The Project Connect team has been might busy lately, holding public engagement meetings about the designs of sections of the Blue and Orange light rail transit corridors. One upcoming meeting Project Connect watchers might not want to miss concerns the various transit options that will be offered on the Blue Line bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake. Initially, the bridge was going to be limited to pedestrians and light rail, but transit planners are taking a closer look to see if Capital Metro buses should also share the bridge. The virtual meeting will be held Tuesday, April 26, at 5:30 p.m. Register for the Zoom meeting.

Austin Public Health has updated its Covid “key indicators” dashboard to be more in line with the CDC Community Levels and Travis County’s Risk-Based Guidelines. The dashboard now keeps track of Covid hospital admissions per 100,000 people over the last week, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid patients and the total number of new Covid cases per 100,000 people over the last seven days. “We must always evolve and improve the ways to track the threat of Covid-19 in our community and hospital systems. It’s invaluable in our efforts to prevent a scarcity of ICU beds and ventilators that we’ve dealt with many times before during this pandemic,” Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County health authority, said in a press release about the change. “We must remain vigilant to prevent future surges, and this will help achieve that goal.” Currently, the risk level in the region is low, which means masking is optional for those who are up-to-date with vaccines and those who are at risk. More information about the new dashboard and Covid resources can be found here.

A new exhibition will bring dozens of kites to hang in the rafters of Austin Central Library’s atrium, where they will remind visitors of the “connection between water and life in Texas,” according to the library’s announcement. The kites on display were chosen from submissions by over 200 artists for the Sacred Springs Kite Exhibition, the inaugural program of Art4Water, a program of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, which collaborated with the library and Terry Zee Lee, a national curator of kite exhibitions. Library Director Roosevelt Weeks noted that Central Library’s location, “where Shoal Creek feeds into Lady Bird Lake and about a mile from Barton Springs,” is the perfect place for such an exhibit. The opening reception is May 6, 7-9 p.m., at Austin Central Library, 6th floor, 710 W. Cesar Chavez St. Several of the featured artists will be on hand to give tours of the exhibition. The kites will hang at the library through November 2022.

Confused about the impact of street impact fees? You are not alone. Large- or small-scale developers may attend one of three city-sponsored webinars (via Zoom) intended to explain the new fee, which will be implemented on June 22. According to a press release from the city, the topics covered will include:

• What is a SIF, and why is the city of Austin collecting the fee?
• What other communities have a SIF program and are collecting fees?
• Website information for small developers
• How will the fee be used?
• Who will have to pay the fee?
• How is the fee calculated, and can I estimate the fee myself?
• When and how will the fee be collected (in what stage of the permit process)?
• What forms of payment will the city accept?

Information about the fees can be found on the city website. Registration information for the webinars, which will be held April 20 and May 19, can also be found online.

Planning to get up-to-date on your Covid-19 vaccinations or booster shots? Good for you! We applaud your responsible, community minded, pro-science mindset. To help you plan when to get your vaccination, we’d like to inform you that Travis County’s mobile vaccine clinics will be closed for the Easter holiday, from today, April 15, through Sunday, April 17. Everything goes back to normal on Monday, April 18. The county’s handy online calendar lists all vaccination event locations and hours.

After much hard work by the members of the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association and friends, the West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt Trailhead project is finally complete. In addition to a brand-new informational kiosk and paved parking area, the trailhead boasts new signage and cedar fencing. It all adds up to a far more inviting access point to the 16-acre West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt. The community received assistance from the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and Public Works’ Neighborhood Partnering Program, which “helps local groups enhance city-owned property in their neighborhood through cost-sharing, project planning, and construction,” according to a news release. BCNA’s Ingrid Weigand, who has been caring for the greenbelt for three decades and helped spearhead the project, noted that “People need to know the trails exist in order to use them, and also feel safe and comfortable doing so. We’re very pleased with how welcoming the trailhead looks, and we hope to see more of our neighbors enjoying this greenspace.”

It’s safe to say that airport recovery is going just fine. According to the monthly traffic report from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, “passenger traffic growth for February 2022 was up 249.04 percent compared to February 2021, with 1,203,251 passengers flying during the month.” That’s a pretty impressive number, and it helps explain why you really, really, really need to get to the airport early if you have a plane to catch.

Want to broadcast your support for Vision Zero, the community initiative to encourage safer driving and eliminate traffic fatalities? Get a free Vision Zero yard sign from the city to display in your front yard or on your porch. Just email the team to request a sign and then coordinate to pick it up at the Transportation Department offices. The signs come in English or Spanish.

Nonprofit Delta Kappa Gamma has officially sold its longtime headquarters at 416 W. 12th St., according to a press release from Sayers Real Estate Advisors. The sale to developer Stratus Properties paves the way for a 400-foot-tall, 35-story tower with 300 apartments. The project – called Annie B after DKG founder Annie Webb Blanton – will feature a “garden honoring the historical impact of DKG’s work.” Construction is scheduled from October of this year to May 2025. DKG successfully rezoned the property last year to allow the tower, fending off preservationists who wanted to save the midcentury-modern building from demolition. After operating in the building for over six decades, DKG decided to sell in order to stay financially stable in the future. The sale amount is undisclosed, though the property was valued at just over $3.5 million in 2021. The nonprofit has already moved to a new headquarters in North Austin.

Preliminary registration numbers for AISD pre-K and kindergarten have doubled over last spring, after a district-wide registration campaign. Pre-K registrations are up 188 percent compared to 2021 and kindergarten registrations are up 123 percent. That is welcome news to the district, which failed to meet enrollment expectations throughout the pandemic. According to a press release from AISD, Summit, Baldwin, Barrington, Padron and Pickle were the top five campuses in terms of registration. “What these numbers tell me is that there is a pent-up demand in Austin coming out of the pandemic for our high-quality pre-K and kindergarten options,” Alejandro Delgado, district enrollment executive director, said in a statement to the press.

Austinites who frequent the area around East Fourth Street between the northbound Interstate 35 frontage road and San Marcos Street may have noticed that crews have begun work converting the street into a one-way configuration. According to a news release from the Transportation Department, the project is designed to make the road safer and prevent “conflicts between right-turning motor vehicles and people walking, bicycling or scooting across the Lance Armstrong Bikeway on the north curb of East Fourth Street.” Other planned changes include “reinforcing no on-street parking along the east curb of the I-35 northbound frontage road between Third Street and Fourth Street” in order to improve visibility; making westbound East Fourth Street a local-access-only route between San Marcos Street and 120 feet west of San Marcos Street; and installing a new signal at the north and southbound frontage roads of I-35 “to support frequent crossings of the frontage road by people walking, bicycling and rolling.”

The city of Austin is receiving more than $23.5 million in quarterly sales tax revenues from the state, according to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar. That’s a 37.25 percent increase over last April’s payment. Many other cities also saw big jumps in their sales tax revenue as people are going out more and spending money with the waning of the pandemic. Dallas is receiving more than $27 million, a nearly 20 percent increase. San Antonio is seeing a nearly 29 percent increase and receiving more than $31.6 million. Houston, according to the comptroller’s report, saw a 25 percent increase in sales tax revenue for the quarter and will be receiving more than $60 million. Round Rock is receiving more than $9 million, a nearly 39 percent increase over the same quarter last year.