The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to redevelop 10 acres of largely empty land near downtown Austin has drawn criticism from labor advocates. The Workers Defense Project organized a rally of dozens of activists at the front door of Cap Metro’s headquarters on Thursday morning to pressure the board of directors to include stronger allowances […]
Transit
Posted inTransit
Updated: Raise for Watson as Cap Metro ridership declines
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority President Linda Watson is getting a raise despite the agency’s falling ridership. Cap Metro’s board of directors voted on Monday to award Watson with a 5 percent bump in pay. According to the agency’s website, Watson’s current annual salary is $271,637, although that sum does not include deferred compensation. In previous […]
Posted inTransit
LSTAR troubles present another snag for Project Connect
Project Connect, the ambitious vision of a multimodal transportation future in Central Texas, hit a major pothole last week with Union Pacific’s decision to walk away from negotiations with the Lone Star Rail District. In a letter to the district, also known as LSTAR, Union Pacific canceled its agreements to continue exploring the feasibility of […]
Posted inTransit
Lone Star Rail hits major roadblock
A top official with the Lone Star Rail District, or LSTAR, said his agency will continue chugging along despite a serious setback that puts its fundamental mission in jeopardy. On Tuesday, Jerry Wilmoth, Union Pacific’s general manager of network infrastructure, sent a letter notifying LSTAR Chair Sid Covington that the freight rail giant had decided […]
Posted inRoads, Transit, Transportation
Mobility Committee considers options for transportation bond
Every member of City Council, including Mayor Steve Adler, turned up Wednesday afternoon for a discussion held by the Mobility Committee on a potential transportation bond election. They heard a slate of possibilities for action on a potential transportation bond, including one that could culminate in a 2016 ballot question. Robert Goode, assistant city manager […]
Posted inTransit
Cap Metro board greenlights central corridor study
Project Connect is returning to Central Austin. The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors unanimously approved on Monday a contract with the engineering firm AECOM to guide a new study of transportation in the urban core dubbed the Central Corridor Comprehensive Transit Analysis, or CCCTA. The eight-member board voted 7-0 on the measure, after […]
Posted inTransit, Transportation
Cap Metro CEO: Austin “not ready” for light rail
The head of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Tuesday put a wet sponge on the feverish hopes that light rail transit in Austin could become a reality sooner rather than later. “I probably echo what I’ve read (Mayor Steve Adler) has said about it recently: that we’re gonna grow to the point where it’s […]
Posted inTransit, Transportation
Cap Metro rolls out downtown MetroRail station plans
Capital Metro has scaled down its ambitions for a permanent MetroRail station in downtown Austin. The transit agency showed off at a public meeting on Friday its preferred concept for the station, a much more conventional rendering compared to the swooping modernist proposals floated last year. Also missing is the grand appellation by which the […]
Posted inTransit, Transportation
Project Connect lives
Several months after a catastrophic hack forced Capital Metro officials to yank it offline, Project Connect’s website is back in action. It’s not clear exactly when officials turned ProjectConnect.com back on. A check as recently as Oct. 7 by a member of the Austin Monitor team yielded an error message. However, the site is undeniably […]
Posted inTransit, Transportation
Cap Metro approves budget for next fiscal year
The rubber will continue to hit the road for Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and transit services for another year, according to the $357 million Fiscal Year 2015-16 budget that the agency’s board of directors unanimously adopted on Monday. The budget, which goes into effect Thursday, covers $246 million in operating expenses and $111 million […]
Posted inTransit
Cap Metro hires plan consultant despite confusion
Following a discussion that shed some light on how the organization functions, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors voted unanimously at a special called meeting Monday to hire a consultant for its 10-year service plan in spite of conflicting requests. California consultant Transportation Management & Design Inc. and Pflugerville subconsultant Nancy Ledbetter & […]
Posted inTransit
Cap Metro delays hiring service plan consultant
After hearing conflicting advice on which firm to choose, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors voted unanimously Monday to postpone selecting a consultant to head up the development of the organization’s 10-year service plan. The board will take up the issue again at a meeting on Sept. 14. The plan, which is updated […]