The Commuter Rail is On the Way

The commuter rail has been in the news lately as they will start doing test runs as soon as the end of this month. The shuttle is estimated to have up to 2,000 commuters a day. The rail line will be 32 miles long and will run from downtown Austin all the way to Leander. Although the commuter rail won't be ready for another year, it is still getting a lot of attention these days.

The first time I ever saw a commuter rail was when I use to live in Houston. I thought it looked pretty cool and would save people time and money because it was a good alternative to riding the bus or driving. I have never actually gotten in one before but from the outside it looks safe and sleek. I believe it was voted on in 2004 if I remember correctly and I did not get to vote on the issue of whether or not it should be done.

Once the commuter rail goes up, hopefully traffic will go down a little and there will be less buses on the roads. The buses on the roads are dangerous, slow, and take up too much space. I'm not sure what the rate is for riding the shuttle for the commuter rail.

Capital Metro has had some trouble with the budget plan that was promised to the voters. Capital Metro didn't get the $30 million from federal grants because they did not seek those grants. So now the company is $30 million short and they are trying to get that money through local taxes and fares. The original plan of the entire shuttle was supposed to be at $90 million and it might take more than that.

With all the change in money and also the delayed availability of the commuter rail leads one to believe that some people might have voted differently had they known this were to happen. It seems typical of something like this to happen where a plan is voted on and passed. Then after the plan is passed it becomes tweaked a bit to allow the company to change whatever they want.

I don't think it's right how something like the budget and the time of the its availability can be changed. Especially when voters are promised a certain time and amount for the budget. I can understand some changes, but not as drastic as a huge amount of money. Realistically I guess there is no rush to getting the commuter rail ready and it is expected to stretch out the budget a little bit. But it would be nice for the voters to get what they voted for.