The Overhead Wire reports on light rail plans in Austin and Minneapolis which have run into some trouble, because the Universities of Texas and Minnesota are unhappy with line routing and would prefer paths that fail to take best advantage of high-traffic areas on campus.

I believe what this shows is that Universities for one are scared of things they don’t understand, and that they know nothing about transportation planning and so are trying to solve a problem that only exists 8 times a year. Football game and special event congestion. With Austin, they’re running the line right past the performing arts center, the football stadium and the track and swim stadiums instead of by the main campus and the dense residential neighborhood to the west.

Another perceived problem is that light rail is dangerous to pedestrians. Unlike those extremely safe cars careening through and around campus driven by students. But it just goes to show that Universities shouldn’t control regional decisions by throwing fits. If there were a real issue, regional planners would understand and back off, but planning so that cars can keep driving through campus and less trips on transit can be taken is unacceptable.

This caught my attention because it sounds so similar to the University of Maryland’s position on Purple Line routing. One would think that college campuses, which tend to be dense, left-leaning, and full of carless types, would be begging for more transit options, but university administrations are proving oddly reluctant to embrace these investments. An odd and unfortunate phenomenon.