Austin’s plans for a comprehensive light rail system are becoming more concrete after a series of meetings between city planners and the community during the past two weeks.
Representatives from the Urban Rail division of the city’s Downtown Austin Plan, a large-scale urban development project, met Monday with about 50 Austin residents from groups ranging from UT’s Rail4Real student coalition to East Austin’s Blackland Neighborhood Association.
During the meeting, downtown plan project manager Jim Robertson and urban planning consultant Jana McCann detailed the current proposal to build rail links between downtown, East Riverside, the Mueller development, the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the UT campus.
Robertson said the project, which is projected to open in six to seven years, could cost anywhere from $550 million to $614 million, with average annual maintenance costs of $21 million to $23 million. Capital Metro estimates ridership would reach around 32,200 riders for weekday trips.
If Austin City Council accepts the plan, it will expand upon existing rail structures, such as the “Red Line” commuter rail line from downtown to Leander, which is expected to open at the end of October.
McCann said the 15.3-mile project’s priorities were to link existing destinations and service transit dependent areas, such as low-income communities that already rely heavily on buses.
Despite this intention, the plan has met opposition from low-income community groups, which fear that a rise in property values after the system is built might force out existing residents.
“We’re not trying to do anything that will displace people,” Robertson said. “But there’s no question that a project like this will impact property values, and that’s when the city will have to bring a lot of creative options to the table to address that.”
The plan will affect UT students as well. Eventually a rail line would cut through UT along San Jacinto Boulevard and up to Manor Road, with the possibility of expansion into the densely populated West Campus area, McCann said.
Latin American studies senior and Rail4Real member Jacob Bintliff attended the meeting and said it was important for students to be involved in the rail planning process.
“It’s going to pass through UT somehow, so it’s important to ask ourselves what the best way would be,” Bintliff said. “Any UT student who sees a rail system on a ballot would be pro-rail, but we want them to know that they can affect what’s on the ballot in the first place.”
McCann, an urban planner from California-based Roma Design Group, said the rail lines would consist of a combination of smaller streetcar rail structures in combination with traditional light rail, which services more riders but requires a dedicated lane of traffic.
“Right now we’re only in the systems planning period,” McCann said. “We still have about 98 percemt of the project to finalize.”
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