Tagged: Rapid Bus

Capital Metro is reaching out to residents in the suburbs north of Austin for input on possible transit options for connecting them to Central Austin. Cap Metro says it’s the number one transportation priority for the region. The big reason? A lot of people may live in Williamson County, but many of them work in Travis County.

Cap Metro has already heard from people during traditional open houses. Now, the transit company is seeking input through a website – what it’s calling an “Online Open House.”

The website lets visitors control what looks like a sort of power point presentation. It highlights a few problems: congestion, rapid population growth and the restraints of the current highway system.

But what Cap Metro says it’s really interested in is feedback. One of the most interesting forms of feedback that commuters can give is on the site’s “Interactive Map.” Website visitors are invited to draw in suggested transportation alternatives for getting around in the North Corridor during rush hour.

Capital Metro is holding a ceremonial groundbreaking  for its MetroRapid service this morning. Construction on the rapid bus line’s first station started this week.

As KUT News previously reported, MetroRapid will launch in 2014 with two rapid bus routes. One will stretch from the Tech Ridge Park & Ride to the Southpark Meadows shopping center. The other route will run from North Austin Medical Center at Parmer Lane to Westgate Mall off South Lamar Boulevard. The lines will converge midpoint, around the UT-Austin campus area.

Cap Metro will add 40 new buses to its fleet, including 20 buses that span 60 feet and have 58 seats. Still, Cap Metro says 2013 will be a lean year for the company as it makes some repairs and upgrades.

Effective immediately, Capital Metro vice-president and chief development officer Doug Allen has resigned.

“Doug resigned on Tuesday,” Cap Metro spokesperson Misty Whited tells KUT News. “It’s been something that he and [Cap Metro president and CEO] Linda Watson had been talking about for some time.”

Allen came aboard Cap Metro in 2008, and served as interim president a year later, before a national search installed Watson as the transit authority’s leader. In a blog from the time, the Austin Chronicle wrote that Allen was “the point man on recent efforts to get MetroRail up and running.”

This interview was originally broadcast on March 29, 2012.

Capital Metro announced today that it has received $38 million from the Federal Transit Administration to help cover the cost of the MetroRapid program.

The funds come from the administration’s "Very Small Start" program and will cover about 80 percent of the program’s $48 million cost, said Linda Watson, the president and CEO of Capital Metro.

“That’s tax money that Texans pay coming back to Texas,” Watson said. “So it’s a great day not only for Capital Metro and our customers, but for Central Texas and taxpayers in the whole state of Texas.”

As Austin considers an electric urban rail system to shuttle people around the central part of the city, Nashville, TN - a city of comparable size - is abandoning its electric street car plan in favor of bus rapid transit.

The reason is mainly price. A study by New York engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff found bus rapid transit would cost $136 million, compared to $275 million for streetcars, Nashville Scene reports.

"Bus rapid transit is by far the most compelling case we've heard," Nashville Mayor Karl Dean told the newspaper.

Here in Austin, the city is considering a series of bonds to pay for an urban rail system that could total $1.3 billion dollars.  Capital Metro is also working on a bus rapid transit plan, currently scheduled to launch in 2014.

CapMetro promises limited stops, boarding from all doors, bus stops with real-time bus arrival information, and buses that have some control over traffic lights.