Updated Nov. 5 at 12:40 p.m. CST

Final unofficial election results show 108,396 Austin voters, about 57.2 percent, were against the $1 billion rail and road bond.

Supporters numbered 81,707, or about 42.8 percent. All election results are unofficial until canvassed.

Updated Nov. 5 at 12:20 a.m. CST

Austin voters turned down the $1 billion rail and road bond by 56 percent.

Unofficial results, released just after midnight and excluding Williamson County votes, showed 102,805 voters, or 56.8 percent, opposed the bond. Voters who supported the bond numbered 78,223, or 43.2 percent. All election results are unofficial until canvassed.

Williamson County voters also defeated the bond at 66 percent with 5,549 votes against and 2,862 votes for the bond.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he is disappointed in the defeat of the bond and that the city does not have a Plan B for improving roadways and implementing new transit.

"Obviously we don't have a plan in place and I don't anticipate there will be one," he said. "I think [traffic congestion] will continue to get worse in the months and years ahead. I'm sure there will be an effort at some point to try to build more roads, but I have a hard time seeing how that's going to help very much in the central city."

Some of the burden could be put on Capital Metro to implement new service, such as expanding its bus-rapid transit line, MetroRapid. BRT was considered during the planning process for urban rail, Leffingwell said, but it was not ideal for its limitations on capacity and long-term capital costs.

"They're going to have to try to pick up the slack, but it's going to be very difficult," Leffingwell said.

Scott Morris from the Our Rail political action committee, which opposed the bond, is encouraged by the results. The PAC issued a news release shortly before 10 p.m. about the defeat of the bond.

Morris said the bond's failure gives the community a chance to work with the newly elected City Council and mayor to bring back a new plan.

"We get to work with putting together a community-based approach to transit planning," he said. "We move forward with the new council to explore options, including Guadalupe/Lamar. We're very hopeful that we have engaged the community enough to where there's sufficient political support for a successful referendum in 2016."

Leffingwell said this timeline is not feasible given the effort it took to rally the business community, chambers of commerce and local organizations into supporting the rail and road bond.

However, Morris pointed out the Project Connect planning process only took 19 months to bring forth the plan.

"We feel the new council can provide that, and we can get a plan turned around and back to the voters in 2016," Morris said.

Travis County Pct. 3 Commissioners Gerald Daugherty said defeat of the rail plan is a strong message that the community does not want to pursue rail. He said the focus should be on building the road system.

"The Achilles heel of this plan was that is was built around rail," he said. "If they had them split, roads would have passed and rail would have failed."

He said the city already has an agency that should be focused offering public transportation services, Capital Metro. Tackling the region's congestion issues will take a community effort, Daugherty said.

"We need to get people to the table who are really interested and willing to put effort and time in to understand what could work, what could help," he said. "They're really are no silver bullets in this thing."

Posted Nov. 4 at 7:20 p.m. CST

Early voting results show city of Austin residents could turn down a $1 billion bond proposition for the city's first urban rail route as well as various road projects.

About 57,100 voters, or 57.8 percent, voted against the bond, and 41,700 voters, or 42.2 percent, voted for it. A total of 98,816 voters cast ballots from Oct. 20–31 or mailed in ballots. All election results are unofficial until canvassed.

Travis County Pct. 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, who has been advocating against the bond, said it would be hard to bridge the gap.

"If it's behind by that many points, it's really hard to make up on Election Day," he said.

He said he and many others have worked very hard to encourage voters to vote against the bond.

"It would be a win for the community because we have people in the community willing to get to the table to do something about transportation," Daugherty said.

Proposition 1 asks voters to authorize the city to sell $600 million in bonds to fund a 9.5-mile urban rail line running from East Riverside Drive through the city's core to The University of Texas and ending at Austin Community College's Highland campus. If approved the rail line would be operational by 2022.

Starting construction on the urban rail route is contingent upon two factors: the city securing a $600 million match from the Federal Transit Administration for rail and securing $400 million for road projects.

The latter would be achieved by the city selling $400 million in nonvoter-approved state highway bonds. Funding the $1 billion plan would require the city increasing the debt service portion of its property tax rate by 6.25 cents. The resulting increase on a taxpayer's bill with a $200,000 home would be $217 annually, according to city analysis.

Some proponents of the bond formed the Let's Go Austin political action committee, led by Greg Hartman, Seton Healthcare Family president of academic medicine, research and external affairs.

"I think Austin and Travis County voters have always looked at the value of what they're being asked to pay for and made really smart decisions," he said. "They turned down some bad ideas or things that weren't fully thought out. I think in this case you have both the transportation plan and an ACC plan that's well-thought-out, and that really has some big advantages to the community."

Martha Smiley, a member of the Project Connect Central Corridor Advisory Group, which assisted Mayor Lee Leffingwell in planning the urban rail route, said this is the best plan to submit to the FTA for funding consideration.

"Everybody that comes into the core of the city benefits whether or not they ride rail because somebody's going to be riding rail, and that means fewer cars [on the road]," Smiley said.

Some opponents of the proposed urban rail plan say the city needs rail but that this is not the right plan. Some opponents said they feared proceeding with the plan would eat up valuable resources for expanding the system.

"We must have an extensive rail transit system throughout the city one day," said Lyndon Henry, a rail advocate, transportation planning consultant and member of the Our Rail PAC. "In order to get there we have to spend our dollars wisely. We can't be spending huge amounts of money and soaking up the oxygen, so to speak, with one project. We're not going to be able to afford to extend the [system] throughout the city like we need to."

Voters in the Capital Metro service area turned down a light rail proposal in 2000 but voted for the MetroRail plan in 2004.