Construction is slated to begin this summer on eight pairs of bus stations along Capital Metro’s two Capital MetroRapid bus routes. The regional transit agency’s board approved a construction contract Monday afternoon for $1.48 million with Muñiz Concrete & Contracting Inc. with a 15 percent contingency of $221,625. The 16 infill stations will help reduce the distance between stations, sometimes as much as 1 mile down to a half-mile. One reason for adding new stations is increasing ridership, mainly attributed to increased frequency of service that Capital Metro implemented last August to have buses run every 10 minutes during weekday hours. In the past year, Route 801, which runs on North Lamar Boulevard and South Congress Avenue, saw ridership increase by 25 percent. Route 803, which runs on Burnet Road and South Lamar Boulevard, had a ridership increase of 23 percent in the past year, said Kenneth Cartwright, Capital Metro’s vice president of capital projects. “Since 2014 when we implemented [the new bus] service, the corridors served by these routes have grown significantly in terms of commercial and residential growth contributing to this increased ridership,” Cartwright said. Two pairs of stations would be built along Route 803, and five pairs would be added on Route 801. The eighth station pair would be constructed on the section along Guadalupe Street that both routes share.
New locations include being near key intersections and businesses, such as at Parmer and Slaughter lanes, Wheatsville Food Co-Op, the Broken Spoke and several taquerias. The new stations are projected to further increase ridership by 11 percent, or about 1,600 new riders per day, Cartwright said. Capital Metro has not yet announced when the new stations would be put into service. In early May the agency also closed entries for an Art Box design contest that allowed artists to submit a design for 14 utility boxes located at seven MetroRapid bus stations, including at North Lamar and Rundber Lane; Burnet and Allandale Road; South Congress and Elizabeth Street; and South Lamar and Oltorf Street. For more information visit www.capmetro.org/artbox.