Downtown alliance suggests Wooldridge Sq. station, sunken roadways to improve rail plan

The Downtown Austin Alliance has suggested a number of adjustments to the light rail plan unveiled to the public earlier this week, while also showing support for the route that moves through the downtown core from its endpoints to the north, east and south.

The DAA has issued its own map for the route, which runs from 38th Street south to Oltorf Street and along East Riverside Drive to Yellow Jacket Lane. The most significant suggestions are adding a station near Wooldridge Square, and sinking the street underneath the rail lines at two locations: Guadalupe and 15th streets and Trinity and Cesar Chavez streets.

Other suggested changes include extending the northern terminus to 45th Street to allow for more park-and-ride locations that would encourage ridership, and extending the eastern route all the way to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Dewitt Peart, DAA’s president and CEO, said the airport extension could be made financially feasible by opening revenue-generating public-private partnerships for any public land that the rail lines cross, or working some of the expense into the financing for the planned expansion of the airport.

Peart noted the rail could significantly reduce vehicle trips from the roughly 8,000 employees traveling to the airport regularly, with that reduction helping to justify any possible financial link between the two infrastructure projects.

Regarding the Wooldridge Square station suggestion, Peart said data from other major metro transit projects suggests a maximum distance of half a mile between stations is optimal for users. The plan being circulated for approvals currently includes a station at 15th Street and Guadalupe Street, with the closest station roughly one mile away at Third Street and Congress Avenue.

“We looked at other urban centers, including Atlanta and Charlotte, and what we noticed was the stations in these Sun Belt cities, the spacing was a half a mile apart, meaning that the walking distance to the station is a quarter-mile at the most,” he said. “Certainly with the Texas heat, that’s about as far as people will walk, so we said that we’ve got a hole in the system if we don’t have a station around Wooldridge Park. We understand that there are challenges with creating the station because of topography, but we think it’s worth pursuing now rather than waiting.”

Looking at development patterns downtown, Peart said there will likely be an impact on the need for parking garages that are currently located near the route. He also said there is certain to be greater demand for first-floor retail of all kinds in properties on those routes, especially close to planned stations.

To the area just south of Lady Bird Lake, Peart said the rail station planned for the extension of Trinity Street near East Riverside Drive is going to have a dramatic impact on plans for the South Central Waterfront District, including the redevelopment of the former Austin American-Statesman property.

“Having that rail station there sort of changes the market potential and market dynamics for the site, and makes that development much more appealing from a residential perspective. Think about if the system would go to the airport, to live there and be able to jump on the system and get to the airport, or if you office there to be able to jump on the rail system and go across the lake and go downtown,” he said. “It really helps knit the city together better than solely having vehicle access, because just the traffic piece of that there, it’s constraining.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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