Three years after a proposal to lay 9.5 miles of light rail across a sliver of Austin went down in flames, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority planners are broadening their horizons. On Friday, the agency’s board of directors heard the preliminary results of the first phase of the rebooted Project Connect effort, findings that revealed a citywide […]
Transportation
Posted inTransportation
Effort to move buses faster stalls at Urban Transportation Commission
Top local transportation planners on Tuesday tapped the brakes on an activist-crafted effort aimed at increasing transit use. At the monthly Urban Transportation Commission meeting, Transportation Director Rob Spillar, Corridor Program Implementation Office Director Mike Trimble and Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority Long Range Planning Director Javier Arguello each indicated that any talk of planning for new […]
Posted inTransit
Council approves ‘Smart Trips’ transit outreach
City Council voted Thursday to approve a contract with a Portland-based company to operate the “Smart Trips” program, which aims to get more people in the urban core to opt for public transit, bikes and walking over driving. Before voting to pay Alta Planning & Design $600,000 (half of which comes from the Capital Metropolitan […]
Posted inTransit
Renewed Project Connect closes in on milestone
The brain trust behind Project Connect will reveal which specific corridors have made the cut to advance to the next round of high-capacity transit planning on Friday. Last Wednesday, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority Long Range Planning Director Javier Arguello told the City Council Mobility Committee that his team will present to members of the Capital […]
Posted inTransit
Downtown change: new rail station, more two-way traffic
In two votes Thursday, City Council approved funding to help the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority build a new downtown rail station and public plaza to serve the Red Line and gave the OK to turn East Fifth Street into a two-way street to help ease the congestion that the new development is expected to exacerbate. […]
Posted inTransportation
Council gears up for mobility bond investments
City Council is on the verge of approving tens of millions of dollars to help jump-start the ambitious mobility bond program voters approved last November. The agenda holds a full six items that would cumulatively earmark $39 million for transportation projects, begin hiring new staff to absorb the crush of incoming work and authorize negotiations […]
Posted inTransit
12th & Chicon bus stop will showcase East Austin’s African-American history
The bus stop at the southeast corner of 12th Street and Chicon once featured vibrant plaques commemorating the history of East Austin. But the plaques have fallen into disrepair since being installed in 2003. Now, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to redo the bus stop to honor the area’s African-American legacy. Creola Shaw-Burns is […]
Posted inTransit
For Capital Metro, UT shuttles ground what could be high-flying ridership numbers
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s latest systemwide ridership statistics would be trending upward were it not for an unlikely population: college students. According to recently posted data, the agency gave fewer rides in March than it did over the same period last year. That was despite a significant increase in passengers on MetroRapid and small […]
Posted inRoads
City developing concrete plans to make bus passengers more comfortable
If you close your eyes, you can imagine yourself raiding Berlin in 1943, the deafening explosions of flak violently rankling the thin fuselage that separates you from the battlefields below. But in reality, you’re riding one of the hundreds of Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses that grind across badly damaged Central Austin asphalt and turn […]
Posted inTransit
Small change brings big boost to MetroRapid
MetroRapid’s popularity has taken off after a small but significant tweak the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority made in January. So far in 2017, both lines of the limited-stop service have together seen a 26-percent increase in ridership compared to the same period in 2016. The service saw its best month ever in March, when the […]
Posted inTransportation
Council approves Smart Trips program
City Council on Thursday approved the second iteration of Smart Trips, an education and outreach program aimed at getting people in Central Austin out of their cars and onto sidewalks, bikes and buses. The first iteration took place between April and July of last year, when the Austin Transportation Department teamed up with the Capital […]
Posted inTransit
Traffic, affordability plague Austin in latest Zandan Poll
Traffic and transit woes continue to be the bane of most Austinites’ existence, but the latest edition of a long-running community survey suggests those frustrations are easing, at least a little bit. The newest Zandan Poll – started 30 years ago by researcher and market analyst Peter Zandan – finds that traffic and transportation again […]