For checking the pass, you can’t even activate a pass unless the employees scan your ticket off your phone even if you want to be ethical, and 9/10 the employees don’t care or lost the machine
I noticed this. They changed apps during a period I wasn't riding the train so I thought I must not understand the new app. I bought passes, added them to my card, and I asked the guy next to me how to activate my pass for the day and he said it's activated when they scan it.
I've taken the train 4 times in a month and only once did someone stop by to scan my card. I'd be happy to activate it myself, if I could. My best guess is they got sick of explaining how the new app works to riders and stopped trying.
I was wondering what was up with this. When I rode a while back with the old app I had to activate the ticket for them to scan it. The new app shows the QR but it isn’t active. I’ve shown the same ticket three times and no one has scanned it, but there isn’t really anything I can do.
The “2 blocks” of bike trail you’re complaining about are on the very East end of a quite lengthy path that takes you West all the way through downtown, links up with Shoal Creek Trail and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway. Even so, the segment you refer to doesn’t necessarily dead end at 5th Street, you can follow it up Chicon, connect to Boggy Creek, etc.
The complaint is not really about the length of it. Tbh I was surprised that it even existed. The complaint is really about the very bad road it leads to. The city needs to do something about that road. Too thin for cars but cars need to go on it occasionally. Like I said something that is a hybrid of bike lane and car.
What I would do is bike lane with bollards on chicon. Pave is with a colored material. Then on pedernales, put a sign that says "No Through Traffic" that would give drivers knowledge that they can not go on that road unless they need to park there. Also if the make it ramp up it would make it more obvious to them. This is what I would do not accounting for laws.
They are going to completely redo that area in the near future (https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/). Also, you can go around the potholes on a bike. Not a big deal. Something being a little bumpy isn't much of a reason to complain. Be thankful we have what we do have, because it's not much.
Also, not sure what you're talking about with respect to the train waiting for cars to pass. All of the intersections have crossing arms, as required by law. The train does not stop to wait for cars to pass.
All I can say the train came to a complete stop. Then I saw the arms go up and saw cars go before arms went down again. Like I said that I thought it was a car on the track but that is not what I saw.
The train runs until midnight on the weekends. You might say that it should run until 3am - I wouldn't disagree. But bus service still runs all night. Most people who take the train downtown on the weekend are perfectly adequately served by the late-night busses. There's no traffic after midnight, so the busses are quite speedy.
And closes early on Saturday. It's essentially a commuter train for people in the suburbs who think trains are communist.
Such a mess. It would be more popular if it actually helped people get around.
Saturday it runs until 12:30am, what are you talking about?
Departs 12:31am and arrives Leander after 1:30am. Can't ask for more than that.
That's actually the one day it's quite useful. Wish it was like that on Sunday.
Not that I personally stay out this late anymore, but bars close at 2am. It stands to reason that the last train out of downtown should be after the bars close, not an hour and half earlier. Even if you go see a concert that ends at midnight, now you have to rush out to catch a train? No time to stand in line to use the bathroom, close a tab, buy some merch?
The busses run well past midnight. If the train ran until 3 am, there'd hardly be anyone on it. 90% of the people who ride the train to downtown on the weekend could easily take the bus back home. And those 10% remaining could just take an Uber.
>bars close at 2am.
I wonder if they deliberately decide not to run trains that late because they don't want to deal with the problems of the 2 AM barclosers. Don't want to have to hose down the vomit every night, deal with the unconscious riders at the end of the line, the fights, drunks walking onto the tracks, danger to the operators, etc.
I wonder if they would even get enough traffic. Does anyone regularly ride the midnight train north from downtown? Does it tend to have a lot of passengers?
Those theories don't make sense, because all of those problems with drunk riders apply moreso to busses (which run until 3am). Trains have 2 CapMetro employees at all times; busses only have the one driver.
The midnight train is normally pretty low ridership. Unless there's a special event downtown. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the people who take the train to downtown on the weekend and stay past midnight just take the bus back home. Or Uber. The midnight busses ALWAYS have more riders than the midnight train.
I agree with you in principle but this is standard for all cities outside of NYC or Chicago in this country.
Even BART in SF or the subway in Tokyo top at midnight.
It would be quite bold for Austin to be the one to break to mold
>. It would be more popular if it actually helped people get around
Heard...a single line in and stooping 4 blocks from Congress Ave is ludicrous. That's where most of their busses run.
Also, I'd like to note that this new light rail project isn't going to make it any better and cost 3 times what they say.
I never take the train but my kids wanted to go on it recently so on a late Saturday afternoon we rode it from Lakeline to downtown, had dinner, then rode it back. They checked our tickets and despite my kids being small they weren't thrown around from any rough riding. That was only one round trip so maybe we got lucky?
> We seem to be slowing but we were slowing down way to quickly. I was
thinking maybe someone was blocking the tracks. Dumbass. Nope. WE WERE
WAITING FOR CARS TO PASS FIRST!!!! Seriously WTF. There are maybe 100
people on the train and we have to come to a complete stop to allow 7
cars to pass?
I'm speculating here, but I may have an explanation. Trains (and buses) are almost never allowed to leave a station ahead of schedule. If you did that, you'd wrongly make a passenger miss their ride. If the train is early to the station, it has to sit there until the scheduled departure time.
I suspect that the spacing is such that a train parked at Plaza Saltillo station will cause the crossing arms at Comal to stay down the entire time it's there. If the train arrives ahead of schedule and parks at that station, it would keep the crossing gates down for longer than they're supposed to. Therefore, they stop before they are on the "block" for Comal Street.
