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(Capital Metro)
The map for the new $9.8 billion Project Connect regional transit plan is certain, but there are still many questions to be answered ahead of a November ballot question where voters will decide the fate of the proposal.
<p>The two biggest items to be decided: the exact language and tax rate that voters will see, and how the body created by the city and Capital Metro to manage the system will be composed—as well as what kind of power it will have over budgets and operations.</p><p>And there is also the matter of deciding how to sell voters on a significant property tax increase—estimated to be $360 per year for the owner of a median-priced home—in the middle of a recession and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
Paying for Project Connect—and only Project Connect
<p>The plan for Project Connect includes three light rail lines connecting north and south Austin, the airport and downtown; a downtown transit tunnel with stations; expansion of the Red Line commuter rail through East Austin and a new Green Line running northwest from downtown; better bus service and a zero-emissions fleet; 24 park and ride lots; and customer technology to "plan, pay and go."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwNzMxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTI5MzEzN30.7SZl6AhT3pTp3CjWhRyhgZhKB5ipzycwlcJusEuMmVY/img.jpg?width=980" id="1e50e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8f03e2a1914390389d6c79a8d4caabcf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />(Capital Metro)
<p>Council Member Jimmy Flannigan said that the state's recently instituted annual cap on property taxes, which requires voters to approve increases over 3.5% in combined city and county tax revenue growth in any one year, created the ability for the city to fund the transit plan without the extensive approvals from the legislature that had been needed for prior transit proposals.</p><p>Flannigan added that the ballot language tying the new money to the transit system should give voters some assurance that the increase won't wind up in the general fund and eventually be diverted to parks, law enforcement or emergency services.</p><p>"It's more about the system you build and governance of the financial system that you build at the beginning, and if the moneys dedicated to transit have any possibility of being redirected to other things, you're screwed," he said. "The decisions you have to make for transit are generational, but your immediate shiny object needs will always win."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM4NjEyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDU2ODUyOX0.oUiGfMuAb3K2Wc3ENtjc3Zf_PvWxP-C0A6S44kVk0Ps/img.jpg?width=980" id="96f10" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cabd05078bb4575544be9ee62b81c3d0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Project Connect" />
Three light rail lines form the basis of the plan for Project Connect.
(Capital Metro)The governing body
<p>The issue with the most need for compromise appears to be how the governing body for the system will operate. The city and Cap Metro will have to come together to create an interlocal agreement that will state how its membership will be decided, and how much authority it will have.</p><p>Flannigan said he thinks the governing body for Project Connect should mostly be involved in the management of money and priorities passed to it annually by the city and Cap Metro—a regional transportation provider led by elected and appointed board members from Austin and several suburbs.</p><p>Austin City Council Member Ann Kitchen said the governing board may have more autonomy, but will need to include members with deep experience and awareness of the ways transit impacts the entire region.</p><p>"To the extent that the body has discretion like about timing or locations of services—it will be important to include people who represent and are accountable to the public, such as elected officials," she said via email. "The Board must include people who have expertise and/or experience with equity issues, including mitigation of displacement. The Board must also include people who have an understanding of the impacts on businesses, especially small businesses during construction phases."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE0NTU4NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTQ5NzA1OX0.AA-vfwvtLm4EUj0lU8-qmISE2AXq8kwsHDEx_38yxAQ/img.png?width=980" id="c9313" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9010d51792cf473048520423f0c9268c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Project Connect" />Project Connect aims to provide a better bus system for the Austin area.
(Capital Metro)Impact and equity
<p>Along with those questions, advocacy groups tied to transportation will continue to press the city and Cap Metro on issues such as equity and the financial impact of the likely property tax increase.</p><p>Yasmine Smith, vice-chair of People United for Mobility Action, said her group is waiting for data on the possible impacts —and how they can be limited—on lower-income communities located along some of the proposed light rail lines.</p><p>"There are lots of questions yet to be answered and yet to be fleshed out in order for us to ensure that this will not impact our most vulnerable community members," she said.<br></p><p>"It is hoped that the city adheres to their stated goals during the planning initiative ... it is going to be up to groups like PUMA to hold them accountable to what they have stated they will achieve, which is an evolution in mobility but one that does not continue the historic precedence of disenfranchising vulnerable populations."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Austin City Council and CapMetro unanimously approve vision for Project Connect. Up next: financing.
