens showed up at the September 10 city council meeting, and the large majority of them passionately spoke in favor of rail to Georgetown:

Georgetown back on board with rail project
by KRIS BETTS / KVUE News and photojournalist DATHAN HULL
Posted on September 10, 2013 at 10:38 PM
Updated Wednesday, Sep 11 at 10:11 AM
http://www.kvue.com/news/Georgetown-back-on-board-rail-project-through-Austin-to-San-Antonio-223234971.html

Since summer of last year, the Lone Star Rail District was able to come to prelimiary agreements both with the city of Austin, and with the city of San Marcus, about possible local funding for the rail line.

The following TV news report is about most recently, the city of Kyle also signed on of those agreements:

Rail project funding accelerates to connect Austin and San Antonio
By Amanda Brandeis

Updated: Thursday, May 22, 2014, 6:03 am

Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 11:04 am

http://kxan.com/2014/05/21/lone-star-rail-securing-local-funds/

The next step seems to be to conduct an environmental study, which is reported to start later this year.

Press reports repeatedly mention that trains could start rolling in five to seven years if everything goes perfect, which - some might think - might mean that realistically it is probably going to take longer than that.

No matter what the exact number of years until service begins may be, many might continue to follow or possibly even support the development of this new passenger rail service, as it might have such a positive effect on all the cities served, and the metro regions of San Antonio and Austin as a whole as well as the corridor inbetween.

Since I live in the Peoples Republic of Austin which is full of NIMBYs and Antis of every stripe, I have to say on this one I'm from Missouri, show me the money!

Were going to vote on light rail/street car schemes in the fall and there ready is much political wrangling going on since we are also fighting more toll roads being built in the SW part of the city!

It took 10 years and a Billion dollars for Cap Metro to get the less than successful Red Line into operation and pundits here predict a defeat for the proposals in the non presidential year election!(is very light voter turnout!)

We are also electing a new mayor and a new City Council of 10 along with a new Governor as the current Cowboy rides away!

Most Texas politicians are bright red and catering to the wing nuts that abound and there is also the UP Railroad to consider, where will the Billions come from to reroute the tracks East of Austin which is growing like crazy and where land is selling g by the square foot! The two daoly Texas Eagles are delayed by freights constantly between Ft Worth and San Antonio and especially through Austin which is single tracked from Lady Bird Lake North up the MoPac Exptressway!

I'd say that this scheme is on a par with the Vegas X Train!

Thank you for posting about the Lone Star Rail project in the beautiful state of Texas.

It's inspiring to hear many different thoughts about this topic.

Right now, just wanting to respond briefly, there is one detail that is factually incorrect:

jimhudson said:

It took 10 years and a Billion dollars for Cap Metro to get the less than successful Red Line into operation[.]

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The investment necessary to get the MetroRail Red Line into operation was not $1 billion, instead significantly less, different sources suggest the capital cost for the new rail line was about $100 million.

The American Statesmen mentioned the cost of MetroRail's Red Line as $105 million:

Rail project in final stages, officials say
By Ben Wear
Updated: 11:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 | Posted: 11:14 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/rail-project-in-final-stages-officials-say-1/nRhD9/


The Downtown Austin Blog mentioned $110 million as the project's cost:

Do UT Students Use/Care About MetroRail?
by Nicole Sanseverino
October 27, 2010
http://downtownaustinblog.org/2010/10/27/do-ut-students-usecare-about-metrorail/

Some might argue that some other rail-related investments also should be accounted towards Red Line costs, still even with those under no circumstance the cost was $1 billion, the whole point of the project was to start rail service quickly and cheaply after in 2000 a more comprehensive rail plan requiring very narrowly did not find approval in a referendum.

It would be helpful to not cite the cost of a starting a new rail service at about tenfold of what it actually was.

Oops, apologies, I meant to type several hundred million instead of a billion, the articles you referenced didn't include the firing and paying off of Vielo and having to hire Herzog to get the line into service long past the original deadline proposed by Cap Metro!

And the Austin Real Estatesman has about as much credibility as The Onion when it comes to reporting the truth!

With the operating losses that the Red Line has incurred since service has begun the total figure is unknown but estimates by anti-rail and anti-tax activists are that several hundred

million dollars have been spent on basically an under used and poorly thought out project!

