At City Council’s work session yesterday, several Council members hammered on District 8 Council Member Ellen Troxclair’s Austin Affordability Action Plan. The plan proposes that Council focus on affordability in the areas of housing, transportation, budgeting, cost of living and the economy. Troxclair pulled the item from the consent agenda to allow Council members to […]
Capital Metro
The city’s urban transportation system.
Posted inTransit
Capital Metro approves Connections 2025
It’s all systems go for Connections 2025. On Monday afternoon, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors unanimously approved the framework that will guide the agency’s bus operations for the next decade. “This could be a watershed for Capital Metro,” Chair Wade Cooper said just before the vote. “The idea of implementing these high-frequency […]
Posted inTransportation
Now approaching: A final vote on Connections 2025
After months of delay, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors is prepared to take a final vote on the agency’s proposed five-year service plan. The board held one final work session last week to discuss Connections 2025, the framework that will guide a sweeping overhaul of the Austin region’s transit network. Originally set […]
Posted inDevelopment
Plaza Saltillo moves forward, shorter for now
City Council gave provisional approval to the long-gestating Plaza Saltillo project on Thursday evening, but in a form dramatically different from what the developer proposed. As he signaled he would during a work session on Tuesday, Council Member Pio Renteria offered a first-reading motion that would reduce the height of a proposed office tower on […]
Posted inTransportation
County again parks park-and-ride proposal
The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority’s proposed financing scheme to build up to eight new park-and-rides along its toll roads is going nowhere fast. On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court once again stopped short on a vote to direct $2.6 million to the plan. The inaction marked the third time since Dec. 20 that […]
Posted inTransit
At Travis County, CTRMA’s park-and-ride proposal hits another pothole
The Travis County Commissioners Court on Tuesday pitched a second strike against an elaborate plan to build eight new transit-oriented parking lots along Central Texas toll roads. County Judge Sarah Eckhardt’s decision to defer action on the proposal put forward by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority comes a week after Williamson County Judge Dan […]
Posted inWilliamson County
Williamson County upends park-and-ride plans
The Williamson County Commissioners Court last week refused to go along with an ambitious plan aimed at planting eight new park-and-rides along Central Texas toll roads. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority cooked up the proposal last month in partnership with the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. CTRMA staff […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s notebook: Old endings, new beginnings
Love actually… Bob Gedert, who has served as director of Austin’s Resource Recovery Department since 2010, is retiring for love. Following his final appearance before City Council on Thursday, Gedert was standing outside Council chambers when the Austin Monitor caught up with him. He said he was moving to Cincinnati and would become a consultant […]
Posted inTransportation
Corridor plans could yield new traffic law, but buses might not benefit as promised
Mayor Steve Adler’s sales pitch for his successful $720 million transportation bond promised the creation of new bus pullouts along major city corridors so that, in his words, “cars can keep on going when the bus pulls over.” Transit advocates and the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority countered that notion with concerns that endless platoons of […]
Posted inTransportation
Capital Metro merges working group with city planning effort
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city of Austin have joined together to expand the scope of work for the group of residents and stakeholders deputized to weigh in on the latest iteration of Project Connect. The Project Connect Community Advisory Committee, which held its first, and so far only, meeting on Oct. 21, […]
Posted inTransit
Uber wants to come back to Austin
Uber does not have hard feelings about Prop 1. In a forum hosted by the Austin Monitor, Glasshouse Policy and KUT on the patio of the Ginger Man bar downtown, a representative of the ride-hailing giant expressed regret about the tenor of the multimillion-dollar campaign waged by the company earlier this year. The campaign attempted […]
Posted inTransit
Connections 2025 experiencing a month delay due to rider concerns
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority is moving a little less rapidly toward the adoption of Connections 2025, thanks in part to public outcry about some of its proposed service changes. The agency is banking that the long-range service plan and its emphasis on frequent service will reverse sliding ridership, which the agency’s board of directors […]