Austin Transit Partnership presents pedestrian features, changes to stops in revised Project Connect plan

The Mobility Committee of City Council heard an update on plans for the Austin light-rail project that included a proposal for three new pedestrian features along the prospective system, as well as changes to stops, during a meeting on Feb. 20.

The new pedestrian features would be a hike-and-bike greenway consisting of a tree-lined, trackside trail in the median between the separated traffic lanes lined along East Riverside Drive, a car-free zone on the University of Texas at Austin campus and a plaza at the planned Oltorf stop on South Congress, which would be the southern end-of-line under phase one of the project.

Lindsay Wood, president for design and construction with the Austin Transit Partnership – a public corporation created by the proposition to oversee the planning, construction and management of the system – said during the presentation that the purpose of the trail was to make it easier for pedestrians to access the train, as well as offering a “safe mobility option” along the wide and busy road.

“We did a lot of research into the user experience and what would drive people to take light-rail as a new choice in Austin instead of other options for mobility within the system,” Wood said. “One of our findings was to really make the connections as easy as possible.”

The ATP is also proposing changes to several stops, including the cancellation of a Travis Heights stop, a new stop at Wooldridge Square in downtown Austin, adjustments to two stops in the Montopolis neighborhood and changes to elevate a planned Waterfront station near Lady Bird Lake.

Phase one of the light-rail project incorporates the original plan approved by voters through Proposition A in 2020. That plan has been revised several times since 2020 in response to cost increases from inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many of those revisions scaled down the project to keep the overall price tag closer to the roughly $5 billion number presented to voters when the plan was approved. Currently, estimated total costs sit at a little over $7 billion.

Those costs are slated to be paid for through a complex reimbursement plan, with a mix of presumed federal funding and city bonds financed by a 21 percent property tax increase approved along with the proposition.

That plan, and the project in general, has been the subject of a legal challenge initiated by the owner of burger restaurant Dirty Martin’s and a slew of current and former political officials that argues that the ATP does not have the authority to fund itself with tax dollars.

ATP lawyers have called the attorney general’s arguments “absurd” in filings for the ongoing suit, which the Austin Monitor has previously reported on.

If the current iteration of the plan survives the legal turmoil and is executed successfully, phase one would include 15 stops, covering 9.8 miles of rail when the first phase of the project is completed. Construction will likely not begin until at least 2027, however, so Austinites will have to wait at least a few more years to ride the (new) rails.

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