See where Project Connect’s proposed Blue Line rail stations could be located between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Lady Bird Lake
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A rendering shows one possible design for the Blue Line train station at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. (Courtesy rendering of Capital Metro)
When the city of Austin sent out a plan to voters in November to invest billions in a converted transportation system with two new train lines, it included maps with suggested routes and an idea of where train stations would be.
Now Capital Metro and the Austin Transit Partnership, the local government company tasked with overseeing the $ 7.1 billion investment, are going into the details, speaking to the community, and asking for feedback on questions like access to the Wagons from a central platform or from the side.
All of these decisions and public engagement are part of an estimated two-year federal environmental review process for the railways that Project Connect is currently underway. From there, the Blue Line from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to North Austin and the Orange Line from North Austin to South Austin will move into final planning and then into the construction phase. The work is scheduled to begin in 2024 and will take around five years.
On May 19, ATP’s Chief of Architecture and Urban Design Peter Mullan and Assistant Program Officer John Rhone presented the board with details of a proposed route and station locations for a section of the route between the airport and Lady Bird Lake. The locations shown on the map below are still very tentative, according to Mullan.
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At the intersection of East Riverside Drive and Pleasant Valley Road, the Blue Line would share a station location with Capital Metro’s new planned MetroRapid line, a bus service that runs more frequently and has fewer stops than the Public Transportation Authority’s MetroBus services. Construction of this new bus line and Capital Metro’s new Expo Center line is slated to begin in late 2021.
After following Riverside Drive from the airport through the Lakeshore area and Travis Heights neighborhood, the line would turn right near the Austin American-Statesman’s current home, where developer Endeavor is a 12.5 mixed-use project Acres of public space that will include a water park.
The rail line will then cross Lady Bird Lake on an elevated bridge and connect it to a planned downtown tunnel across the water near the Waller Creek Boathouse.
“I think this is a really exciting opportunity to create meaningful architecture, but also because we envision this bridge not only supporting the light rail system, but also providing facilities for pedestrians and bicycles,” Mullan told the board. “This is really going to be an important multimodal corridor crossing the lake.”
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