The Transit Working Group agreed that the City of Austin, Capital Metro, and CAMPO should move forward with the engineering and environmental reviews needed for a “spine” of Urban Rail that connects from Airport to Airport (connecting Mueller Redevelopment, University of Texas, the state complex, Downtown, and East Riverside to the Austin Bergstrum Airport). Over the next month the group will probably hear additional information on potential financing strategies, but members agreed that many of their more technical questions would require more complete engineering, design, and environmental review. For more information on this project go to:

Downtown Austin Plan – Urban Rail

CAMPO Decision Matrix – City of Austin Urban Rail Project Description

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) facilitates transatlantic cooperation as a means to help solve local problems.  GMF, in cooperation with local leaders and organizations in Austin and San Antonio, Texas asks you to save the dates, February 18-20, 2009, for workshops in San Antonio, San Marcos, and Austin that will offer European perspectives on a number of rail initiatives confronting Central Texas.

Official Agenda

Register

America Public Transportation Association (APTA) lays out their national vision for creating a more robust economy, a smaller carbon footprint, and energy independence.  Below are excerpts, click Changing the Way America Moves for the entire report.

The Problem

Transportation is one of the largest and fastest-growing factors in America’s dependence on foreign oil and its large carbon footprint.  Since 1973, Americans have been traveling 250 percent more miles per capita each year and using more than 36 percent more oil for transportation purposes. The transportation sector emits about one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—a share that is rising rapidly, despite the availability of cleaner technologies. In addition, American households spend 17.6 percent of their budgets on transportation; the average European Union household spends just 11.9 percent.

The Plan

At a time when America must stimulate its economy, create more jobs, reduce its dependence on foreign oil, and become more carbon efficient, public transportation can make a significant contribution quickly and cost-effectively.  America should set a minimum goal of doubling the market share for public transportation by 2020 and achieving, by 2045, a public transportation market share equal to that in the European Union. We can accomplish this by achieving a 5.5-percent annual growth rate for public transportation. But we can accelerate this with a much more ambitious growth rate of 10 percent, attaining a public transportation market share on par with the European Union before 2030.