The Austin urban rail plan received nearly unanimous support from the Capital Metro board of directors June 23.
On a vote of 7-1—board member Norm Chafetz voted no—the plan moves forward on the path to receiving full approval. The city of Austin would serve as the owner of the 9.5-mile urban rail route from East Riverside Drive to the Austin Community College Highland campus. Capital Metro would serve as the operator. Both entities would have to approve the plan before it could advance to voters on the Nov. 4 ballot.
City Council is slated to vote on the route June 26 as part of its 2014 strategic mobility plan that would include regionally significant road projects that could join urban rail on the bond election. Council has until mid-August to approve putting a bond on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Capital Metro's vote comes after Mayor Lee Leffingwell's advisory group approved the recommended route June 13. Urban rail is part of the Project Connect regional transit plan.
As part of its resolution, the Capital Metro board added a four-mile extension to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to a list of corridors that would be studied as the second phase of urban rail. The city could potentially add about $5 million for corridor studies to the rail and road bond.
Board chairman Mike Martinez, who also sits on Austin City Council, questioned Rail Lead Kyle Keahey about extending the line to the airport and how that would affect the cost and ridership.
"What I wanted to do in our action today is what can we stipulate about Phase 2 and if that is the Bergstrom extension," Martinez said.
Keahey said the cost would be about the same for a route from the airport to the Hancock Center near 41st Street as the Highland-East Riverside route. Ridership on the Highland-East Riverside route is estimated at 18,000 daily, and Keahey said the Hancock-airport route would see 1,000 fewer riders.
Keahey said a project extending onto airport property would need additional approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and would have additional restrictions.
"We looked at other cities that have served airports—Salt Lake, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver is going there as well—they're typically second or third-type projects," he said. "It's not usually your first project. The ridership is weak and as indicated is a little bit less than serving some of the stronger activity areas."
With no dedicated source of funding at this point, Keahey said Capital Metro and the city of Austin still need to come up with funding for construction and operations and maintenance, or O&M.
O&M is estimated at $22 million a year, and options for covering that cost include using Capital Metro's portion of the sales tax revenue, parking fees and naming rights on stations and assets.
The city of Austin is considering calling a bond election to pay for half of the $1.38 billion price tag that includes construction, consulting fees, vehicles, design work, right of way acquisition and a 30 percent contingency fund.
"We've been very focused on the ability to attract federal dollars from the [Federal Transit Administration's] New Starts fund," Keahey said.
