When the city of Austin sent a plan to the voters in November to invest billions into a revamped transportation system that would include two new rail lines, it included maps outlining the proposed routes and an idea of where stations would be located.
Now, Capital Metro and the Austin Transit Partnership, the local government corporation tasked with overseeing the $7.1 billion investment, are digging into the details, talking to the community and seeking feedback on questions such as which exact intersections will serve as station locations and whether riders will access the train cars from a center platform or from the side.
All of those decisions and public engagement are part of an estimated two-year federal environmental review process for the rail lines that Project Connect is currently going through. From there, the Blue Line from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to North Austin and Orange Line running from North Austin to South Austin will move into the final design and then the construction phase. Work is expected to start in 2024 and last approximately five years.
On May 19, ATP Chief of Architecture and Urban Design Peter Mullan and Deputy Program Officer John Rhone presented details of a proposed route and station locations to the board for a section of the line running between the airport and Lady Bird Lake. The locations, shown in the map below, are still very preliminary, according to Mullan.
