The Overhead Wire Makes Strong Case for Lamar / Guadalupe Light Rail [updated]

We just came across The Overhead Wire's extremely well reasoned post laying out the case for Austin's next light rail line to go up Guadalupe and Lamar instead of the current old-airport-to-the-new-airport plan.

NOTE: Today's Statesman is running a new map of the proposed light rail route. Read the Statesman story, or click the image to view map full-size:

Funding for light rail may appear on the November, 2012 Austin bond election ballot. 

As anyone who has lived in Austin for more than a minute can tell you, light rail is a political football (make that a football-shaped hand grenade) since rail costs a lot and somehow brings out the strongest emotions in proponents and opponents alike.

But take a look at the map below (click through to the big version on the Overhead Wire) and it does seem to make sense to run rail where the people live and work instead of off to the side. (That said, Overhead Wire has no problem with the Riverside leg, nor going out to the airport as the city gets so much visitor traffic from SXSW and the like; it's more a matter of prioritizing where it would be most useful.)

You can also find a good slew of comments on Austin Contrarian following Overhead Wire's post.

(Thx Austin Contrarian!)