10 June
(Capital Metro)
Austin City Council and the Capital Metro board unanimously approved a $9.8 billion, 30-year transit plan—Project Connect—that will add three light rail lines, new bus lines and park-and-rides to the Austin region.
<p>One board member, Williamson County representative Eric Stratton, voted "heck yeah" during a virtual meeting earlier today. </p><div id="eea76" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bb2e027461a522172f854af66a550bad"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1270840672678019072" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Now more than ever, Austin needs a transformative mobility plan and we finally have one – created and embraced by o… https://t.co/RHfiOnuaoI</div> — Mayor Adler (@Mayor Adler)<a href="https://twitter.com/MayorAdler/statuses/1270840672678019072">1591827002.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>With their greenlight, the plan is likely to go before voters in November. If passed, more than half of the project budget—$5.4 billion—would come from local taxpayers in the form of an increased city property tax rate. Federal grants would cover the rest.</p><p>Project Connect is the product of a 20-year discussion about expanding public transit in Austin. Previous efforts, including a 2014 transit bond that included light rail, have failed at the ballot. This plan appears to have more widespread community support.</p><p>The Sherry Matthews Group, a local marketing company, surveyed residents last month and found that 95% of respondents had a positive perception of Project Connect after learning more about the plan. Upon learning that property taxes would be a source of funding, 71% of respondents still supported the plan, which a representative for the group said was a surprising finding.</p>
<p>Although this plan has built up significant community and political goodwill, the coronavirus pandemic—and the economic recession it has caused—<a href="https://austonia.com/transportation/project-connect-austin-coronavirus" target="_self">poses a new challenge</a>. But supporters emphasized the plan's value to residents as an economic stimulus, mobility solution and response to climate change.</p><p>"This massive public works project will provide jobs and help rebuild Austin's economy when we finally emerge from this pandemic nightmare," transportation planning consultant and Austin resident Lyndon Henry said during the public comment portion of the meeting.</p><p>Project Connect also garnered support because of its promise of equity, including expanding service to East Austin and other underserved areas of the metro.</p><p>"We have to make equity a priority," Travis County Commissioner Jeff Travillion said. "We have to make sure those places that have not had development—have not had a transportation spine—we have to make sure that they are connected."</p><p>Jane Bradbury, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said it was important for the plan to be "actively anti-racist rather than passively progressive," a comment that gained steam in further discussion among board members and council.</p>
<p>Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, who has been part of leading the charge for police reform in the wake of recent protests, said the plan is critical for this reason.<br></p><p>"For the past 70 or so years, Austin has put all of its eggs in one basket," she said. "It's planned its famous growth around cars."</p><p>This effect of this is not only sprawl, pollution and traffic fatalities, she continued, but "an effective mandate that if you want to fully participate in our economy you have to have a driver's license, you have to be able to afford a car."</p><p>Project Connect, however, stands to improve the quality of life of those who depend on its services. "That means dignity for low-income residents who are disproportionately black and brown, seniors, young people, our differently abled neighbors and anyone else who doesn't drive," Harper-Madison said.</p><p>Not everyone supports the project, however. Yesterday, a group called Our Mobility, Our Future debuted a campaign in opposition to the plan, which its members say is too expensive and not modern enough.</p><p>Capital Metro board members and City Council continue to discuss how the project will be funded and governed.</p>
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Project Connect, thanks to COVID-19, now faces a tougher, murkier political journey through the next several months. (Capital Metro)
Just a few weeks ago, Capital Metro and supporters of its $9.8 billion light rail-plus plan had the wind at their backs.
