Austin Light Rail Project Pulls Out of the Station

Issuing DEIS is Important Milestone on Pathway with Eight Years or More to Go

Rendering of Austin Light Rail along East Riverside Drive on the city’s south side. Austin Transit Partnership, the government corporation charged with building the system is aiming for a 2023 opening.

The citizens of Austin, TX, could “soon” be getting the light rail system they have been waiting patiently for ever since they agreed 4 ½ years ago to tax themselves to pay for it. Provided eight years is your idea of “soon” and the developers are able to skirt potential roadblocks that could sidetrack the project indefinitely.

Austin is the capital of the Lone Star State and home of its eponymous flagship public university. Several major corporations, including Dell Technologies, Oracle, and Tesla, have their headquarters there, and other big tech companies have major presences, as well. The city holds great personal interest since three of my favorite people – my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson – live there. We visit several times every year.

Since the mid-1970s Austin’s population has skyrocketed. The metro area in 2024 was home to 2.3 million people, up from 344,000 in 1977, the year of my first visit, for a seminar at the University of Texas.

That growth has brought increased traffic congestion, particularly on Interstate 35, the area’s main north-south artery, which borders downtown Austin’s east side. Late last year the Texas Department of Transportation began construction on a $5.7 billion project to replace the existing highway, which is used by 200,000 vehicles a day.

Austin lags behind other cities in its weight class, such as Dallas, Denver, and San Jose, for developing rail transit. Its only rail venture so far is CapMetro’s Red Line, a commuter line that has been running since 2010 between downtown and Leander, a bedroom community 32 miles northwest of the city.

Now Austin is playing catch up. In 2020 residents voted to raise property taxes to pay for a package of transit improvements called Project Connect that included light rail and expanded commuter rail and bus service.

Around the same time the City of Austin and CapMetro, the region’s transit agency, formed the Austin Transit Partnership (APT), a government corporation charged with overseeing Project Connect and developing Austin Light Rail.

At first, developers wanted to run the line through a downtown subway, but inflation put the cost out of reach and forced planners to scale back the project. In 2023 a new plan was released that had a 9.8-mile route with 15 stations, mostly on streets.

On the north end service will begin at 38^th and Guadalupe Streets, which is a mixed area of commercial properties, single-family and low-rise multi-family housing, healthcare facilities, and a small park. (Last year we stayed in an Airbnb two blocks away.)

Trains will travel south along Guadalupe Street and past the west side of the UT campus into downtown Austin. At Third Street trains will head east through the business district before turning onto Trinity Street at the Austin Convention Center and one block from the Red Line terminal. The line will cross Lake Bird Lake, aka the Colorado River of Texas, on a new bridge.

On the south side the route splits into two branches. One heads east along East Riverside Drive and ends at a stop called Yellow Jacket Lane located just west of US Highway 183 and a few miles shy of Austin Bergstrom International Airport. The plan calls for a maintenance center and yard there. The other branch heads south on South Congress Avenue, which is lined with shopping and restaurants, before terminating at East Oltorf Street.

Trains would run over the main line every five minutes during the day and every 7 ½ minutes during evenings. On the branches service they would operate every 10 and 15 minutes, respectively. Running time is anticipated to be 23 minutes from 38^th Street to East Oltorf Street and 31 minutes from 38^th Street to Yellow Jacket Lane. Developers forecast 28,500 daily riders by 2040. Future plans call for extensions to the airport and approximately two miles north along Guadalupe Street.

If you go to ATP’s website you can see the light rail project’s status. The past four years were focused on forming the organization, defining the project’s scope and goals, and preliminary design, engineering, and environmental review.

In January ATP reached an important milestone when it released the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). This is a critical step to obtaining federal funding for design work and construction. The financial plan assumes grants from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will cover half the $7.1 billion cost of building the rail line.

The DEIS includes several design changes made in response to public input:

· A downtown station near Woolridge Square (West 9^th and Guadalupe Streets).

· An extended bridge over Lady Bird Lake with space for cyclists and pedestrians.

· An Elevated Waterfront station.

· Eliminating the Travis Heights station to avoid encroaching on a park and challenging grades.

· Relocated stations along East Riverside Drive.

· An urban greenway along East Riverside featuring a tree canopy corridor and pike and pedestrian access. The greenway will be adjacent to land the City of Austin acquired for future affordable housing

The development plan calls for planning, design and development work to continue into 2026 followed by engineering and permitting. Construction would begin in 2027 and the line would enter service in 2033.

But, as anyone who follows infrastructure development knows, projects rarely come in on time and within budget, particularly when they involve rail. Legislation and litigation could tie up Austin Light Rail for years.

Earlier this month Rep. Ellen Toxclair, a Republican state legislator, introduced a bill that would restrict how municipalities could use tax revenue to fund major infrastructure projects. Texas HB 3879 would prevent local governments from using tax-rate election funds to pay bond debt, a key funding source for Project Connect. Rep. Toxclair’s previous attempt to block the project failed.

Toxclair and other Project Connect opponents, such as attorney Bill Aleshire who unsuccessfully sued the City of Austin in 2024, charge ATP pulled a “bait and switch” since the plan voters agreed to called for 28 miles of new light rail. Rising construction costs forced the agency to scale back that plan to stay within $7.1 the billion the new property tax is supposed to generate.

The other unknown is the federal government under the current administration. Project 2025, the right wing manifesto for radically transforming government that Trump is following, calls for eliminating FTA Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program.

If Congress or the President abolish CIG, Austin Light Rail would likely lose access to federal funding until a new administration restores the program.

As far as I am concerned, the Austin Light Rail project is ten years too late, It should have been built when Houston and Dallas were developing their light rail systems. I also would have preferred to see an underground or elevated line through downtown Austin. Running out to the airport would have been a no brainer. For the short term a connecting bus could suffice

Unfortunately, inflation and construction costs are beyond my control, and it is unlikely Austinites Elon Musk or Michael Dell could be persuaded to kick in a billion or two. I’ll just have to hold out hope that the light rail project gets finished in time for my grandson’s bar mitzvah. I’d consider that a win.