As a member of the Austin City Planning Commission, Dave Sullivan has a very unique perspective from the train. He is also a cycling enthusiast who uses the train to ride around town.
“I don’t know why more people don’t use MetroRail. It’s a convenient, ideal way to travel,” Dave said. You avoid the hassles on the roads, he said. He bikes 2 miles from near Enfield and MoPac to the Convention Center 3 – 4 mornings a week to catch the 6:41 to Kramer Station, then one mile from there to the Pickle Research Campus. In the evening he bikes home 10 miles. Occasionally he does the reverse. Sometimes he bikes both ways!
There are also many things that one can do whilst on the train. “You can work on the train; I see lots of people with their laptops out.”
Eventually, “there will be much more residential and retail than there is now,” Dave said. This will cause ridership to rise as more people have more places to go.
Dave also enjoys getting to meet new people who are riding the train.
He, like many others, wishes there was more service, especially more reverse commute trains that go all the way to Leander.
He sees a future with weekend service, too. “During South by Southwest people could stay at hotels farther north and then run into downtown,” he said.
