[jimhudson]

Just in, the Austin City Council has decided that the next Phase of the Loooooooooong delayed light rail (aka "The Red Line") will NOT be headed by CapMetro. The proposed $600 million line from downtown to the airport will be awarded by bid to an outside contractor to be determined!What is so funny is that 2 of the members of the CapMetro board responsible for the "Not in Our Lifetime" Red Line (aka "The Dead Line") are the Mayor and a City Council Member from the City of Austin. Already some of the members and the anti-crowd are saying that fares will have to be raised and taxes increased to pay for it! And so it goes in River City rail land, aka OZ!!!

[stntylr]

Aren't they looking at running a streetcar out to the airport? The streets are about the only to use a right of way out there.

[jimhudson]

stntylr, on Wed, Dec 9, 2009, 09:54 PM, said:

Aren't they looking at running a streetcar out to the airport? The streets are about the only to use a right of way out there.

That was one of the proposals Stan but now they want to study the Congress and S. First street bridges to see if they could support light rail, I would think that running East to 183 ( the new Airport Blvd.) would be the way to go but this is Austin so expect something that might make sense on an episode of Monty Python! Knowing Austin like I do I expect mucho money to be spent on studies/plans/task forces etc. not to mention the all important enviromental impact study which costs more than than anything now-a-days! I figure my granddaughter might get to ride the Austin light rail by the time she graduates from UT in 2024, in other words its Science Fiction!

[jimhudson]

Breaking News: Dateline Comedy City! CapMetro just announced that the contractor that had been managing/mis-managing the long delayed RedLine Light Rail project for the Austin area has been fired! Veolia was accused on mismanaging the project which is over two years late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget!

Herzog Transportation, operators of the TRE trains in Fort Worth has been contracted to take over the project immediately and Capitol Metro announced that they hoped that Herzog would consider hiring some of the employees that had worked for Veolia since they were familiar with the project.

It was also announced that the target date of "early next year" for operations to begin was still an achievable goal!

This post has been edited by jimhudson: 10 December 2009 - 08:10 AM

[Green Maned Lion]

Well, anything Veolia isn't involved with is a good thing. Remember Chatsworth.