Lone Star Democracy Builders Association

This evening, I went with my secret decoder ring to a MOPAC-Neighborhood Associations Coalition (MONAC) meeting about the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) Transit Oriented Development (TOD) plans.

What I learned:
- I don't have to lose sleep over a rail station being added at 35th and MOPAC anytime soon. Plans for an additional passenger rail line down MOPAC are contingent on getting the right-of-way from Union Pacific (UP), who's currently pissed at TX-DOT over a proposed N/S rail line parallel to the existing UP line (Trans-Texas Corridor?). Even if they do kiss and make up, current estimates are way out in the 2010-2012 range.
- TX-DOT may finally put up sample MOPAC noise-abatement walls in November. And they may even install the noise abatement walls (originally promised in the early 70's when MOPAC was built) before adding more managed lanes and/or passenger rail lines to MOPAC. Maybe.
- Send Jennifer Kim your feedback if you'd like the city to help develop financing plans for folks wanting to install energy-efficient windows and/or attic insulation, which might help with noise problems. The city currently provides rebates on the windows but has no plan to help make the installation affordable. If you do get new windows for noise reasons, make sure to get them installed properly and if you're in a historic home make sure they don't decrease the value of your home and/or screw up future historic designations.

Oh wait, the meeting was supposed to be about TOD plans. What I learned about them:
- The new stations and the red line should arrive in 2008.
- CAMPO owns the rail lines and schedules the freight on the lines. So the passenger trains will be on time. As opposed to Amtrak on the Union Pacific rails. Or any bus in town.
- There will be plenty of public input during the process. Neighborhood planning should happen for the first 1/2 of the stations soon, taking six months. The neighborhood planning for the other 1/2 of the stations will happen in the following six months.
- They are bending over backwards to not affect any existing single-family (SF) zoning. New zoning will affect current industrial/commercial zoning. There's still an open question on where to move the current industrial/commercial zoning, but this isn't a big issue, especially as the TOD areas only cover 0.02 percent of Austin's area.
- CAMPO owns the land needed for all of the stations. Developers will be responsible for developing the land around the stations, based on the zoning and design guidelines that will be tailored for each station.
- They're aware that the current planned lines don't reach existing population centers. But developing new TOD areas around existing track seemed possible while acquiring land for dedicated tracks to population centers hadn't been viable.
- The TOD developments will be bicycle-friendly as well as car- and bus-friendly.
- CAMPO is starting to include pockets of dense development in their traffic growth projections.

The devil always seems to be in the details. While a bit off-topic, the previous plan for the 35th and MOPAC station didn't include parking while the current proposal includes 90 spaces (huh? for who? in place of what?). It seems like it'll be up to the neighborhoods to keep a close eye on the plans for each station.

Which leads me to the following take-aways:
- After the defeat of the previous (2000) light rail plan, it seems like Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) is the new order of the day. When they were thinking of widening MOPAC, I really wasn't happy about having my tax dollars being spent on tearing down houses so someone outside of Austin can have an easier commute from their reduced-tax suburb. But I'd be ok with spending my taxes on relocating a few people so that new rail could be more successful out of the gate. Ok, I know I'm in the minority from the 2000 light rail election. But I don't think most people have been educated properly about the issues. And it seems like the pendulum may have swung too far in the NIMBY direction. While I've now got a little more sympathy for the current CAMPO plan, non-political friends of mine have the same reaction: the current rail plans will help them as much as the existing bus service -- nada.
- It seems like we have a more fundamental issue in that current zoning and development plans aren't being honored. Why spend time developing neighborhood plans if developers can ignore zoning and design rules and even stop-build orders without punishment? This seems to be the first development issue that needs to be addressed by the city council.

Links:
MONAC: http://www.main.org/hpwbana/MoNAC.htm
CAMPO: http://www.campotexas.org/