Cap Metro Wins FTA Grant to Study Development along Green Line

On By Capital MetroIn Project Connect2 Comments

Commissioners Court_2-12-2019

Capital Metro President and CEO Randy Clarke spoke today to the Travis County Commissioners Court about an upcoming study of the MetroRail Green Line, a proposed commuter rail service between Austin and Manor. 

The study will be funded by a $600,000 grant provided by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) won by the agency in December 2018. It will examine the potential for transit-oriented development (TOD) along the Green Line, which is one of several corridors identified as potential Project Connect services, the long-term vision for a regional public transportation system.

The Green Line would operate on 15 miles of track owned by Capital Metro. It would travel east from Downtown Station toward Johnny Morris Road and the Colony Park area of eastern Travis County before reaching Manor.

 

Come Celebrate Girl Day at UT

On By Capital MetroIn Transit AdventuresLeave a comment

UT-Girl-Day

Cap Metro is thrilled once again to work with our partners at the Austin Public Library to bring folks down to the UT Austin campus for Girl Day on February 23. The event will bring together more than 8,000 elementary and middle school students on campus to celebrate International Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, which is called just Girl Day (or even #UTGirlDay if you like a hashtag).

The students will be able to do a ton of hands-on stuff that’ll get them familiar with what engineers do and how they make the world work. The kids will work with more than 1,500 UT students, faculty members and professional engineers from around Central Texas. They’ll also have loads of fun!

(And, just to be clear, boys are welcome, too.)

The festival takes place on campus from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 23. All are welcome. That is, if you can get down there. You know, with the traffic and the parking fees and the headaches. That’s where we come in.

We’re providing free Park & Ride services from 6 Austin Public Library locations for the day, giving you the chance to avoid the hassle and cost that come with trying to get to and park on campus. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., you can park at any of the 6 library locations listed below, go inside to request your free Local Day Pass and Trip Guide, and then hop on the bus. You can also download a free digital Day Pass to your CapMetro App and, as always, KIDS RIDE FREE.

YOU MUST REGISTER FOR YOUR FREE RIDE AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:

  1. Little Walnut Creek Branch | 835 West Rundberg Lane | Routes 1, 801
  2. Pleasant Hill Branch | 211 East William Cannon Drive | Routes 1, 801
  3. Recycled Reads Bookstore | 5335 Burnet Road | Routes 3, 803 (* Opens at Noon *)
  4. Ruiz Branch | 1600 Grove Boulevard | Route 20
  5. Southeast Branch | 5803 Nuckols Crossing Road | Route 7
  6. Windsor Park | 5833 Westminster Drive | Route 10

To plan your trip to Girl Day (or anywhere else), visit capmetro.org/planner.

 

Cap Metro & City Create New Transit & Bike Lane

On By Capital MetroIn transit lanes2 Comments

bus & bike lane 2This month, a stretch of West 5th Street will debut a big change for Central Austin: a bus & bike-only lane that will speed transit service into downtown and encourage people to get out of their cars and onto the bus.

The new lane on 5th Street west of MoPac is similar to the bus-priority lanes on Guadalupe and Lavaca Streets. Working with Cap Metro, the Austin Transportation Department is converting a bike lane that ran all the way to Lamar Blvd into a dedicated bus & bike lane for a half-mile section between West Lynn and Baylor Streets.

The bus & bike lane will have signal priority for the traffic light at West 5th & Baylor. That means while all other traffic is stopped at a red light, buses and bicycles will be allowed through the intersection. Bikes will continue in the same lane, and buses will be free to switch lanes as they proceed toward the busy Lamar & 5th Street intersection.

The reason we’re doing this is to save time for our customers by allowing buses to travel free from other traffic, just as we did last year when MetroExpress routes began to use the MoPac Express Lanes. Currently during peak traffic times, it takes our buses between 7 and 10 minutes to go from MoPac through the Lamar & 5th Street intersection. We expect this change to cut that time in half!

Five routes operate on West 5th St.:

Those five routes send roughly 20 buses through that corridor per hour during peak commute times. And now they’ll be doing so in half the time.

This is just the start, too. Capital Metro and the city of Austin have long worked closely together, and that partnership is getting stronger. Later in the spring, we’ll have more to announce on this front.