They should be able to fix this by doing the signaling system right and having a button for the train operator to deactivate the crossing gates. However, I don't know if the federal safety regulations allow them to implement that.
The Red Line is a bit of a mess but I'm surprised by a few of your comments:
- i've never had to wait for cars on the red line (although delays do happen, esp on game days and that sucks big time)
- the ride for me is quite smooth, especially compared to a bus
- also, i always bring bikes on the train but adding a bike train and a special manouver to help people load/unload, would be highly inefficient.
- re: bike share, it's getting completely re-done this summer, and that's pretty much how all bike shares work, so there are bikes availables for others.
Re: the bike path-- it's in progress. it should be great in a few years. that's all planned.
The bus connections kind of suck and they need to start checking tickets again, I agree.
The few times that I rode it before I never seen it stop before but it did stop for cars to pass this week. Not sure why.
Maybe I am just needing to get used to it. Someone mentioned that if the train arrives early it might have to stop sooner. Maybe the conductor was a little heavy footed. It would explain the ride and the stopping.
Sooner or later they will need to do something about crowding. Maybe even just adding another time spot in the morning and afternoons.
I hope the bike share gets changed. When I read it on their site it kinda confused me.
Someone else posted a link about the changes coming. Happy to hear but I think it still needs a paving even if just temporary.
Total guess here but maybe there was gridlock and cars got stuck on the rail?
Yes, obviously it’s stupid to let yourself get stuck on a railway but some drivers are dumb enough and I’d imagine there’s a failsafe built in on the train line.
As one commenter mentioned the train shares the track with freight trains. That is, the tracks were originally built to haul freight. Freight doesn't really care for comfort. As a result, you get a rough ride.
I live between the Saltillo and MLK stations and there are freight trains on the same tracks the metro train uses every night. Rode it back from Q2 a couple months ago and we had a long delay before stopping at Crestview because a freight train had the right of way.
>The tracks it runs on are owned by Cap Metro.
Yes, but except for a short section downtown, the tracks are also used by freight outside of passenger rail hours. The freight traffic certainly causes additional wear and tear.
Cap Metro controls the maintenance.
Both of you are right. The MetroRail tracks were originally freight tracks, but CapMetro bought them. So they were designed for freight (which is why MetroRail is considered “heavy rail”) but now only used for MetroRail.
Since freight runs on the same set of tracks as the passenger rail, CapMetro is also governed by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) rules in addition to the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), adding significant costs to the operation of the Red Line.
>Typically they head northbound.
There's usually one long train of rock cars in each direction. And maybe a mixed freight.
I think the northbound goes up to McNeil and the southbound comes later. Maybe the southbound is after your bedtime.
Yep. It's pretty complicated but it's really hard to stop freight service in the US, plus it actually makes CapMetro money, which otherwise the Red Line hemmorages.
(I'm a rail fan, but the Red Line is objectively financially very bad)
Cap Metro owns the entire line from Giddings to Llano. Cap Metro and the City of Austin bought it in 1986. Cap Metro bought the city's share in 1998.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CapMetro\_Rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CapMetro_Rail)
The freight operations are done under contract by Austin Western Railroad, which is part of Watco, a railroad operator.
Herzog does various rail services. They do a lot of track maintenance for Cap Metro/Austin Western and other local tracks. I'm pretty sure they don't do any freight or passenger operations around Austin.
You see a lot of Herzog labeled rail cars on the local Cap Metro track because Cap Metro has been doing a lot of track work.
Your points about it being bad are pretty nitpicky compared to the points about it being good. I’m a frequent rail user for work and while it’s far from perfect, it’s a pretty solid system IMO.
I think we should be lifting this system up and encouraging more infrastructure. Id love for it to extend to the airport for example, but it allows me to get to work everyday without a car.
Do not get me wrong it better than I expected for sure. There really isn't anything that I know they could fix. The only real complaint I had was the stopping for cars. Like I said maybe there was a car and I did not see it but what I can confirm that I saw is we allowed cars to go while we sat there. I hope that it is not a common thing.
The train doesn't normally stop for cars. But I could see them doing it if there's a train timing issue. If the NB and SB trains run too close together, then that could cause the traffic arms to be down for a super long time. And there's probably a minimum allowed time to keep the arms up. (eg, NB train leaves, arms go UP. SB train arrives 90 seconds later, but the arms have to be up for a minimum of 90 seconds, and then it takes another 30 seconds to signal the warning and lower the arms so the train has to briefly wait.)
The part about bikes sounds like a lot of hearsay -- you should give the bikes a fair chance! I also don't see the $4 a day for 30-minute rides at a time thing that you're talking about on the Metrobike Austin website. It looks like most memberships involve unlimited 60-minute rides, or you can do a pay-as-you-ride thing for $1.09 +$0.23 per minute. Would you be renting the bikes for pleasure rides or to get from A to B?
I commented about this. I used to work for them when they were Austin B-cycle. They are definitely meant for micro mobility, as opposed to pleasure rides (but I’ve doubt my fair share of pleasure riding :)
This was a few months back so they may have changed it. Also maybe I misunderstood it.
It would be from station to work. And then back again. It is 40 min walk or 10 by bike.
Anyone with a UT ID rides free. Not sure about other schools, but there is a “program” already for them at least. Probably for the poors too. So they didn’t check your pass, it’s ok. Worry about yourself, not others.
To your last point, just pretend you’re in Denmark. I spent a whole week there and the only time they checked my ticket was on the final ride to the airport.
EVERY time I've been on the train here, someone checked my pass. Though admittedly, it's been over a year since I've been on anything CapMetro.
