The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors approved a 40-year interlocal agreement Monday, July 29, with the Capital Area Rural Transportation System for construction and joint operation of the Eastside Bus Plaza, a transit station at the convergence of East Cesar Chavez and East Fifth streets. Meant to serve as a connection point between […]
Capital Metro
The city’s urban transportation system.
Posted inTransit
Project Connect Blue Line yet to be defined
In the shadow of 2014’s failed Highland-Riverside rail ballot measure, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s similarly charted Blue Line is struggling to take form. The Blue Line is one of Project Connect’s two high-capacity transit lines. If approved, it will run in some form of dedicated transitways between the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the Austin […]
Posted inCity Council
Solution to boost revenue for transit leads to broad debate over city signage policy
The Austin City Council will be considering limited exceptions to a city ban on off-premise advertising at its Aug. 22 meeting in order to allow Austin public schools and the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority to display simple, non-electronic advertisements at their facilities, such as bus shelter ads and banners on chain-link fences. The change would […]
Posted inTransit
Orange Line alignment brings up question of community priorities
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to have a community-supported recommendation for Project Connect’s central high-capacity Orange Line by the end of the year. The recommended “locally preferred alternative” will likely have some combination of details about the route cost and type of vehicles, but since the stations and transitway can be built for either […]
Posted inTransit
Longtime VP Todd Hemingson to leave Capital Metro
After more than a decade with the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency’s executive vice president, Todd Hemingson, will step down Friday, July 26. His immediate plan, as he told the Monitor in an interview at the agency’s headquarters on Friday, is to take some time to breathe before figuring out what comes next. While […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Hearsay and opinion
Careful what you read on the internet, folks… Capital Metro’s current incarnation of Project Connect is no different from anything else the agency ever does: complicated, controversial and confusing. Time, however, is running out for the community and the agency to figure out what it wants to do and whether this project is going to […]
Posted inTransit
Council to mull funding for incentives to increase transit use
The Austin Transportation Department has delivered its findings to City Council on how the city could start small programs that would provide incentives to some riders of public transit. The report, which included 15 potential pilot programs, was given to Council members and other city staff last month, for consideration ahead of the upcoming negotiations […]
Posted inTransit
Capital Metro sets out to better define Project Connect
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority is moving into the second of six phases leading up to a possible 2020 referendum on Project Connect. With preliminary engineering contracts already awarded for the two high-capacity routes and the board set to award contracts for most of the other lines later this month, Project Connect program manager Dave […]
Posted inTransit
Cap Metro to debut new ride-hailing service in Manor
On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court unanimously approved funding a new ride-hailing project in Manor run by Capital Metro. The service, called Pickup, aims to provide residents of Austin’s fastest-growing suburb an alternative to driving that is more reliable than existing bus service. While Pickup is modeled after Uber and Lyft, there are some […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Eyes on the Prii
Now we’re here… As public engagement sessions go, the April 27 kickoff for the input gathering process for the Drake Bridge Commons Project was certainly among the more novel we’ve encountered. Among the planned activities: actors portraying historic Austinites William Drake, Emma Long and Walter Seaholm in a nod to the creation of the South […]
Posted inTransit
Capital Metro to buy last wave of diesel, first electric buses
In line with its overarching vision for Project Connect, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority is hoping to phase out use of diesel engine buses beginning this year with the purchase of at least four battery electric buses. The agency has been planning to have electric buses on the streets in Fiscal Year 2022, but now […]
Posted inUncategorized
Getting everyone together for city’s first high-capacity transit line
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority has only just begun its initial yearlong leg of conducting preliminary engineering and studying possible modes and alignments for Project Connect’s Orange Line, the city’s first high-capacity regional transit route, but transportation officials are ready for the community to get on board. As the first of more public outreach efforts to […]