Austin Contrarian

Train ride

I rode the commuter rail last week.  Here are my random impressions.  (If you want critical analysis, just google M1EK.)

My son and I took the 4:40 from the Convention Center north to the Howard Lane station and rode back.  It was about an hour and a half round trip.

You haven't ridden a train unless you've ridden one with a four-year old obsessed with trains.  I was treated (or subjected) to constant questions and observations.  "There is an old track; why aren't trains running on it?"  "Is that where they repair the trains?"  "What's that green paint doing on the train track?"  You get the idea.

The train was comfortable.  The ride was smooth.  It was on time to the minute.  But it was only a third full or so when it left downtown.  We picked up passengers as we headed north.  By the time we got to the Howard station, the train was packed.  And we picked up a bunch more passengers there before we headed back.  I suspect the train was at its standing-room capacity on the return trip.  It was obvious that most of the passengers were just checking it out; I doubt many commuters were heading south in the late afternoon.

The car is comfortable, of course.  The windows are large, perfect for viewing the neighborhoods as we rode by.  Austin's neighborhoods are frankly not that interesting, though -- just one suburban-style neighborhood after another, segregated by streets lined with strip malls.  Urban neighborhoods are more interesting to look at it; there's just more going on visually.  The most interesting neighborhood by far was East Austin between Cesar Chavez and MLK.  (I really like Saltillo Plaza, by the way.)

Buses were queued at each stop,ready to take passengers to their ultimate destinations.  They looked to be mostly empty.  In the rain, they looked a little forlorn.

The Cap Metro folks were handing out cardboard replicas of the train.  William plans to take his to show-and-tell next week.

That's about it.  Nothing terribly deep here.  I imagine that if I lived close to one of the stations, I'd use the train.  But the stations in north Austin have no place to park, so getting there by bus is the only option.  If I lived a bus ride from the station, I probably wouldn't take the train.  Having to hop on a bus once I got to downtown frankly wouldn't bug me, though.

We'll ride it again sometime.  William has a list of friends to take.  I don't think Cap Metro's would counts us as its core riders, though. 

Did Sao Paulo get what it wanted?

This doesn't have any relevance to Austin, but it's still interesting.

A few years ago, Sao Paulo banned essentially all outdoor advertising.  Not just billboards but virtually any kind of sign.  The Golden Arches are gone.  So are signs painted on the sides of buildings.  Neon signs, too.  Even storefront signs.

The ban was widely lauded at the time.  A blow against "visual pollution" and corporate manipulation of virtuous but sadly suggestible consumers.

The advertising is now gone.   This is a strictly subjective opinion, of course, but the result isn't pretty.  "Cleansing" the city of advertising did indeed focus attention on the underlying architecture.  But, judging from the pictures and videos,  the city's architecture doesn't warrant attention.  It looks drab, blandly utilitarian.  Even seedy.

I wonder what impact this has had on commerce in the city.  Outdoor advertising is actually useful.  All those signs served a purpose.  They provided information, mainly by cutting search costs.  But the ban was motivated in part by anti-commercial sentiments, so I suppose the city's residents got what they wanted.  (Maybe I'm wrong, but Latin American and South American countries seem to have an abiding dislike of markets.)

Judge for yourself.  A few Flickr photos.  Video.  Video.  And a few other photos here and here.