Delayed CapMetro Rapid routes to launch next year with slower service and diesel buses

Capital Metro’s newest high-frequency bus routes have been delayed, and now the transit agency says the Expo Center and Pleasant Valley routes will launch next year with reduced frequency and diesel-powered buses instead of the promised electric ones.

The delays are pushing back the timeline for other planned CapMetro Rapid (formerly MetroRapid) routes, including those serving Oak Hill, Tanglewood Shopping Center and Austin Community College’s (ACC) Highland Campus.

The first two of the new Rapid routes – both serving areas east of Interstate 35 – were originally set to launch last summer with buses arriving every 10 minutes. But now they won’t begin running till spring 2025.

Buses will show up every 20 minutes on weekdays and 30 minutes on weekends, at least at first, leaving bus riders waiting twice as long as planned.

Some bus stops on the Rapid routes likely won’t be ready by launch, forcing riders to wait at temporary stops that might lack benches or shelters.

The $48.5 million Expo Center line – Rapid 837 – will carry commuters from the Travis County Expo Center to Republic Square, a downtown park and growing transit hub. The 12-mile route has 24 planned stops including destinations like the Delco Center, UT Austin, St. David’s Medical Center, Dell Children’s Hospital and the Red Line commuter train’s downtown station.

The $52.7 million Pleasant Valley line – Rapid 800 – will span 15 miles with 22 stations between Goodnight Ranch in Southeast Austin and Northeast Austin’s Mueller Neighborhood. Key stops along the way include Dove Springs Recreation Center, Roy G. Guerrero Park, Austin Community College (ACC) Eastview and Dell Children’s Medical Center.

Both Rapid lines are part of Project Connect, the package of transit improvements funded with higher city property taxes approved by Austin voters in 2020. The Federal Transit Administration agreed to cover about two-thirds of the Rapid lines’ construction costs. The annual operating costs of each line is estimated around $10 million.

The setback is the latest fallout from Capital Metro’s now-stalled shift to an all-electric fleet. The transit agency admitted this summer that the ambitious goal, announced in 2018, was based on overly optimistic predictions about how quickly electric bus technology would evolve.

“The real lynchpin for our ability to get to the frequency right now is the charging infrastructure at the park and rides,” Capital Metro CEO Dottie Watkins said at a recent public hearing on the changes, during which no members of the public signed up to speak.

“Because a battery electric bus can’t stay out all day – it can only stay out about half a day – we can’t use the battery electric buses we bought exclusively to run these lines because we don’t have the charging infrastructure,” Watkins said.

Capital Metro said ultimately it plans to deliver the 10-minute frequency with exclusively electric buses on the Rapid routes.

But until enough buses and chargers are ready, possibly sometime in 2026, commuters on the Pleasant Valley and Expo Center Lines will board exhaust-spewing diesel-powered vehicles that show up less often.

How important is 10-minute frequency to commuters who would rely on the new Rapid routes?

“Ooo! Real important,” said Darcy Frazier, a regular bus rider waiting at Decker and Loyola Lanes for the 337, a route whose 15-minute frequency would exceed that of Expo Center Rapid route when it rolls out. “Something we going to need.”

Capital Metro’s existing zero-emission buses will be sprinkled across the service map on other routes where they can get away with operating only eight hours a day.

CapMetro started 2024 with just 23 battery-electric buses. The agency expects to receive 87 more this year from Canada’s New Flyer and Phoenix Motor, the California company that bought bus builder Proterra – CapMetro’s original supplier – which went bankrupt last year.

In a sign of the turbulence within the electric bus industry, the Capital Metro board voted Monday to allocate up to $46 million worth of spending on bus chargers to a new company. Phoenix Motor, which has the chargers contract, still can’t build them. So Capital Metro will buy charging equipment from Camber Operating Company, the new name of Proterra’s energy business. Capital Metro has purchased about $5 million of chargers so far.

But even with charging, Capital Metro’s battery-electric buses have been persistently unreliable.

About half of Capital Metro’s e-buses are unavailable for service at any given time, according to information obtained through the Texas Public Information Act. The buses experience mechanical failures more than twice as frequently as the fleet as a whole.

The transit agency’s leaders say they would rather offer less frequent diesel-powered service along the new Rapid routes than no service at all.

“We wanted to be able to deliver something to the community sooner rather than wait,” Capital Metro planning director Roberto Gonzalez said. “If we were to stretch further, we don’t have the pieces in place to be able to do that at this point.”

Those pieces are slowly being put in place.

Charging infrastructure still needs to be installed at Capital Metro garages at headquarters on East Fifth Street and at the agency’s North Operations Center on McNeil Road, Gonzalez said.

Two park-and-ride facilities need to be finished at the end of each line where chargers would top off bus batteries between routes.

A $20.8 million Expo Center Park and Ride is already under construction with 140 parking spaces planned.

Goodnight Ranch is running further behind. The Capital Metro board in April approved the $2 million purchase of a 1.79-acre tract of land at 2401 East Slaughter Lane. Five months later, Capital Metro says it’s still working out the “terms and conditions” of acquiring the land. The Goodnight Ranch Park and Ride will have 64 parking spaces.

But it’s not just technology stopping the wheels on the bus from going ’round. Workers are also in short supply.

Capital Metro still doesn’t have enough drivers or mechanics, despite increasing drivers’ starting wage to $23/hour and mechanics’ to $32/hour. Each position offers a signing bonus of up to $5,000.

The chronic understaffing contributes to service challenges where even existing “high-frequency” routes don’t always meet the 10- to 15-minute frequency standard. According to Capital Metro’s own dashboard, almost one in four Rapid buses arrives at least five minutes late.

But even with that 77 percent reliability, the new Rapid routes would still bring faster transit to areas east of I-35, neighborhoods with largely Latino and Black populations that have faced generations of underinvestment by local government.

Under the timeline presented to voters in 2020, not only were the Expo and Pleasant Valley Rapid lines scheduled to be running by now, but two other Rapid routes were also supposed to be coming online under Project Connect.

The Burnet/Menchaca line – an extension of the existing 803 Rapid route – would stretch in two directions from the Westgate Transit Center. One branch would travel down Menchaca Road to the Tanglewood Shopping Center at Slaughter Lane, while the other would reach into Oak Hill.

The Gold Line, named for the hope that it could eventually be converted to a light-rail route, is planned to run from the bustling ACC Highland campus to Republic Square downtown.

While Capital Metro insists it hasn’t abandoned plans for the Gold Line or the 803 extension, the timing of both projects is now uncertain. They’re being evaluated under Capital Metro’s long-term Transit Plan 2035, which isn’t scheduled to be adopted until the fall of 2025.

“We remain committed to delivering these projects as promised to voters in November 2020,” Capital Metro spokesperson Blythe Nebeker said in an email. “Once Transit Plan 2035’s analysis is complete, an update to the remaining Rapid lines will be provided to reflect the projects and how they fit into the overall network.”

Even more Rapid routes are in the Project Connect pipeline, though they remain unfunded.

Proposed routes include the MLK Rapid line from West Austin to Northeast Austin, the 7th/Lake Austin Rapid route from West Austin to East Austin, the Cameron/Dessau line from ACC Highland to the Tech Ridge Park and Ride, and the Parmer Rapid line from Lakeline Station to Wildhorse Ranch.

Capital Metro will consider where these routes fit within the long-term timeline as part of Transit Plan 2035.

For now, residents in East Austin waiting for the bus will have to wait a little longer.

“Long as it happens, I’m willing to wait,” Frazier, the regular Capital Metro customer, said at the bus stop. “If I live to see it, I’ll be here.”

This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.

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