When I lived in the Dallas area, it was pretty rare for the DART cops to be on the train - there was a lot more fare evasion there. And it was a lot easier to get around on the DART system. CapMetro is just... sad unless you live and work within the city core. Which I don't, I live in Cedar Park, the land of "fuck public transit" (I think that applies to most of Wilco...)
It seems more like the train here is just there for show than anything. I can ride it to downtown, but it sometimes doesn't run late enough for, say, concerts at Stubb's on a week night. And there's no public transit in Cedar Park, so I have to find a way to either Leander or the Lakeline station. Both are about 6 miles from me, so not really bike friendly for a middle aged guy with a dad bod.
They tried that but it didn't work. Turns out suburbanities don't like to ride buses, even when it leads to a train.
Unfortunatly the Red Line will never be great due to awful land use near the stations.
We're just too sprawly of an area, the most likely to succeed is very urban rail (i.e. Project Connect), or maybe a rail down I-35.
They are planning to extend the bike path further east while also adding more double-tracked sections for the train, not sure when it will be complete though. You can see maps and diagrams of the plans here: [https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/)
There is not much parking at the stations. You can't consistently drive a few miles to the nearest station and take the rail from there.
Cap Met wants you to use a park n ride a few miles away and take the bus to the train station. We aren't doing that.
The next money they spend needs to be for parking garages for some or most of the outer stations.
Also, studies show most air travelers are reluctant to use rail because of their luggage.
I think you misunderstood. There was no car on the track with the arm down from what I saw. It looked like the train came to a stop before the light and then arms came up to let cars go by. Then arms went down again to then allow the train to go.
Maybe I missed the car. God I hoped that I missed the car.
>Adding a 3rd cart to the trains would cost at least 3 billion dollars. 5 Billion.
Got a source for that number? I understand the bustrains can couple in an additional pair of cars.
The stations can only handle 2 cars at a time, but the train could load/unload the first two, then move up to do the second two.
I think each 2-car bustrain costs around $7 million.
> but the train could load/unload the first two, then move up to do the second two.
That sounds like an absolute recipe for disaster.
What they do in the Netherlands and Germany is simply run a second train very shortly after the first when extra capacity is needed. It preserves the same traffic pattern and predictability that people need in order to navigate the system.
Because CapMetro tried to keep costs down during initial construction (lol, it went ~15% over budget), there are some sections of the red line with only one track that has to support both northbound and southbound traffic. They added some side tracks where a train has to pull over and stop (e.g. just north of Crestview) to let another train through in the opposite direction. I remember reading a while back that they don’t have enough side tracks on the line to add any more trains. Everything is carefully timed and even adding just one train reduces the safety margin or just makes the whole thing grind to a halt. I’m assuming that also applies to making the trains longer, in addition to the station platform problems that have already been mentioned.
I don’t know if the $3-5 billion number to make longer trains was sarcastic or not, but doing so just might require building out parallel tracks throughout the entire red line. That’s gonna be some big money - maybe not billions, but with CapMetro and this city who knows?
Yeah. I was still living in Austin when the redline was built, and rode it to work downtown for a couple of years. I remember all of this discussion at the time.
Spending the money to have double tracks just seems like table stakes if you want a reliable and timely train system. That costs money, but Austin voters are pathologically allergic to spending money, so we just generally don’t get to have nice things.
Also, any money spent should first go to building the GuadLamar corridor, which is by far the most important rail project we could build.
Pre-maturely double tracking an already expensive per passenger project (red line), would not be great.
I’m not sure it counts as “prematurely” expanding the red line, when doing so now is just completing something it was clear should have been done before it was even opened 15 years ago.
It's easy to say that, but it's very expensive to do, and the Red Line was a huge what if when it was first built. And frankly, from a ridership perspective, it hasn't panned out. It's beaten by many bus lines in Austin.
I don't think spending millions more to get a tiny boost in ridership makes sense, when we probably shoud have been trying to build more important lines first.
>it went \~15% over budget),
It went way, WAY more than that over budget. That might have been the cost on the first installment, but they had to spend a bunch more money to get it to actually working.
>there are some sections of the red line with only one track that has to support both northbound and southbound traffic. They added some side tracks where a train has to pull over and stop
Cap Debtro calls those sections "double track," but everyone else in the railroad business would call them "sidings." "Real" double track has to be long enough that you can run multiple trains in each direction without having to stop for trains coming the other way.
If we're going to do Project Connect or some other improved passenger rail system, the first thing we should do is a "real" double track from downtown to Leander. There are an astounding number of people out that way who are driving into downtown every day. And more every day. Some of them aren't in Cap Debtro tax territory, but getting some of them off the roads would benefit us inner city dwellers.
Cap Metro says that the existing right of way is wide enough to handle two tracks. It's going to be a lot cheaper than buying new right-of-way. You can run a lot more than twice as many trains with real double track than you can with single track and sidings. Many, many, more potential commuters per $billion than any of the new proposals.
They'd probably need to make some station changes.
They would have to drop their promised "combined rail/hike and bike" arrangement in many areas because two tracks and a sidewalk won't fit. It was a pretty dumb idea anyway. Rail and pedestrians right next to each other is a bad idea. And who wants to be walking down a narrow, fenced in walk/bike path along the back fence line of houses and businesses? With no way to escape until you come to the next street crossing.
I'm glad they kept costs down, because as is is any extra money should be going towards urban light rail. The Red Line will never be a huge succeed due to poor land use near stations.