A proposed November rail referendum sure to be teeming with transit-friendly Democrats eager to show up and have their say in the presidential election. A Central Texas road system snarled through most of the daylight hours, even on Saturdays. A robust local economy, with everyone working and likely in a generous mood toward a huge government public works proposal.
<p>Even Capital Metro itself—for most of 35-year history something of a civic punching bag with unimpressive ridership on its buses and trains—had been on a 17-month streak of increasing boardings on its system. And Capital Metro, with agency CEO Randy Clarke finishing his second year on the job, finally had the sort of charismatic and politically savvy leader it had long lacked.</p><p>Victory in November—a public OK for hiking Austin property taxes to pay for much of the "Project Connect" 20-year installation/expansion of five rail lines and additional "rapid bus" routes—seemed, if not locked down, at least more likely than not.</p><p>Then came COVID-19 and the Great Mitigation.</p><p>Those once-frustrating highways are, for now, open roads. With so many downtown workers toiling away in their dens, Capital Metro has seen its ridership fall by two-thirds. The Austin area, with the economy shutdown worldwide to tame the deadly contagion, will likely see 25 percent unemployment this year. Both the city and Capital Metro budgets will lose tens of millions of dollars in 2020, primarily from less-than-projected sales taxes.</p><p>Even the core model of public transit has taken a public relations hit. The insularity of traveling in your own car suddenly seems so much safer than sharing a closed space on a bus or train with strangers</p><p>Project Connect, thanks to COVID-19, now faces a tougher, murkier political journey through the next several months.</p><p>Is it possible that the tax referendum on the plan might even be put off to another, less dicey year?</p><p>"That's a conversation we need to be having as we move into the summer," said Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who is foursquare behind the plan to build at least 35 miles of light rail lines from North Austin to South Austin, and to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. "In so many ways, the world seems to be changing every two days now. We don't know what the economic situation will be a few months from now. Or how long the process will be to adapt to the situation. We don't know whether Congress is going to step forward with an infrastructure bill in May.</p><p>"Everyone is wanting to have more information."</p><p>Clarke, while acknowledging the uncertainty of the moment, said the policy bedrock beneath the rippling topsoil remains unchanged. Austin's bustle and growth will return, he said.</p><p>"We might have roads with no cars on them today," Clarke said. "But the traffic will be back. Instead of building 26 more towers downtown, we might build 20. Instead of 130 people a day moving here, maybe we could have 100."</p><p>That younger than ever, overwhelmingly Democratic electorate will still show up at the polls this fall. And Capital Metro, he said, still has a good story to tell voters.</p><p>"We were up (on ridership) 17 months straight," he said. "And if the only thing that stops us is a global pandemic, I feel pretty good about that."</p><p><br/></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img alt="ridership coronavirus" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b3a8c1aa686a99c8a4053670054f7924" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzE0NTU5NC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MjY3NDMxM30.T0oSaz1s6FAqT6T4HnvmjPVgqqtH4ltqnbV2q5U2Z6c/img.png?width=980" id="badae" type="lazy-image"/>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">CapMetro ridership going into the pandemic. (Source: Capital Metro)</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Source: Capital Metro</small></p><p><strong><br/></strong></p><p><strong>Opposition remains</strong></p><p>Also unchanged, however, is resistance from a small group of motivated and monied conservatives who have bedeviled Capital Metro since the 1990s and helped defeat two previous light rail plans.</p><p>"People want to get where they want to go, curb to curb," said Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, a Republican who first came to public notice opposing a Capital Metro sales tax increase in 1995. "And not be enclosed in a capsule with a bunch of coughing people."</p><p>Daugherty said his group will go public shortly with a political action committee, a website and talking points against the Project Connect referendum.</p><p>This latest march toward a rail election—city voters soundly rejected a flawed $1.4 billion plan in 2014 that even some of the noisier rail advocates in town opposed—began about two years ago when Capital Metro and city leaders revivified the Project Connect brand used for that earlier plan. Consultants went to work again designing routes, making cost and ridership estimates, and holding public meetings. Officials say that more than 40,000 people have participated either in person or online.