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0 pointstidepod125y ago0 comments

Have you ever been to Austin? It has the worst transportation network in the entire state of Texas, and that's a really low bar. The bus network is mediocre at best, the rail system (actually only one line) is practically useless, and there's only two highways that are notoriously gridlocked at all hours, even in non rush-hour.

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adventured5y ago

The context of SF and Austin are obviously entirely different in terms of direction, momentum, it makes sense Austin wouldn't yet have a great public transportation system.

Austin TX wasn't rich 20 years ago, where was the money going to come from to build a nice transportation network? It's booming at present and will be very rich 20 years from now (most likely). It has a bad transportation network because it was underdeveloped for the prior decades as with much of Texas. The question going forward is what they'll do with their growth and rising affluence, how they'll utilize that (or not).

songshuu5y ago

Yeah, but they just passed Project Connect so expect that to change quite a bit. https://www.capmetro.org/project-connect

tidepod12OP5y ago

I'm excited about Project Connect, but let's not kid ourselves: construction on the rail lines and highway improvements isn't even going to begin until 2024, with completion dates (barring no delays) in 2029, with most of the completion dates in the mid 2030s.

At Austin's current rate of growth, by the time Project Connect makes any material progress, it'll already be obsolete and overburdened.

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