Downtown Austin Plan - Urban Rail

October 1, 2008

Background

As part of the Downtown Austin Plan (DAP), the ROMA team was asked to assist the City in developing its position on what priority rail connections should be proposed to the CAMPO Transit Working Group (TWG). The TWG would then evaluate these through their "decision tree", in order to develop a recommendation about the next rail project to be pursued as a region. An aggressive timeline was set in order to meet the TWG's schedule to allow for the possibility to call a public referendum for November 2008. ROMA was asked specifically to study how passenger rail could connect Downtown with three destinations:

1. Mueller
2. ABIA
3. Zilker Park

Preliminary Findings

After reviewing previous studies, conducting a technical workshop (March 6-7) where various alignments and technologies were considered, the ROMA team evaluated each and developed a preliminary recommendation for a "potential urban rail project" with two routes comprising 16 miles:

1. Mueller to ABIA (via Berkman, Manor, San Jacinto, Congress, S. Congress, E. Riverside, ABIA)
2. Seaholm to Long Center (via W. 4th Street, S. Congress, W. Riverside)

These findings were presented to the public on April 22, 2008 Town Hall meeting called by the City. About 120 people attended and provided input during an hour-long break-out session.

A 9.3M PDF of the presentation can be found at www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/downloads/dap_transit_4-22-08_town_hall_mtg_rev_print_friendly.pdf

July 24, 2008 Downtown Urban Rail Connections Council Presentation

• Downtown Urban Rail Connections presentation slides (18MB PDF)

Working Evaluation Criteria

ROMA is applying the following evaluation criteria for determining the next "potential urban rail project”:

1. Connects destinations, jobs, housing and connects to existing and future transit lines;
2. Serves populations—especially transit-dependent—and captures ridership;
3. Supports transit-oriented development and creates potential value capture for financing the project. (This evaluation is not yet complete.); and
4. Is cost effective: uses streets/ROWs with sufficient width and traffic capacity and achieves good cost/benefit value. (This evaluation is not complete.)

Next Steps in Process