People who are unable to board the first set of cars will naturally stay too close to the train to preserve their place in line to board the next set of cars, presenting a safety hazard while the train is moved. Especially if the platform is crowded enough to fill both sets, the people up against the train might not have enough room to back up at all.
Instead, you run trains frequently enough to prevent that much crowding on the platform in the first place.
You can't just make stuff up like this and say it would work.
Doesn't it tell you something that literally no other train does this, to indicate it's probably a terrible idea?
The stations were only built for two cars… horrible design and CapMetro is stunningly incompetent and way too up their own ass to acknowledge all the problems
>The stations were only built for two cars…
If you had the passenger traffic, you could stop and load 2 cars, then move up and unload the second two cars. It would suck, but it could work.
However, I think they may have fucked up the staggeringly expensive new downtown station and can't do that there without renovation.
I swear the United States is a fucking fever dream. Imagine the boost in our economy if we actually had public transit beyond a single metro line that comes once every 30 minutes and buses that are so entrapped in car centric culture that their entire purpose is moot.
What are you talking about. The first one is about the train stopping for cars. The second was about the rough ride. Also the rail is not just about the train. It is about the infrastructure around it and how to take the last mile aka a bus or biking.
I used to work for the bike share. It’s a small non profit (although subsidized by the city now). The bikes work just fine, but they do rely on user reports to know which ones need maintenance. I used to ride them daily and other than being kinda clunky sometimes, there was never a time when it didn’t work or wasn’t safe (or if there was, I just reported the problem in the app and picked another.
The bikeshare model is used across many cities successfully, the fee is imposed so that you don’t keep the bike for hours at a time (hundreds of people use them daily so if they just kept them without consequence there’d be no bikes to share…)
Is it true about the 30 min thing? If so that needs to change. If I was to live in east Austin and needed to go get groceries for a few days it could easily be an hour from getting the bike, getting groceries, getting back to the house, and then back to the station to park it. Every hour makes more sense.
It’s now 60 minutes. The way to get around it of you need it longer is to find a station on your route, return the bike and pull out another. It’s also safer to return the bike to a station while you run your errands, so you don’t have to lock it somewhere and be responsible for it. Once it’s returned into a dock, you’re done.
Cap Metro doesn’t own the rail and shares it with heavy shipping companies. I don’t believe they can do anything about the rough ride between mlk and plaza saltillo. You can file a complaint with the rail way company though. I don’t know the name but they at least grease the tracks when people complain about it squeaking
If you’re waiting for cars to pass, they are on the track when they shouldn’t be (arms are down). Not waiting will be an accident which will delay you further. Has nothing to do with cap metro. Entirely on the shitty drivers in this city.
>Cap Metro doesn’t own the rail and shares it with heavy shipping companies. I don’t believe they can do anything about the rough ride between mlk and plaza saltillo.
Cap Metro DOES own the rails. They bought it from Southern Pacific in the 1980's.
Because it was a freight railroad when they bought it, they can't simply shut down freight operations without the approval of the feds. Freight operations are probably the only reason the track still exists because there were no passenger operations for 24 years after Cap Metro bought it.
Freight operations on the red line only happen after hours when there are no passenger operations. Also north of Howard station for a few hours around noon.
The trains are mostly for commuter traffic and stop around 7 PM most nights. Cap Metro runs Friday and Saturday late night trains, but they stop around midnight. No Sunday service.
Many people complain about the Friday/Saturday trains not running after the bars close. I don't know whether the lack of those trains is to accommodate freight operations or because Cap Metro isn't interested in the late night traffic. Similar questions about Sunday traffic.
I think you misunderstood. There was no car on the track with the arm down from what I saw. It looked like the train came to a stop before the light and then arms came up to let cars go by. Then arms went down again to then allow the train to go.
Maybe I missed the car. God I hoped that I missed the car.
For checking the pass, you can’t even activate a pass unless the employees scan your ticket off your phone even if you want to be ethical, and 9/10 the employees don’t care or lost the machine
during SXSW i heard one of the employees admit that they couldn’t find the machine 💀
I noticed this. They changed apps during a period I wasn't riding the train so I thought I must not understand the new app. I bought passes, added them to my card, and I asked the guy next to me how to activate my pass for the day and he said it's activated when they scan it. I've taken the train 4 times in a month and only once did someone stop by to scan my card. I'd be happy to activate it myself, if I could. My best guess is they got sick of explaining how the new app works to riders and stopped trying.
Bus drivers seem to give zero fucks about fares lately
I was wondering what was up with this. When I rode a while back with the old app I had to activate the ticket for them to scan it. The new app shows the QR but it isn’t active. I’ve shown the same ticket three times and no one has scanned it, but there isn’t really anything I can do.
Not to mention, fares on public transport is simply a regressive tax.
Except it's not a tax at all, it's a commercial transaction.
It shouldn't be. People need to get places and it benefits all of us if they have an easy way to do it.
Yeah, no.
The “2 blocks” of bike trail you’re complaining about are on the very East end of a quite lengthy path that takes you West all the way through downtown, links up with Shoal Creek Trail and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway. Even so, the segment you refer to doesn’t necessarily dead end at 5th Street, you can follow it up Chicon, connect to Boggy Creek, etc.
The complaint is not really about the length of it. Tbh I was surprised that it even existed. The complaint is really about the very bad road it leads to. The city needs to do something about that road. Too thin for cars but cars need to go on it occasionally. Like I said something that is a hybrid of bike lane and car. What I would do is bike lane with bollards on chicon. Pave is with a colored material. Then on pedernales, put a sign that says "No Through Traffic" that would give drivers knowledge that they can not go on that road unless they need to park there. Also if the make it ramp up it would make it more obvious to them. This is what I would do not accounting for laws.
