Last night I wrote about a transportation confab that had everything to do with roads and nothing whatsoever to do with transportation. And that thought may have come across to some as a criticism so I want to assure you it wasn’t meant to be. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kyle would not be eligible for any outside government moneys without an integrated long-range transportation "master plan," I would argue that the city, in its current state of development and even in its projected development decades hence, doesn’t even need a "transportation plan." In fact, all it really does need is a road plan that extends 5-10 years forward.
But, in order to develop those corridors, the city’s coffers need to be augmented by state and perhaps even federal dollars and a city is not eligible for those dollars without an integrated long-range transportation plan on the shelf. But let’s net fool ourselves: that is the only reason the city needs to invest the money required to get this plan drafted.
Complete streets? Get real. Does anyone actually know what complete streets mean. I gather from listening at last night’s meeting the local definition of a complete street is one with a bike lane and at least one sidewalk. Here is the definition of a complete street as defined by the National Complete Streets Coalition: "They are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bicycle to work. They allow buses to run on time and make it safe for people to walk to and from train stations."
Think about it. How many Kyle residents you know desperately want to bicycle to work? Many here bicycle for recreation, but you don’t need complete streets for that. You needed dedicated hike and bike trails and I don’t know if the city has that kind of money to spend on those of even if they have the desire to spend that money on them. How many of them even want to walk to work, walk to where they will go shopping or walk between their places of residence to a train station? I can’t even envision anyone in Kyle even desiring to drive to an area train station, let alone walk to one. But that whole Lone Star Rail District boondoggle is a completely different issue. Anybody see the need for buses to be able to run on time in Kyle?
Hey, here’s my input for the transportation plan: Replace the four-way stop sign at Kohlers Crossing and Kyle Parkway with a roundabout and make it impressive as all get-out by sticking something like this right in the middle of it. Here’s my input for a long-range transportation plan: Make Kyle the "Roundabout Capital of the United States," replacing every single traffic light not on an I-35 frontage road with a roundabout and inserting one at every single intersection where a stop sign is now in place and make them all as aesthetically impressive as this.
Now let’s be realistic about the subject of congestion. Adding new roads to a community’s inventory does not relieve congestion. It simply adds additional roads that are very likely to become congested themselves. And there is not a single shred of evidence to be found anywhere that the addition of rail transit in any shape or form relieves highway congestion. It never has and it never will.
I moved to this area five months ago from Dallas, a city with a comparatively extensive rail component that was conceived and implemented while I was a resident. And the highways are more jammed today than they have ever been and next year at this time they will be congested even worse. In fact, at the same time the regional transportation authority began construction on its very first rail line — a north-south line that on the northern side of downtown ran parallel to the horribly congested North Central Expressway — TxDot began work on widening North Central Expressway. What was the result? Instead of a two-lane in each direction freeway that was stop-and-go (mostly stop) throughout both the morning and evening rush hours, the city now had a four-lane in each direction freeway that was stop-and-go (mostly stop) throughout both rush hours. Did people ride the train? Yes they did and at times during the rush-hour period it was standing-room-only on those trains. But it had absolutely no discernable effect on the horrid freeway traffic.
New York City, where I was born and raised, has arguably the most extensive, sophisticated rail system in the United States, but, still try to navigate the jammed FDR, West Side Highway, the Major Deegan or the Long Island Expressway, especially during rush hours, and all those expressways were constructed decades after the New York City subways went into operation.
There is only one way to solve the problem of expressway/freeway congestion problem and that is to eliminate the offending expressways/freeways. If you build them, they will come.
Look at Portland, Ore. If there’s anything clogging the streets of urban Portland, it’s bicycles. Portland is also the home of possibly the most impressive computer rail operation in the United States. It’s secret? There are no freeways in Portland. The same is true in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Calgary for exactly the same reason. I used to spend a lot of time in Paris, France, and the traffic throughout the interior of Paris moves effortlessly for exactly the same reasons: a super-efficient Metro rail system that will get you within a few blocks of anywhere you want to go in Paris and absolutely no freeways inside the city.
For most American cities, rail transportation is simply a transportation option. And give human beings an option, they are invariably going to choose the most convenient one. They are, after all, human beings. And there’s no more convenient transportation option that getting into your personal vehicle when you want to (not when some schedule over which you have no control dictates you must) and heading right for the destination you want to get to (not a few blocks or a few miles away from that destination).
Why does anyone think so many people attending the Kyle transportation meeting last night voiced a desire for more ways to access I-35? Because they want to get to a rail station there? Give me a break.
The problem of I-35 congestion through Austin is never going to be solved as long as there is an I-35 through Austin. Where that impacts Kyle is the very real possibility that with the growth this area is experiencing, I-35 through Kyle could someday resemble a parking lot at certain hours as well. And that is never going to be solved either, as long as there is an I-35 slicing through Kyle. So, please, don’t expect the answer to come by any attempt at a rail alternative and pretty please don’t expect salvation from any form of a Transportation Plan.
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