In an effort to educate the public on the proposed urban rail project that voters will consider Nov. 4, transportation officials took local media on a ride along July 30 throughout the route.

Austin City Council is scheduled Aug. 7 to consider placing a $1 billion bond on the Nov. 4 ballot that would include $600 million for the proposed rail line and $400 million for road projects and corridor studies.

Background

Urban rail will be part of the regional Project Connect transportation plan that was unveiled in February 2013. Within that plan are five priority corridors emanating from downtown Austin. The city of Austin Capital Metro and regional group Lone Star Rail District are partners in the project.

In April planners released the locally preferred alternative map of proposed transportation to connect primarily Austin with cities in Williamson County.

Dan Dawson, Capital Metro's vice president of marketing and communications, said that if residents used the North Corridor transit options to get to downtown Austin, urban rail could serve to transport them throughout the downtown area.

The Central Corridor, roughly bordered by Grove Boulevard, Oltorf Street, MoPac and Koenig Lane, will include the urban rail route. In June, an advisory group comprising key stakeholders recommended the route, which also received endorsement from both Austin City Council and Capital Metro's board of directors.

The city received a $4 million federal grant to study the Central Corridor, and the city of Austin contributed $800,000 and Capital Metro contributed $200,000 as a local match to that grant. About $157,000 has been spent on an educational campaign so far on advertisement to inform the public about the route, Dawson said.

East Riverside

The urban rail route would have a terminus west of Grove Boulevard at East Riverside Drive. Keahey said in some areas on Riverside the sidewalks and street would be rebuilt to provide more room in the median but that no traffic lanes would be lost to the project.

Both the Grove and Pleasant Valley stations will have Park & Ride facilities with about 500 spots each. Keahey said identifying specific locations for these parking structures will occur later in the planning process and that staff would need to work with property owners for joint operations. He added that a timeline of when P&R facilities would be built would also be vetted during the planning process.

The area is also seeing numerous new development, such as in the South Shore District area, and growth is one of the reasons that Keahey said the East Riverside subcorridor rose to the top of the pack of 10 potential subcorridors of where rail could go. However, he said economic development did not outrank other factors such as ridership and congestion in determining the route.

"[Economic development] was probably in the realm of being equally important," he said. "What we did want to do was not avoid considering economic development issues in favor of just looking at one factor like ridership."

Crossing Lady Bird Lake/Downtown Austin

Urban rail would cross the lake using a bridge, which will connect from just east of the Texas Department of Transportation's building at 200 E. Riverside Drive and over the top of the Waller Creek Boathouse to Trinity Street. Keahey said there likely would be public involvement in choosing the design of the structure.

Retrofitting the First Street or Congress Avenue bridges at a cost of $20 million was considered, but Keahey said the advisory group also wanted to use a through-street in downtown, and Congress is not one of them. Furthermore, using an existing bridge would have taken away two lanes of traffic on either bridge, he said.

"We've heard from a lot of people that that would be unacceptable," Keahey said. "We can't handle the traffic demand we have right now with those bridges."

Two tracks would run along Trinity for urban rail as well as traffic lanes. Keahey said parking on the street would have to be eliminated to accommodate rail.

Charlie Betts, executive director with the Downtown Austin Alliance, said offering more transit options is important because of all of the new development and jobs. More than 6,000 jobs will be relocated to the Capitol Complex, and more than 2,000 new jobs will be created in the Innovation District that is anchored by the Dell Medical School and new Seton hospital.

"Getting people in and out of this central corridor—where actually about 30 percent of the employment in this entire region occurs—the urban rail project is absolutely vital in that respect," he said.

The University of Texas

Last year the UT board of regents approved a master plan that envisions the campus being built out east of San Jacinto Boulevard as well as turning that street into transit only. An urban rail station is proposed for north of the stadium as well as on the north side of campus.

Jim Walker, UT's director of sustainability, said rail is an important component of the campus's future development.

"We're going to add square footage," he said. "We need to increase ways of getting here not by car. Having rail come right through the center of campus, which is where San Jacinto is, really reinforces our future land-use and expansion options."

St. David's/Hancock Center

The route would run along Medical Arts Street to Red River Street and pass by St. David's Medical Center.

Scott Gross, the city's urban rail program manager, said that although this section of the route has not yet been worked out, it is possible urban rail would run in mixed traffic, meaning in the same lanes as automobiles. He added it might be possible to widen the road to operate in a dedicated guideway like it would throughout the rest of the route.

The route would next head east on 41st Street and enter a tunnel to run below grade on the east side of the Hancock Center. At this station, planners would like to build a connecting station to the MetroRail.

"We see that as a critical system-level connection," Gross said.

Planners will continue to look into an at-grade crossing with MetroRail or an aerial structure to go over the existing rail line.

ACC Highland

Urban rail would terminate at the Austin Community College Highland campus on the north end. Gross said a Park & Ride facility would be adjacent to the ACC entrance with a center platform for pedestrian activity. A large bus transfer area on Highland Boulevard would allow for connections to other transit, he said.

The 81-acre former mall is undergoing renovation by ACC. On Aug. 25 the former JC Penney site will open as the ACCelerator where students can take basic education, developmental math and competency-based courses, said ACC President Richard Rhodes.

The college district will also ask voters to approve a $386 million bond Nov. 4 that would further develop the center portion of the mall for a workforce innovation center, culinary arts division and state-of-the art STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) center.

"Long term what we would eventually see at Highland when it's fully developed as a mixed-use community is somewhere in the neighborhood is 28,000 individuals being in here," Rhodes said.

Matt Whelan, a principal with RedLeaf Properties, said the property will be redeveloped through a public-private partnership with ACC, Live Oak-Gottesman and RedLeaf. Plans call for adding $400 million worth of development to the tax base. He said the first residential project will be announced this fall and go under construction in 2015. The timeline for build out is 10 years.

"This vision is dense, mixed use, multipurpose utilization of this area with residencies, with offices, with retail and obviously with the centerpiece being the campus and the activities that the college is doing," Whelan said.