</p><p>For much of 2018 and 2019, Clarke and the agency kept the public in suspense about whether rail might be left out of the final recommendation. Perhaps the "high-capacity" transit lines would use only electric, rubber-tired buses running on dedicated routes carved out of existing streets, in many cases. That bus-only plan would have cost about a third as much, or less than $3 billion, though with a much lower ridership ceiling years in the future.</p><p>But the final plan that emerged late last year included a 20-mile Orange rail line running from North Lamar Boulevard near U.S. 183, through downtown, and then south on South Congress Avenue. The proposed 15-mile Blue rail line would run from the airport along East Riverside Drive, cross under the river just west of I-35, and then run west to meet the Blue line at Lavaca and West Fourth streets.</p><p>Yes, under the river. The headline feature of this new plan (various other rail plans dating back to the 1980s have included versions of the Blue and Orange lines) is a $2 billion tunnel section beneath downtown, including what officials have dubbed the Austin Underground transit mall. The tunnels reportedly were key to getting business community support because it would spare downtown streets the loss of lanes through dozens of blocks.</p><p>The plan also includes another Gold light rail line, a commuter rail line to Manor and improvements to the existing MetroRail Red line.</p><p>The Capital Metro board in early June is likely to vote to approve the plan as the "locally preferred alternative," a necessary step to initiate a several-year process of trying to land federal grants for the project. The Federal Transit Administration, if Austin prevails in a very tough competition against other cities, could provide 40% or more of the capital cost.</p><p class="media-headline">
But that still leaves at least $5 billion to come from local taxpayers, along with annual operating costs estimated to start at about $50 million in 2023 and rise to $180 million by 2040 when the system would be more or less built out.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><script>(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd0uta6f37HVR_2F5DAnLDIgD5lvomg7wSDt4uQ9PsIz2Xx.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");</script><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com" style="font: 12px Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; text-decoration: none;"> Create your own user feedback survey </a></div><p><br/></p><p><strong>Changing referendum</strong></p><p>And that's where November comes in.</p><p>Capital Metro, even before the virus hit, was not in a position to contribute much to the plan's huge capital cost. The agency already spends on operations virtually all of the money it takes in each year from its maxed-out 1% sales tax, fares and federal grants. But the city, with the authority to raise its property tax rate, has more flexibility.</p><p>The emerging financial plan before the virus and the shutdown was to ask voters for a specific property tax increase—probably in the vicinity of 10 cents per $100 in assessed property value—and dedicate all of that money in perpetuity to a newly created animal called a "local government corporation." That added tax would raise more than $150 million a year initially, an amount that would grow with property valuations through the years and could be used both to build the project and then to fund much of the future operating costs.</p><p>The new mini-government would have a board formed by the city and Capital Metro, perhaps a small staff and consultants, and would design and construct the rail system and added bus lines. Those projects, once completed, would be handed back to Capital Metro to operate.</p><p>The present tumult has forced a second look at that financing plan as well, Adler said.</p><p>"That certainly hasn't been decided," he said. "There are people arguing for a hybrid approach" that might involve a bond election for the initial investment and a separate ballot question on the added property tax for the long term.</p><p>John Langmore, a former Capital Metro board member, is chairman of Transit for Austin, a nonprofit formed last year to do early "education" efforts on the Project Connect plan. The nonprofit before long will give way to a new political action committee, which will be able legally to raise money and overtly stump for the ballot proposal.</p><p>"Everyone is anxious about whether the politics might have changed" because of COVID-19, Langmore said last week. "I'm sure they <em>have</em> changed, but we don't know how. But that hasn't prevented us from wanting to move forward.</p><p>"None of the problems that generated the need for Project Connect have permanently gone away. They will all resurrect when the economy comes back."</p><p><em>Correction: The original version of this story reversed the Orange and Blue lines.</em></p>
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