Jace Deloney and Julio Gonzalez Altamirano have formed Austinites for Urban Rail Action (AURA) to advocate for a "successful, open and transparent urban rail process." Follow AURA on Facebook. Or twitter. (Or both.)
The impetus for AURA is the route selection for Austin's initial urban rail line. Should the initial line go up Guadalupe and Lamar, the route proposed in 2000, or instead run out to Mueller?
I'm no transit expert, but I vote Guadalupe/Lamar. Guadalupe/Lamar has more existing, proven demand (i.e., much higher bus ridership). The Guadalupe/Lamar corridor is basically at capacity right now, so light rail in reserved guideway could increase the corridor's throughput. And Guadalupe/Lamar has better geometry -- a long, straight line criss-crossed by most of the important east-west corridors north of UT. A Guadalupe/Lamar line could serve as the backbone for north Austin's mass transit system. A line to the Mueller Town Center couldn't.
I gather that AURA has not been created to advocate a specific route, though, but to advocate a public, data-driven route-selection process. We haven't had a public, data-driven discussion of the alternatives yet, and it's not clear that we're going to get one. AURA aims to fix that.
Along these lines, here is Julio's excellent post on the need for more data.
