By Andy Sevilla.
With population numbers expected to more than double in Central Texas – potentially quadrupling in Hays County – within the next three decades, area governments are taking steps to address the expected increase to an already saturated transportation system.
The city of Austin, along with Capital Metro and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO), are working out plans to help navigate residents and commuters in the capital city through mass public transit.
With such rapid population growth projected for the region, the timeline for the project connect is important. Forbes magazine and demographer Wendell Cox recently noted that, of counties nationwide with populations over 100,000, several are from the Austin region – Williamson County is listed as fastest growing in the country while Hays County comes in third place on the list, with 67 percent growth since 2000.
The plans could help large portions of Kyle and Buda drivers who commute to Austin daily for work and entertainment. Kyle Mayor Lucy Johnson said that about 70 percent of Kyle’s workforce commutes to Austin.
The city of Austin estimates about 147,000 people commute to the capital city on a daily basis, in part due to its core central corridor, which includes the downtown, the Capitol Complex and the University of Texas (UT), hosting about 23 percent of the entire Central Texas region’s workforce, according to city documents.
Project Connect, a high-capacity transit system that would provide multi-modal regional mobility through Central Texas, counts on passenger rail connecting Austin to San Antonio, and bus rapid transit, transit on express lanes and urban rail within Austin.
Several cities along Interstate 35 are deliberating plans to join the proposed Lone Star Rail District (LSTAR), a 118-mile passenger rail project that would connect south San Antonio north to Georgetown with stops in San Marcos, Kyle and Buda in Hays County, among stops in other cities along the proposed project.
And though not many local governments, such as Kyle and Buda, have signed on to the LSTAR project just yet, Austin city officials, Capital Metro, CAMPO and LSTAR representatives are counting on the plan’s progression to help realize the Project Connect vision.
Kyle Mayor Lucy Johnson said at an October council meeting that though regional transportation is expensive, the self-sustaining projects are the ones that are successful.
Kyle city officials are in negotiations with LSTAR to help draft a contract to bring a train station to the booming Plum Creek, next door to the Austin Community College.
Kyle council members have vocalized apprehension with moving forward as LSTAR is demanding 50 percent of the sales and property tax growth within a half-mile radius of the proposed station.
“I don’t see how we can say ‘no’ to rail,” Johnson said. “… You have to know that (Kyle) can’t grow that much further without an alternative to I-35.”
Buda city officials have delayed making a decision to join LSTAR for a year, according to a presentation by the rail’s representatives. San Marcos is finalizing contractual discussions with LSTAR and is slated to build two train stop stations in the city, according to rail representatives.
The LSTAR passenger rail would make up the southern leg of Project Connect from south San Antonio north to Austin, Round Rock and Georgetown. Train rides from downtown San Antonio to downtown Austin should take 75 minutes, according to LSTAR documents.
Once in Austin, mass transit riders will have the option to reach their destination through bus rapid transit, which is scheduled to begin early in 2014, transit on express lanes, which are expected on MoPac (Loop 1) by 2015, or through commuter rail, which began in 2010.
LSTAR is proposing to begin passenger rail service in 2018.
Project Connect is presently undergoing an Austin Central Corridor study, aimed at identifying transportation problems and tailored solutions.
The first phase of the Central Corridor Study which is loosely bound by RM 2222 to the north, Oltorf to the south, Springdale/Grove to the east and Mopac to the west, has identified the need for the Highland Mall area and east Riverside to connect to the region’s core, which encompasses the downtown, Capitol and UT.
The Highland corridor and the east Riverside corridor were chosen from a potential ten areas– Mopac, Lamar, Mueller, MLK, West Austin, East Austin, South Lamar and South Congress.
A similar study for the North Corridor studied alternatives for improving transportation within and between central and north Austin and the cities of Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, Hutto and others.
By 2035, the North Corridor is expected to house half the populations of both Travis and Williamson counties, experiencing a 123 percent hike in residents from its 2005 population, according to the Project Connect website. The North Corridor Study, funded with federal dollars, is expected to conclude and recommend a solution to the area’s transportation gridlock by year’s end.
The Central Corridor Study, expected to finalize in June 2014, is being funded by a CAMPO $4 million grant awarded to Austin with a $1 million match for the project.
The MetroRapid program, which Capital Metro is expecting to roll out in two phases, with the initial one beginning in the first-quarter of 2014, will provide a “rapid” mass transit alternative to navigate Austin along two of its busiest corridors.
The first phase will begin a service route from North Lamar to South Congress with buses arriving every ten minutes during rush hours, and slowing down to 12 to 20 minutes throughout the off-peak hours. Later in the summer, the public transportation agency will begin ushering mass transit riders along its Burnet to South Lamar route, according to Capital Metro documents.