Thank you for your post.

jimhudson said:

Oops, apologies, I meant to type several hundred million instead of a billion, the articles you referenced didn't include the firing and paying off of Vielo and having to hire Herzog to get the line into service long past the original deadline proposed by Cap Metro!

[...]

With the operating losses that the Red Line has incurred [...]

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Many people might have understanding for having frustrations f.e. with a certain rail service, or with a local newspaper or anything else, just as well as when one has to correct factually incorrectly information repeatedly.

Several hundred million is factually incorrect to "get the [...] Red Line into operation", as it was less than that, and the link above did mention an amount of $35 million paid to Veolia, though it did not mention to what extent it possibly was refunded. According to both Merriam-Webster and the Oxford dictionary, several is defined of "more than two but not very many", so "several hundred million" means three hundred million or more, which is incorrect, as $105 to $110 million is not $300 million or more. Not discussing to what extent it would be valid to do so, but even including an extra $35 million the cost to "get the [...] Red Line into operation" was neither $1 billion nor "several hundred million". As the initial statement was "a Billion dollars for Cap Metro to get the [...] Red Line into operation", then of course most pople might realize how the investment to set the system up and ongoing annual operating costs are two different things. Many might think of course it is legit to criticize any rail service, still at the same time it would be helpful not to inflate the numbers when citing its cost in a factually incorrect way.

Thank you again for this conversation about commuter rail service between San Antonio and Austin and Georgetown.

jimhudson said:

Most Texas politicians are bright red and catering to the wing nuts that abound[...]

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Of course there might be many different opinions on any topic, and that is legit, at the same time some might think that already in Texas in the past it was possible to implement commuter rail systems like Trinity Railway Express between Dallas and Fort Worth, or Denton's A-Train. Currently it also seems like plans are moving forward regarding the Cotton Belt rail line. So with all these kinds of commuter rail developments currently existing in the state of Texas, it seems that also in the conservative part of the political spectrum rail must enjoy support to some extent, because otherwise it would not have happened. So some might think possibly in the next years this support for commuter rail cannot only be seen in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, instead also for the Lone Star Rail corridor.

jimhudson said:

where will the Billions come from to reroute the tracks East of Austin which is growing like crazy and where land is selling g by the square foot!

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According to the Lone Star Rail District's web site, a freight bypass is planned for a corridor from Seguin to Taylor. It might seem to some like population density along that corridor is not so high yet, to make construction of a freight bypass line impossible.

Not to get into political discussions but your point about rail in the DFW Metroplex is Excellent but I'll point out that Dallas and Ft Worth( along with Houston) is now a Democratic leaning area! Due to the huge influx of people into the Austin area we are now voting against School Bond issues, Affordable Housing issues and Rail and Toll Roads even though our traffic is basically in gridlock!

Trust me when I say were dealing with UP and greedy developers when it comes to talk of relocating freight tracks and it will cost umpteen Billions, where will the money come from??? No one wants their taxes raised and with the mess in Washington no mana from heaven is gonna fall on Central Texas to pay for this scheme!

I'll pull back my money amount with a quote from the late Senator Dirksen, " A Billion here, a Billion there, pretty soon we're talking about real money!

jimhudson said:

Not to get into political discussions but your point about rail in the DFW Metroplex is Excellent but I'll point out that Dallas and Ft Worth( along with Houston) is now a Democratic leaning area!

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At least me, I don't mind political discussions (being aware that my personal opinion is irrelevant ).

Aside from the fact that Bexar County (and of course Travis County as well) voted blue in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, it might seem to some that looking at things in a partisan way is not always helpful. In case one cares about the human beings, and thus about a certain issue, then it's more helpful to look at the positions of each elected representative regarding that issue - independent of party affiliation.

Being aware that this is a completely different issue, still just as an example, when passing the Connecticut's historic GMO labeling law, I was told by a local Sierra Club group that they had an easier time with some members of the party that they thought they would have a harder time with, and vice versa...