Brian's resolution is to share the value of transit to my kids.

What’s Your Commute Resolution?

On By trytransitIn Benefits of Transit, bikes, carpool, commute community, Dump the PumpLeave a comment

Every New Year is an opportunity for a fresh start, and changing the way you commute could lead to a happier and healther life. Switching from car to transit means letting someone else do the driving and giving yourself free time to do more. Adding walking or biking to your commute can support your fitness goals without more trips to the gym.

Not sure how to get started? If it has been a while, check out these helpful walking, biking, transit, ride sharing and active transportation resources.  Or get some inspiration from these fine folks:

Brian's resolution is to share the value of transit to my kids.

“I resolve to pass down the value of transit to my kids.” — Brian Carter

I will commit to riding my bike to work at least once a week

“I commit to riding my bike to work at least one day a week.” — Nadia Barrera-Ramirez

Lonny on the bus

“I resolve to ride transit to work at least 4Xs per week and to stop at the supermarket on my way home to reduce the need for weekend car trips.” — Lonny Stern

Yannis on the bus

” I pledge to ride MetroExpress 980 from Howard Station to work 3Xs per week.” — Yannis Banks 

Share your Commute Resolution! Everyone needs a little inspiration. Tell us how you are planning to transform your commute in the New Year by email (and we’ll share here) or post your resolution on social media and tag us using #commuteresolution.

Cap Metro Achieves PTC Milestone

On By Capital MetroIn MetroRailLeave a comment

PTC

By Dave Dech, VP of Rail Operations

Capital Metro has been working to put in place a positive train control (PTC) system along the 32-mile MetroRail line. We have now met an important threshold by completing all of the statutory requirements to qualify for an extension to the federally mandated deadline of Dec. 31.

PTC is a technological upgrade of the nation’s rail lines designed to create an additional layer of safety to rail. Congress mandated the improvements back in 2009 and gave rail operators until the end of this year to implement PTC.

The good thing is that Capital Metro has met all of the statutory requirements, which enables us to request the extension. Essentially, that means we’ve demonstrated sufficient progress on the project to convince the government that we’re on our way to full implementation. The Federal Railroad Administration is now reviewing our request, and we expect to receive notice of approval within 90 days. Until then, Capital Metro will continue to operate and continue work on PTC implementation. That means that customers will still occasionally experience disruptions to MetroRail service during this work.

Cap Metro is among many rail operators across the country to request this extension, including Caltrain in the San Francisco Bay area and New Jersey Transit. It allows the agency another two years to fully implement the PTC system, a goal that we are committed to reaching.

For the People Who Live Here

On By Capital MetroIn TOD1 Comment

Transit Design Guide

Austin’s growth is a tough one. We all know its double-edged nature.

New people and new growth are great. They make for lots of fun and cool things to do and see. But they also make it super expensive to live here and hard to get around. Dealing with that growth requires deliberate thinking and planning. The temptation is just to build quickly and to do so thinking of today’s problems while leaving tomorrow’s for later.

Capital Metro’s Transit Design Guide brings together standards and best practices for how to build a place designed for the people who live here now and for the ones to come. So often, our answer has been simply to build more and build more and build more.

More houses further out.

More and bigger roads to get there.

More offices and shopping centers and apartment complexes wherever we can fit them.

The Transit Design Guide helps guide our thinking, to make sure that the region grows thoughtfully and efficiently. Topics addressed include:

  • Transit-Supportive Street Design
  • Bus Stop Design
  • Transit Lane Configuration
  • Rail Station Design
  • Park & Ride Design
  • Security
  • Transit-Oriented Development & Place-making

It’s about integrating people and place in planning. It’s about thinking — as we’ve been saying all along with Project Connect — of how to get people from here to there rather than how to fit more cars on that road. This sort of inclusive design builds a region that people want to live in, can afford to live in and that is safer to live in. (Cars are dangerous, y’all.)

As we continue to expand our transit system and look for ways to accommodate this growth, things like the Transit Design Guide and our TOD Tool provide a framework for facilitating consistent high-quality transit service and supportive land use. The guide is available with our Service Guidelines.