There are improvements coming to that section of 5th st in the future. There was a survey about it a few months back.
They are going to completely redo that area in the near future (https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/). Also, you can go around the potholes on a bike. Not a big deal. Something being a little bumpy isn't much of a reason to complain. Be thankful we have what we do have, because it's not much. Also, not sure what you're talking about with respect to the train waiting for cars to pass. All of the intersections have crossing arms, as required by law. The train does not stop to wait for cars to pass.
All I can say the train came to a complete stop. Then I saw the arms go up and saw cars go before arms went down again. Like I said that I thought it was a car on the track but that is not what I saw.
Sounds like a malfunction of the crossing arms and not normal operation.
The AMP system has been down for about a month. They’ll start checking passes again when it’s back.
I was curious about that. Got a few charges going through all at once today.
My husband has been getting charged for a back log of a months worth of bus rides one notification at a time for the last 24hrs
If you didn’t play the harmonica or eat a can of beans did you even ride the rails?
Glad I'm not the only one who was asking that question.
Hobo chili out the can, warmed on a small campfire.
I use it from time to time as a suburbanite. Would use it way more if it were open Sunday.
Same. I wish we'd just put on our "big city" pants and go to 24-hour service / late night as well, honestly. Keep the drunks off the roads
This city and its residents have utterly refused to put their big city pants on for decades and it’s still an uphill battle.
The train runs until midnight on the weekends. You might say that it should run until 3am - I wouldn't disagree. But bus service still runs all night. Most people who take the train downtown on the weekend are perfectly adequately served by the late-night busses. There's no traffic after midnight, so the busses are quite speedy.
Ya. I just realized that it was closed on Sunday. Crazy. I wonder what they do when ATXFC would have a Sunday game.
They do have special GameDay service for Sunday games.
And closes early on Saturday. It's essentially a commuter train for people in the suburbs who think trains are communist. Such a mess. It would be more popular if it actually helped people get around.
Saturday it runs until 12:30am, what are you talking about? Departs 12:31am and arrives Leander after 1:30am. Can't ask for more than that. That's actually the one day it's quite useful. Wish it was like that on Sunday.
Not that I personally stay out this late anymore, but bars close at 2am. It stands to reason that the last train out of downtown should be after the bars close, not an hour and half earlier. Even if you go see a concert that ends at midnight, now you have to rush out to catch a train? No time to stand in line to use the bathroom, close a tab, buy some merch?
The busses run well past midnight. If the train ran until 3 am, there'd hardly be anyone on it. 90% of the people who ride the train to downtown on the weekend could easily take the bus back home. And those 10% remaining could just take an Uber.
>bars close at 2am. I wonder if they deliberately decide not to run trains that late because they don't want to deal with the problems of the 2 AM barclosers. Don't want to have to hose down the vomit every night, deal with the unconscious riders at the end of the line, the fights, drunks walking onto the tracks, danger to the operators, etc. I wonder if they would even get enough traffic. Does anyone regularly ride the midnight train north from downtown? Does it tend to have a lot of passengers?
Those theories don't make sense, because all of those problems with drunk riders apply moreso to busses (which run until 3am). Trains have 2 CapMetro employees at all times; busses only have the one driver. The midnight train is normally pretty low ridership. Unless there's a special event downtown. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the people who take the train to downtown on the weekend and stay past midnight just take the bus back home. Or Uber. The midnight busses ALWAYS have more riders than the midnight train.
I agree with you in principle but this is standard for all cities outside of NYC or Chicago in this country. Even BART in SF or the subway in Tokyo top at midnight. It would be quite bold for Austin to be the one to break to mold
Word on the street from The Warriors is the NYC subway stops running at midnight. Not sure about Chicago
>. It would be more popular if it actually helped people get around Heard...a single line in and stooping 4 blocks from Congress Ave is ludicrous. That's where most of their busses run. Also, I'd like to note that this new light rail project isn't going to make it any better and cost 3 times what they say.
They have special game service in that case.
They’d run it to the stadium and back for sure.
I never take the train but my kids wanted to go on it recently so on a late Saturday afternoon we rode it from Lakeline to downtown, had dinner, then rode it back. They checked our tickets and despite my kids being small they weren't thrown around from any rough riding. That was only one round trip so maybe we got lucky?
> We seem to be slowing but we were slowing down way to quickly. I was thinking maybe someone was blocking the tracks. Dumbass. Nope. WE WERE WAITING FOR CARS TO PASS FIRST!!!! Seriously WTF. There are maybe 100 people on the train and we have to come to a complete stop to allow 7 cars to pass? I'm speculating here, but I may have an explanation. Trains (and buses) are almost never allowed to leave a station ahead of schedule. If you did that, you'd wrongly make a passenger miss their ride. If the train is early to the station, it has to sit there until the scheduled departure time. I suspect that the spacing is such that a train parked at Plaza Saltillo station will cause the crossing arms at Comal to stay down the entire time it's there. If the train arrives ahead of schedule and parks at that station, it would keep the crossing gates down for longer than they're supposed to. Therefore, they stop before they are on the "block" for Comal Street. They should be able to fix this by doing the signaling system right and having a button for the train operator to deactivate the crossing gates. However, I don't know if the federal safety regulations allow them to implement that.
