The Central Texas Transatlantic Rail Workshop brought five European rail and public transportation experts to San Antonio, San Marcos, and Austin, Texas from February 18-20, 2009, to help local leaders and the broader public think about ways to address the challenges inherent in several passenger rail initiatives - commuter rail, light rail, bus rapid transit (BRT), and intercity rail. Some of these initiatives, or plans containing these initiatives, are expected to be voted on in the near future. The workshop consisted of closed door meetings with local decision makers, agency leaders, non-profits, and other individuals, as well as three full days of panel presentations in each city that were open to the public.

The closed door portions of the workshop introduced the European participants to local stakeholders and provided background information on the existing passenger rail plans and systems, the agencies and individuals involved in these efforts, and the challenges confronting the Austin and San Antonio regions. These sessions also were designed to facilitate the exchange of more technical information. They also helped to develop a rapport between the European delegation and local agency leaders and decision makers.

The public portions of the workshop were held in three cities for practical reasons. San Antonio is just now in the planning stages for either a light rail or BRT system. Accordingly, the sessions in San Antonio focused on regional planning, public participation, coordination of passenger and freight rail services, and the economic benefits of passenger rail. San Marcos was selected as the site for the second day because the proposed Austin-San Antonio intercity rail line would run through the city. The San Marcos sessions also focused on the high-speed rail and the impacts of passenger rail projects (intercity and commuter) on small towns. The presentations in Austin focused on issues of financing and governance, because 1) Capital Metro, the local transit provider, is about to launch its first commuter rail line in March 2009; 2) other rail linkages in the Austin region are in the advance planning stages; and 3) Austin is the seat of the state government.

Each day of the workshop attracted a strong mix of interested individuals: elected officials, industry representatives, consultants, agency directors, non-profit leaders, and the general public. Members of the general public were particularly important, because the future prospects for passenger rail (or any mobility investments) in Central Texas will depend heavily on an educated electorate.

At the end of the workshop, the European participants were asked to assess what it would take in order to create and operate comprehensive, efficient, and effective passenger rail systems in Central Texas. A consensus among the Europeans quickly emerged. In order for any of the various rail initiatives in Central Texas to be successful, a number of challenges will need to be addressed:

Although effective public transportation or passenger rail systems require certain elements - including sufficient funding, an adequate supply of potential riders, and demand for services - there is no single approach to achieve these conditions.  The mobility solutions for Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, or Stuttgart are diverse and varied.  Accordingly, they are not necessarily directly transferable to Central Texas either.  However, aspects of these European approaches may be useful to consider as Central Texas grapples with how to move forward with passenger rail services.

A regional vision is a statement about the kind of community people wish to have. A regional vision contains unifying elements around which metropolitan regions develop (e.g., an IT-based economy with a plentitude of green spaces). It does not articulate how to achieve these goals; that is the role of land use and mobility plans. The lack of clarity about what constitutes the municipal region has severely impacted the ability to develop a regional vision in both Austin and San Antonio. In turn, this lack of regional vision is a major hindrance to creating comprehensive and coherent land use or mobility plans.

In both the Austin and San Antonio regions, disconnects between the various entities charged with regional planning and implementing land use controls make it nearly impossible to achieve land use patterns conducive to the provision of good public transportation services. Cities, counties, transit agencies, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Council of Governments, and other legal jurisdictions may all have a role in land use or transportation planning. Yet, the ability to direct development in any coherent fashion is missing. For example, most counties in Texas possess unincorporated regions and areas beyond the reach of the designated transit provider, which often overlap. County governments in Texas have no ability to complement or enforce the land use decisions made by the primary metropolitan jurisdictions within their borders.

In order to provide useful public transportation services, a significant public investment needs to be made to provide the capital infrastructure necessary to support on-going services. An additional and regular public investment in operating funding also is critical to providing adequate levels of public transportation services. In general, the European participants were surprised at how little and inconsistent public funding for public transportation was in Central Texas. Public transportation, regardless of mode, cannot be effective without real investments.

Driving through downtown San Antonio and Austin elicited comments of surprise and wonder from all the European participants about the number of structured parking facilities and open spaces covered by surface parking lots. All agreed that unless fewer accommodations were made for automobiles, the prospect for developing denser urban cores in the downtown and providing meaningful public transportation services was fairly limited. In Stuttgart, a very car-oriented city where Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are headquartered, such parking in the urban core is very limited. Parking fees are also much higher on the spaces that do exist. The generic example given was that parking in Austin or San Antonio averaged in some areas about $7/day, but in Stuttgart parking averaged $7/hour.

In order for any of the three preceding challenges to be addressed in a meaningful way, the Austin and San Antonio regions need leadership. There needs to be someone (or several people) with a vision, who can articulate that vision, and who can lead these communities to make the structural and financial changes that need to occur in order for public transportation to play a significant role in regional mobility. Without that kind of leadership, public transportation - including bus and rail - will continue to be an underutilized asset.

The five European experts who participated in this workshop included:

• Dr. Peter Höflinger, Chairman of the Board of Management, Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG

• Mr. Joachim Krauss, Head of the Office of the Board of Directors, Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen AG

• Mr. Nico van Paridon, Manager for Public Transportation of SRA, Regional Transportation Authority for Amsterdam

• Mr. Clement Michel, Former Manager of Gare Lyon Train Station, Paris, France - SNCF

• Mr. Peter Aarkrog, Rambøll AS, Project Manager for the Metro Project, Copenhagen, Denmark

The workshop also featured presentations by locally-based elected officials, agency and non-profit directors, academics, consultants, a businessman, a journalist, and a banking expert: 

• Mr. Nelson Wolff, Bexar County Judge

• Dr. Fritz Steiner, Dean of the School of Architecture & Past Chairman, Envision Central Texas

• Mr. Scott Polikov, President, Gateway Planning Group & Associate Member, CitiStates Group

• Mr. David Marquez, Director, Bexar County Economic Development

• Ms. Jennifer Moczygemba, Multimodal Section Director, Texas Department of Transportation

• Mr. Craig Kercher, Director of Transportation Services for San Antonio Service Unit, Union Pacific Railroad

• Mr. Scott Bogren, Editor, RAIL Magazine

• Mr. Ross Milloy, Executive Director of Austin, San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District

• Mr. Sid Covington, Executive Committee Chairman, San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District

• Mr. Dave Siebold, Council Member, City of Leander

• Mr. Cecil Pennington, Former Director, Department of Planning, City of San Marcos

• Mr. Tom Word, Chief of Public Works Operations, City of Round Rock

• Mr. Joe Cantalupo, Executive Director, Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization

• Ms. Jaimie Scranton, Vice President, JP Morgan Chase & Company

• Mr. Mike Heiligenstein, Executive Director, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority

• Mr. Doug Allen, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority

• Ms. Mary Briseño, VIA (San Antonio's Transit System) Board Member

• Mr. Brewster McCracken, Austin City Council Member & Mayor Pro-Tem

• Ms. Terry Brechtel, Executive Director, Alamo Regional Mobility Authority