Photo by Kevin H.

Your weekend editor is writing from Austin, Texas, where Capital Metro just launched its brand new MetroRail Red Line, the first line in the MetroRail light train system. Talking with friends who have lived here for years about their impressions of the rail system has been illuminating. Having lived with the Metro system for nearly 35 years, the District has some useful advice to offer a city like Austin: The District (mostly) avoided the sort of major freeway system that clogs the heart of the Lone Star State. Yet in launching a light rail plan in 2010, Austin’s bound to benefit from new transit technology and philosophy.

Ryan Avent writes up a prescription for (D.C.) Metro that could just as easily apply to (Austin) Capital Metro: Congestion pricing.