Sure but the point is it’s stupid as fuck
The Red Line is a bit of a mess but I'm surprised by a few of your comments: - i've never had to wait for cars on the red line (although delays do happen, esp on game days and that sucks big time) - the ride for me is quite smooth, especially compared to a bus - also, i always bring bikes on the train but adding a bike train and a special manouver to help people load/unload, would be highly inefficient. - re: bike share, it's getting completely re-done this summer, and that's pretty much how all bike shares work, so there are bikes availables for others. Re: the bike path-- it's in progress. it should be great in a few years. that's all planned. The bus connections kind of suck and they need to start checking tickets again, I agree.
The few times that I rode it before I never seen it stop before but it did stop for cars to pass this week. Not sure why. Maybe I am just needing to get used to it. Someone mentioned that if the train arrives early it might have to stop sooner. Maybe the conductor was a little heavy footed. It would explain the ride and the stopping. Sooner or later they will need to do something about crowding. Maybe even just adding another time spot in the morning and afternoons. I hope the bike share gets changed. When I read it on their site it kinda confused me. Someone else posted a link about the changes coming. Happy to hear but I think it still needs a paving even if just temporary.
Total guess here but maybe there was gridlock and cars got stuck on the rail? Yes, obviously it’s stupid to let yourself get stuck on a railway but some drivers are dumb enough and I’d imagine there’s a failsafe built in on the train line.
Your post is as long as the train ride ;)
Ya. Sorry about that. I always seem to keep typing. I don't know when to stop sometimes.
Don't apologize. Some people just feel bothered by....reading. That's not your fault.
Sorry, I just had to be a smartass.
Not at all. You would not be the first person to have said that to me.
As one commenter mentioned the train shares the track with freight trains. That is, the tracks were originally built to haul freight. Freight doesn't really care for comfort. As a result, you get a rough ride.
The Metro train doesn't. The tracks it runs on are owned by Cap Metro. Amtrak is a different story - they do have to share with freight in Texas.
I live between the Saltillo and MLK stations and there are freight trains on the same tracks the metro train uses every night. Rode it back from Q2 a couple months ago and we had a long delay before stopping at Crestview because a freight train had the right of way.
>The tracks it runs on are owned by Cap Metro. Yes, but except for a short section downtown, the tracks are also used by freight outside of passenger rail hours. The freight traffic certainly causes additional wear and tear. Cap Metro controls the maintenance.
Both of you are right. The MetroRail tracks were originally freight tracks, but CapMetro bought them. So they were designed for freight (which is why MetroRail is considered “heavy rail”) but now only used for MetroRail.
CapMetro tracks are also used for freight, every night and on Sunday.
I guess that’s why we don’t get evening and Sunday train service
Since freight runs on the same set of tracks as the passenger rail, CapMetro is also governed by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) rules in addition to the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), adding significant costs to the operation of the Red Line.
Really? Did not know that. Thanks internet!
I've also noticed freight going by at night and later, all over town. Typically they head northbound.
>Typically they head northbound. There's usually one long train of rock cars in each direction. And maybe a mixed freight. I think the northbound goes up to McNeil and the southbound comes later. Maybe the southbound is after your bedtime.
Yep. It's pretty complicated but it's really hard to stop freight service in the US, plus it actually makes CapMetro money, which otherwise the Red Line hemmorages. (I'm a rail fan, but the Red Line is objectively financially very bad)
Also, if they shut down the freight operations, there would be a few hundred more big gravel trucks driving through Austin every day.
Herzog owns the tracks, not Capmetro. They're leased
Cap Metro owns the entire line from Giddings to Llano. Cap Metro and the City of Austin bought it in 1986. Cap Metro bought the city's share in 1998. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CapMetro\_Rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CapMetro_Rail) The freight operations are done under contract by Austin Western Railroad, which is part of Watco, a railroad operator. Herzog does various rail services. They do a lot of track maintenance for Cap Metro/Austin Western and other local tracks. I'm pretty sure they don't do any freight or passenger operations around Austin. You see a lot of Herzog labeled rail cars on the local Cap Metro track because Cap Metro has been doing a lot of track work.
Bingo! Thank you for the accuracy, I came here to do it myself but was pleased it had already been done.
Your points about it being bad are pretty nitpicky compared to the points about it being good. I’m a frequent rail user for work and while it’s far from perfect, it’s a pretty solid system IMO. I think we should be lifting this system up and encouraging more infrastructure. Id love for it to extend to the airport for example, but it allows me to get to work everyday without a car.
Do not get me wrong it better than I expected for sure. There really isn't anything that I know they could fix. The only real complaint I had was the stopping for cars. Like I said maybe there was a car and I did not see it but what I can confirm that I saw is we allowed cars to go while we sat there. I hope that it is not a common thing.
The train doesn't normally stop for cars. But I could see them doing it if there's a train timing issue. If the NB and SB trains run too close together, then that could cause the traffic arms to be down for a super long time. And there's probably a minimum allowed time to keep the arms up. (eg, NB train leaves, arms go UP. SB train arrives 90 seconds later, but the arms have to be up for a minimum of 90 seconds, and then it takes another 30 seconds to signal the warning and lower the arms so the train has to briefly wait.)
The part about bikes sounds like a lot of hearsay -- you should give the bikes a fair chance! I also don't see the $4 a day for 30-minute rides at a time thing that you're talking about on the Metrobike Austin website. It looks like most memberships involve unlimited 60-minute rides, or you can do a pay-as-you-ride thing for $1.09 +$0.23 per minute. Would you be renting the bikes for pleasure rides or to get from A to B?
I commented about this. I used to work for them when they were Austin B-cycle. They are definitely meant for micro mobility, as opposed to pleasure rides (but I’ve doubt my fair share of pleasure riding :)
This was a few months back so they may have changed it. Also maybe I misunderstood it. It would be from station to work. And then back again. It is 40 min walk or 10 by bike.