When it comes to the issue of passenger rail, to some it might seem like that Democratic or Republican doesn't give much away about the position on the issue as well, as became clear f.e. last year when two members of the same party (though not both congressmen, but still) met in a crogressional hearing, and Republican and former Meridian,MS mayor and former chair of Amtrak’s board of directors stood up in a what many thought sensational way to Amtrak critic Rep. John Mica (R, Winter Park, FL). To read more about that interaction last September, it's here: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/07/09/amtrak-foe-mica-meets-his-match-in-john-robert-smith/

jimhudson said:

No one wants their taxes raised [...]

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To some it might seem like, even in Austin or Travis county, this above statement doesn't apply when phrased so general.

The city of Austin raised the property tax rate several times while the economic downtown happened and property values went down, in order to still try to generate similar revenue than before the downtown (and recently, as property values rise again, it's lowered again, in 2013, to 50.29 cents per $100 of property value in 2012 to 50.27 cents, and in 2014 it's about to be lowered down to 49.57 cents per $100).

So in case "nobody" among the citizens of Austin would not have been ok with that property tax increase, they surely would not have voted then-city council member Lee Leffingwell into the mayor's office, and not have reelected him in 2012.

And in Travis county, in November 2012, voters approved a proposition to raise property taxes for health care, from 7.89 cents per $100 of assessed value to 12.9 cents, a 63 percent increase.

So in case "nobody" among the citizens of Travis county would not have wanted the tax raise, then surely not so many citizens would have voted in favor of it.

jimhudson said:

[...] with the mess in Washington no mana from heaven is gonna fall on Central Texas to pay for this scheme!

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It seems like so far, year after year, the federal legislative agreed to allocate funding toward rail improvements, f.e. within the TIGER grant program, and the federal executive was able to award federal funding to specific projects, f.e. within the TIGER grant program. Of course to some it might seem like each time it is a new lengthy process that a budget compromise needs to be reached, still when taking the past and present should be any guideline for the future, then rail funding should not be completely eliminated. That might also keep the possibility alive that also Lone Star Rail possibly might get more federal funding. The Lone Star Rail district already received federal funding for planning work in the past. As other commuter rail projects recently received federal funding for construction, it seems not impossible that Lone Star Rail might once the project progressed to where construction could begin.

jimhudson said:

Trust me when I say were dealing with UP and greedy developers when it comes to talk of relocating freight tracks [...]

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According to the official website, in 2010, the Lone Star Rail District already hammered out a memorandum of understanding with Union Pacific. And in 2012, the Rail District completed an alternative alignments analysis on the freight rail bypass, and then decided it will take three alignments forward into the federal environmental process.

Of course final negotiations with Union Pacific can only be carried out when the environmental review process is finished, so the private freight rail company can take a look at when bypass corridor exactly it is agreeing to. Lone Star Rail also has to purchase land around the planned freight bypass track.

The following article by the San Antonio Express News from April 2013 details some of the funding already set aside for the freight bypass:

The Legislature created the rail relocation and improvement fund in 2005, but more than $180 million for the fund still has not been certified by the state comptroller, and observers are pessimistic about it being released. In 2011, state lawmakers set aside $50 million for the fund but that money will only be released as a match to federal dollars, [the rail district's director Joe] Black said.

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source:

Does LSTAR need a San Antonio cheerleader?

By Vianna Davila

April 4, 2013 Updated: April 5, 2013 4:46pm

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Does-LSTAR-need-a-San-Antonio-cheerleader-4410455.php

jimhudson said:

[...] it will cost umpteen Billions, where will the money come from???

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Not detailing how "umpteen" is probably incorrectly indicating a higher number than the estimated 2.4, preliminary agreements for local funding are already finished with the cities of Austin, San Marcos and Kyle, as mentioned above. And currently negationations are supposedly going on with San Antonio, Round Rock and Georgetown. Local investments will of course only be part of funding the project's total cost, still many think that this committment by the cities is making it more likely for state or federal funding to be allocated as well. The article linked above states that one challenge yet is that it seems more challanging in San Antonio to generate funding from taxes on new development around the stations, as the land by the airport station is tax exempt, and the Texas A&M campus station as well.

At this point, some are probably just looking forward to the federal environmental study, for both the new passenger service, and the freight bypass. Because some might think, once that is finished, then even more conversations on funding construction might be seen...

Thanks for the info, I'm still skeptical about this scheme and the funding but if it happens I'll be glad!

