Metro Rapid

CapMetro getting $24M for ‘bus that looks like a train’

Austin Business Journal

The U.S. Department of Transportation is giving Austin $24 million next year to construct a “bus that looks like a train” and turns traffic lights green.

The dollars announced today with the department’s 2011 budget highlights is the second federal installment funding the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority‘s “MetroRapid” bus line. The local agency was approved for $13 million this fiscal year.

Read more…

[via Austin Business Journal]

City of Austin

Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 9:31am CST

Austin hosting transportation public forums

Austin Business Journal

The city of Austin is asking for public input on future transportation planning during four meetings early next month.

Officials have collected 1,200 citizen-suggested transportation projects and need help identifying priorities for improving mobility in the city either by bus, bike, rail, on foot, car of otherwise.

Read more…

[via Austin Business Journal]

CapMetro hits the rail in March, searches for permanent CEO

Austin Business Journal – by Jacob Dirr Staff Writer

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After much delay, drama and uncertainty, it appears Austin’s rail is back on track.

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Interim CEO Doug Allen on Monday got to tell his board and a roomful of attendees the delayed MetroRail line will open in March, just like he promised when replacing his under-performing boss last year.

Despite the good news, the board approved executive search firm Gilbert Tweed International to decide if Allen should be replaced with a different permanent CEO.

Read more…

[via Austin Business Journal]

City of Austin

AUSTIN

City Council may get rail rolling again

Council set to consider $1M engineering contract with goal of November 2010 bond referendum.

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, December 08, 2009

The City of Austin’s push toward a November 2010 passenger rail referendum could pick up speed Thursday, when the City Council will consider a $1 million contract to design a route and refine what has been a rough $600 million cost estimate.

The city already has hired consultant URS Corp. for $355,000 to develop an “alternatives analysis” of the possible line, as required by federal law. The council could vote by February on a recommended route, which might run from East Austin through downtown to the airport. That could be followed by a council decision in May or June on whether to hold a November bond referendum and a further council vote in August to nail down the exact ballot proposal.

Read more…

[via The Austin American-Statesman]

City of Austin

Imagine Austin

Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 2:28pm CST

Provide Your Input into Austin’s Future
City of Austin

Thanks to the more than 300 participants who joined us at the mid-November Community Forum Series to imagine what kind of future Austin should have. We are busily typing up and synthesizing the results, and will begin putting them online in December.

In the meantime, if you couldn’t make it, please consider taking our survey (http://www.imagineaustin.net/survey.htm) or hosting a Meeting-in-a-Box (http://www.imagineaustin.net/getmeeting.htm).

[via Gregory Claxton, City of Austin]

Car2Go

Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 2:28pm CST

Daimler launches car-share program in Austin
Austin Business Journal

Daimler auto officials, alongside Austin city officials, launched a co-operative car-share initiative Tuesday to become the nation’s largest car-sharing pilot program by introducing 200 smart cars to the Austin area.

The city and car2go, Daimler’s smart car-based car-share initiative, have forged a barter agreement in which car2go receives on-street parking spaces in exchange for city employees’ use of car2go vehicles for city business. There is no exchange of revenue, but the deal is valued at $85,000, according to the city.

Read more…

[via Austin Business Journal]

Lone Star Rail District

Tuesday November 10, 2009 – By CityReader

The Lone Star Rail District has changed its name from Austin-San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District to the simpler Lone Star Rail District. As the agency behind the LSTAR, a proposed passenger train between Georgetown and San Antonio, it has been authorized by the Legislature since the late ’90s but has yet to make any real headway.

The Statesman’s Ben Wear says,

“the train service is still mostly a line on a map. As agency board chairman Sid Covington says, the main obstacles to creating a commuter line between Austin and San Antonio are now and always have been Union Pacific freights and money.

It’s a matter of too much of the first and not enough of the latter.”

Read more…

[via the Austin Post]

City of Austin

Austin City Council passes texting ban

By Sarah Coppola | Thursday, October 22, 2009, 08:49 AM

Austin City Council members this morning unanimously passed a ban on text-messaging while driving, though a few speakers expressed concerns that it was too broad and wanted to delay it to refine the ordinance language.

The ban was supposed to take effect Nov. 2. But Council Member Mike Martinez, the ban’s lead sponsor, suggested extending that date to Jan. 1. He directed city staffers to conduct an educational campaign about the ban, and noted that the extra time would give council members and city commissions a chance to weigh in and suggest tweaks to the ordinance language.

Read more…

[via Statesman.com]

Cap Metro

DAA to Cap Metro: That’s not what the money is for

Austin Business Journal – by Kate Harrington Staff writer

The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority is nearing its annual budget vote, and at least one Austin group is unhappy about a proposed budget balancing measure.

The Downtown Austin Alliance has voiced concern over Cap Metro’s proposal to use $2.6 million in federal stimulus funds – 10 percent of the stimulus funds the agency received this year – from use on its Red Line MetroRail into the general fund.

According to Adam Shaivitz, a Cap Metro spokesman, Cap Metro has also considered either implementing service cuts or accelerating a planned rate increase from next August to January. The proposal to use part of the stimulus funds would mean the agency would not have to resort to earlier fare increases or service cuts, Shaivitz said, but emphasized that nothing is yet set in stone. Shaivitz said the stimulus money is slated for Red Line improvements down the road, and that if $2.6 million were to go toward balancing the budget, it would not mean additional delays for the rail line.

Read more…

via Austin Business Journal