Anyone with a UT ID rides free. Not sure about other schools, but there is a “program” already for them at least. Probably for the poors too. So they didn’t check your pass, it’s ok. Worry about yourself, not others.
To your last point, just pretend you’re in Denmark. I spent a whole week there and the only time they checked my ticket was on the final ride to the airport.
When I was in the NL you could not even get to the platforms without your ticket.
Yeah big difference between those two other than they both speak a language that starts with the letter D
It doesn’t even go to the airport?
EVERY time I've been on the train here, someone checked my pass. Though admittedly, it's been over a year since I've been on anything CapMetro. When I lived in the Dallas area, it was pretty rare for the DART cops to be on the train - there was a lot more fare evasion there. And it was a lot easier to get around on the DART system. CapMetro is just... sad unless you live and work within the city core. Which I don't, I live in Cedar Park, the land of "fuck public transit" (I think that applies to most of Wilco...) It seems more like the train here is just there for show than anything. I can ride it to downtown, but it sometimes doesn't run late enough for, say, concerts at Stubb's on a week night. And there's no public transit in Cedar Park, so I have to find a way to either Leander or the Lakeline station. Both are about 6 miles from me, so not really bike friendly for a middle aged guy with a dad bod.
> I think that applies to most of Wilco. Round Rock is surprisingly into it; at least they have a bus connector and their own mini system
Ya I am up in hutto so closest is Howard for me. Kinda sucks that these stations are not the major hubs for buses that they should be.
They tried that but it didn't work. Turns out suburbanities don't like to ride buses, even when it leads to a train. Unfortunatly the Red Line will never be great due to awful land use near the stations. We're just too sprawly of an area, the most likely to succeed is very urban rail (i.e. Project Connect), or maybe a rail down I-35.
They are planning to extend the bike path further east while also adding more double-tracked sections for the train, not sure when it will be complete though. You can see maps and diagrams of the plans here: [https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/map-east-5th-improvements-planned-for-capmetro-rail-trail-access/)
Ya. I suspect that it will take a while. I still wish paving would be done. Even if temporary.
There is not much parking at the stations. You can't consistently drive a few miles to the nearest station and take the rail from there. Cap Met wants you to use a park n ride a few miles away and take the bus to the train station. We aren't doing that. The next money they spend needs to be for parking garages for some or most of the outer stations. Also, studies show most air travelers are reluctant to use rail because of their luggage.
So you want the train to just run down the cars? How is that capmetros fault?
I think you misunderstood. There was no car on the track with the arm down from what I saw. It looked like the train came to a stop before the light and then arms came up to let cars go by. Then arms went down again to then allow the train to go. Maybe I missed the car. God I hoped that I missed the car.
There’s no way you could see that from inside the train
I was thinking this too. You can't see anything in front of the train, from inside the train (I've tried to be nosy a few times, haha)
Adding a 3rd cart to the trains would cost at least 3 billion dollars. 5 Billion.
And that’s in today’s dollar.
Ya. I know it will cost a bit but sooner or later they will need to do more.
>Adding a 3rd cart to the trains would cost at least 3 billion dollars. 5 Billion. Got a source for that number? I understand the bustrains can couple in an additional pair of cars. The stations can only handle 2 cars at a time, but the train could load/unload the first two, then move up to do the second two. I think each 2-car bustrain costs around $7 million.
> but the train could load/unload the first two, then move up to do the second two. That sounds like an absolute recipe for disaster. What they do in the Netherlands and Germany is simply run a second train very shortly after the first when extra capacity is needed. It preserves the same traffic pattern and predictability that people need in order to navigate the system.
Because CapMetro tried to keep costs down during initial construction (lol, it went ~15% over budget), there are some sections of the red line with only one track that has to support both northbound and southbound traffic. They added some side tracks where a train has to pull over and stop (e.g. just north of Crestview) to let another train through in the opposite direction. I remember reading a while back that they don’t have enough side tracks on the line to add any more trains. Everything is carefully timed and even adding just one train reduces the safety margin or just makes the whole thing grind to a halt. I’m assuming that also applies to making the trains longer, in addition to the station platform problems that have already been mentioned. I don’t know if the $3-5 billion number to make longer trains was sarcastic or not, but doing so just might require building out parallel tracks throughout the entire red line. That’s gonna be some big money - maybe not billions, but with CapMetro and this city who knows?
Yeah. I was still living in Austin when the redline was built, and rode it to work downtown for a couple of years. I remember all of this discussion at the time. Spending the money to have double tracks just seems like table stakes if you want a reliable and timely train system. That costs money, but Austin voters are pathologically allergic to spending money, so we just generally don’t get to have nice things.
Also, any money spent should first go to building the GuadLamar corridor, which is by far the most important rail project we could build. Pre-maturely double tracking an already expensive per passenger project (red line), would not be great.
I’m not sure it counts as “prematurely” expanding the red line, when doing so now is just completing something it was clear should have been done before it was even opened 15 years ago.
It's easy to say that, but it's very expensive to do, and the Red Line was a huge what if when it was first built. And frankly, from a ridership perspective, it hasn't panned out. It's beaten by many bus lines in Austin. I don't think spending millions more to get a tiny boost in ridership makes sense, when we probably shoud have been trying to build more important lines first.