The biggest problem we have with this whole issue of rail and politics is that way too many people are trying to drag into the political arena transportation issues that are reality non-political. Many of the "red" areas are red due to reasons that have nothing to do with transportation, and would stay that way even if the pro/anti rail issue viewpoints swapped parties. While there is much made of the anti Calif HSR views in the Central Valley, the strongest anti-HSR rail voices are from some of the deepest "blue" areas in the entire country.

A major reason that UP and any other railroad company lacks enthusiasm for this scheme is that over the years there have been so many schemes put on paper to modify or move their tracks, add passenger trains, etc., etc. that they have little interest in putting the manpower and money into involving themselves with these things until it is clear that these various dream schemes show high possibilities of becoming real. It also need mentioning that many of these schemes included completely ridiculous assumptions as to what the railroad will or will not do and a lack of concern about the realities of the railroad operating world.

Things slowly moving forward for Lone Star Rail - the city of Austin agreed to provide its share of funding for operations and maintenance:

Council approves funding for commuter rail project

December 11, 2014

By Kate Weidaw

http://kxan.com/2014/12/11/city-council-set-to-vote-on-funding-another-commuter-rail-project/

Although this project (along with most passenger rail proposals in south and central TX) seems like an unlikely long shot for actual operation (let alone sufficient ongoing support and usage) the honest truth is that the San Antonio - Austin corridor remains ripe for improvement. We are quickly approaching the day when there will be no obvious end of one town or beginning of the next. All signs seem to indicate that San Antonio and Austin will eventually merge into a single metro area. The cities are too close to be practical for air transport while the roads are woefully inadequate for efficient vehicular traffic as currently implemented. In addition to the usual intercity demand there are a growing number of arbitrage commuters who work in or near Austin while living as far away as the suburbs of San Antonio. An expensive privately funded toll road is in the process of being bailed out by taxpayers without having improved the situation in any demonstrable capacity. As with the Keystone XL project the toll road primarily promotes unrelated international commercial transport while offering little if any sustained benefit to the vast majority of local residents.

George Harris said:

The strongest anti-HSR rail voices are from some of the deepest "blue" areas in the entire country.

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Do you have a source for this claim?

I think the strongest voices on both sides come from deep blue areas because that's where a the subject actually comes up. In a lot of other areas, there tends to be fairly low-level "casual" (in the sense that the opposition is mostly rhetoric from people with little to no direct stake in the matter) opposition, while both sides get a lot more invested when the matter actually affects them.

TV report on the current open houses:

Rail connecting Georgetown, San Antonio moves forward

January 22, 2015

By Amber Downing and Ashley Goudeau

http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/2015/01/21/rail-line-could-connect-austin-to-san-antonio/22125561/

jimhudson said:

...With the operating losses that the Red Line has incurred since service has begun the total figure is unknown but estimates by anti-rail and anti-tax activists are that several hundred million dollars have been spent on basically an under used and poorly thought out project!

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Just out of curiosity, which rail projects do these people believe are successful and well thought out?

And how accurate have their estimates been when double-checked?

The problem is with Cap Metro( Operator of Bus and Rail in Austin), lots of their documents and info are considered " privliged" backed up by an AGs ( now the Governor of Texas)opinion that allows them to keep contracts, finances etc private!) So no- one really knows just how much the Red Line has really cost to build and operate!

The Texas Legislature is in session and one of the T- Partie's ( they dominate Texas politics)priorities is make the Cap Metro Board elective. Currently the Board is appointed by the Mayor of Austin and other area Politicos and includes City Council Members and other connected people!

We just elected a New Mayor and a 10 Member Council with 9 New Members, so what the New Board will look like is anyone's guess? CapMetro has announced Fare Increases and Service Cuts for Bus and Rail that take effect soon, but no real details on just how much the service will be affected.

The recent Light Rail/Highway Bond scheme failed in the Nov election and the ex Mayor ( who called the Plan " Rail or Fail!") is saying it will be 10 years before another Light Rail proposal will be on the ballot!

Meanwhile traffic gridlock gets worse and Toll Roads keep getting built that solve nothing!

There's lots of info on the net, and numbers are thrown around by the various interests, but it's hard to believe any of them since it's so political! This includes the various audits, press releases etc etc etc!