The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Board of Directors on Monday gave its blessing to the handful of staff-curated corridors that will be studied for potential high-capacity transit investments. The 6-0 vote, with Council Member Delia Garza and fellow Board Member Terry Mitchell absent from the meeting, provided Project Connect with clearance to advance to the second […]
Project Connect
This project brought together a series of Central Texas transportation agencies looking to build high-capacity transit options in the region in the wake of CAMPO’s 2035 regional transportation plan. The City of Austin’s much-discussed 2014 Urban Rail plan was part of Project Connect’s efforts.
Posted inTransit
Project Connect goes citywide
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 […]
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
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
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 inRoads, Transportation
Website hack shines light on Project Connect
Project Connect, the grand vision for high-capacity transit in Central Texas, has spent a good chunk of 2015 completely out of sight. However, a top Capital Metropolitan Transit Authority official assured the Austin Monitor on Thursday that it’s just temporarily lying fallow after its roads-and-rail bond referendum went off the tracks in November. Todd Hemingson, Capital Metro’s […]
Posted inAustin, Elections, Transit, Transportation
Martinez to pitch bus rapid transit investments
City Council Member and Austin mayoral candidate Mike Martinez is looking to pitch multiple bus rapid transit lines as the next major transportation investment for the area. In an interview with the Monitor, Martinez nodded to the work done by Project Connect – efforts that led to a $600 million rail bond question that was […]
Posted inTransportation
AURA accuses Project Connect of funding political ads for urban rail
Project Connect’s ubiquitous summer media spots about its proposed urban rail project have drawn fire from the transit activist group AURA, which calls the ads unethical. The group says the ads are a political advertising campaign funded by taxpayer dollars. Project Connect officials say they are educational. The radio, television, print and digital ads in […]
Posted inTransportation
Austin Monitor Radio, Show 6
The Monitor’s Mike Kanin, Council Member Bill Spelman, AURA Co-Founder and Austin Urban Transportation Commissioner Jace Deloney, and CapMetro’s Javier Arguello talk Urban Rail. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/158002848″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
Posted inDevelopment, Local Politics
Council members ponder high cost of Highland area renovations
There was widespread support at Tuesday’s work session for the renovations already underway at Highland Mall. But the hefty price tag that will most likely accompany that redevelopment had some City Council members concerned that the city could be overextending itself in the face of so many opportunities. The first phase of the project […]
Posted inTransportation
Council to vote on mobility plan that includes road projects
A recommendation from City Manager Marc Ott means that City Council members will vote Thursday on what Mayor Lee Leffingwell calls “a strategic mobility plan” that ultimately could lead to a $1 billion November transportation bond election. The numbers, hinted at for some time, include $400 million in road projects and $600 million for […]
Posted inTransportation
Central Corridor Group endorses Project Connect plan for urban rail
Urban rail in Austin rolled closer to reality Friday. By a 13-1 vote, the Central Corridor Advisory Group put its stamp of approval on Project Connect’s Locally Preferred Alternative, or LPA, for Austin’s future transportation project. The Locally Preferred Alternative describes an urban rail line that would run through the East Riverside corridor, cross […]