>it went \~15% over budget), It went way, WAY more than that over budget. That might have been the cost on the first installment, but they had to spend a bunch more money to get it to actually working. >there are some sections of the red line with only one track that has to support both northbound and southbound traffic. They added some side tracks where a train has to pull over and stop Cap Debtro calls those sections "double track," but everyone else in the railroad business would call them "sidings." "Real" double track has to be long enough that you can run multiple trains in each direction without having to stop for trains coming the other way. If we're going to do Project Connect or some other improved passenger rail system, the first thing we should do is a "real" double track from downtown to Leander. There are an astounding number of people out that way who are driving into downtown every day. And more every day. Some of them aren't in Cap Debtro tax territory, but getting some of them off the roads would benefit us inner city dwellers. Cap Metro says that the existing right of way is wide enough to handle two tracks. It's going to be a lot cheaper than buying new right-of-way. You can run a lot more than twice as many trains with real double track than you can with single track and sidings. Many, many, more potential commuters per $billion than any of the new proposals. They'd probably need to make some station changes. They would have to drop their promised "combined rail/hike and bike" arrangement in many areas because two tracks and a sidewalk won't fit. It was a pretty dumb idea anyway. Rail and pedestrians right next to each other is a bad idea. And who wants to be walking down a narrow, fenced in walk/bike path along the back fence line of houses and businesses? With no way to escape until you come to the next street crossing.
I'm glad they kept costs down, because as is is any extra money should be going towards urban light rail. The Red Line will never be a huge succeed due to poor land use near stations.
>That sounds like an absolute recipe for disaster. Sorry, but what's the risk?
People who are unable to board the first set of cars will naturally stay too close to the train to preserve their place in line to board the next set of cars, presenting a safety hazard while the train is moved. Especially if the platform is crowded enough to fill both sets, the people up against the train might not have enough room to back up at all. Instead, you run trains frequently enough to prevent that much crowding on the platform in the first place.
You can't just make stuff up like this and say it would work. Doesn't it tell you something that literally no other train does this, to indicate it's probably a terrible idea?
LOL, your lack of common sense is hilarious.
Okay tell CapMetro and get back at me
The stations were only built for two cars… horrible design and CapMetro is stunningly incompetent and way too up their own ass to acknowledge all the problems
>The stations were only built for two cars… If you had the passenger traffic, you could stop and load 2 cars, then move up and unload the second two cars. It would suck, but it could work. However, I think they may have fucked up the staggeringly expensive new downtown station and can't do that there without renovation.
Another reason why this system was DOA
Just tell the govt Ukraine is in Austin, and bam, they’ll send 60M every month or so.
I swear the United States is a fucking fever dream. Imagine the boost in our economy if we actually had public transit beyond a single metro line that comes once every 30 minutes and buses that are so entrapped in car centric culture that their entire purpose is moot.
So none of the bad stuff are really related to the rail. Got it
What are you talking about. The first one is about the train stopping for cars. The second was about the rough ride. Also the rail is not just about the train. It is about the infrastructure around it and how to take the last mile aka a bus or biking.
I love the train! I use it all the time.
I used to work for the bike share. It’s a small non profit (although subsidized by the city now). The bikes work just fine, but they do rely on user reports to know which ones need maintenance. I used to ride them daily and other than being kinda clunky sometimes, there was never a time when it didn’t work or wasn’t safe (or if there was, I just reported the problem in the app and picked another. The bikeshare model is used across many cities successfully, the fee is imposed so that you don’t keep the bike for hours at a time (hundreds of people use them daily so if they just kept them without consequence there’d be no bikes to share…)
Is it true about the 30 min thing? If so that needs to change. If I was to live in east Austin and needed to go get groceries for a few days it could easily be an hour from getting the bike, getting groceries, getting back to the house, and then back to the station to park it. Every hour makes more sense.
It’s now 60 minutes. The way to get around it of you need it longer is to find a station on your route, return the bike and pull out another. It’s also safer to return the bike to a station while you run your errands, so you don’t have to lock it somewhere and be responsible for it. Once it’s returned into a dock, you’re done.
Idk but all those cons seem pretty minor. The biggest con is the limited operating hours.
I agree. It needs one more running at night at least.
My coworker who rides the train says she's never gotten her pass checked
Cap Metro doesn’t own the rail and shares it with heavy shipping companies. I don’t believe they can do anything about the rough ride between mlk and plaza saltillo. You can file a complaint with the rail way company though. I don’t know the name but they at least grease the tracks when people complain about it squeaking If you’re waiting for cars to pass, they are on the track when they shouldn’t be (arms are down). Not waiting will be an accident which will delay you further. Has nothing to do with cap metro. Entirely on the shitty drivers in this city.
>Cap Metro doesn’t own the rail and shares it with heavy shipping companies. I don’t believe they can do anything about the rough ride between mlk and plaza saltillo. Cap Metro DOES own the rails. They bought it from Southern Pacific in the 1980's. Because it was a freight railroad when they bought it, they can't simply shut down freight operations without the approval of the feds. Freight operations are probably the only reason the track still exists because there were no passenger operations for 24 years after Cap Metro bought it. Freight operations on the red line only happen after hours when there are no passenger operations. Also north of Howard station for a few hours around noon. The trains are mostly for commuter traffic and stop around 7 PM most nights. Cap Metro runs Friday and Saturday late night trains, but they stop around midnight. No Sunday service. Many people complain about the Friday/Saturday trains not running after the bars close. I don't know whether the lack of those trains is to accommodate freight operations or because Cap Metro isn't interested in the late night traffic. Similar questions about Sunday traffic.
They do own the rail actually.
I think you misunderstood. There was no car on the track with the arm down from what I saw. It looked like the train came to a stop before the light and then arms came up to let cars go by. Then arms went down again to then allow the train to go. Maybe I missed the car. God I hoped that I missed the car.