Elgin-Austin rail proposed
Working group to evaluate putting Green Line on ballot
A nearly $200 million, 19-mile rail line between downtown Austin and Manor/Elgin may begin chugging along as regional transportation leaders convene soon to determine how to move the line from concept to reality.
The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Transit Working Group, tasked with evaluating rail options for Central Texas, will begin reviewing the so-called Green Line proposal in December. Over the next few months the group’s members, led by State Sen. Kirk Watson and Austin Mayor Will Wynn, will decide whether the proposal should appear on election ballots in the near term.
The transit working group’s task comes after the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority — which would construct, operate and maintain the Green Line — this month completed a phase one evaluation and technical review of the project. Cap Metro’s work included a “decision tree” analysis, a mechanism created by Watson to ensure proper vetting of rail projects.
While it’s unclear exactly how the rail line would be funded, potential sources include federal and local governments and public funding mechanisms such as tax-increment financing, says Doug Allen, executive vice president at Cap Metro. Funding questions, he adds, are up to the transit working group to answer, as well as the timing of the proposal’s approvals.
Cap Metro’s analysis says up to 70 percent of the rail’s construction financing could come from TIF districts in the rail corridor.
The idea for the Green Line, which would run roughly along the U.S. 290 corridor from downtown Austin, has been bandied about for years since Cap Metro’s 32-mile Austin-Leander Red Line, set to begin service in March 2009, was approved by voters in 2004.
Allen says the line would run from the downtown station near the Austin Convention Center and East Austin’s Plaza Saltillo station and could have five or six additional stops, although the exact number and locations have not been identified. The eastern terminus of the rail stop will likely be at or near Elgin’s Main Street.
Similar to the Red Line, the Green Line would run on existing freight tracks owned by Cap Metro, but its lines would need much more upgrading to get it to a passenger-ready standard, Allen says. It will cost $400,000 per mile to improve the Green Line tracks, roughly double what it cost for the Red Line, although Allen says that cost is a small fraction of the overall capital cost.
Elgin and Manor leaders have long said a commuter rail would foster denser, more sustainable land-use patterns and circumvent sprawl in those fast-growing suburban communities.
One obstacle is that Elgin is not in Cap Metro’s service area and doesn’t contribute a portion of its sales tax to the authority, meaning the city would have to find a way to finance its share. That could include property tax increment or regional transportation funding sources, Elgin City Manager Jeff Coffee says.
In 2007, Elgin’s economic development corporation bought an 80-acre site earmarked for transit-oriented development along the proposed line. That land is linked to an additional 920 acres in the city that Gateway Planning Group has studied as a potential transit-oriented development.
Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty says the Red Line must be proven before further investment is made, adding that the Red Line has not generated the kind of development it was projected to.
“Where is the megabuildup we were talking about witnessing?” he says. “We are within six months of watching the Red Line open, and I think you probably need 18 to 24 months to at least give it the opportunity to hit its numbers.”
John Langmore, a local transportation consultant, says it makes more sense to tackle a downtown circulator — proposed by Mayor Will Wynn last year and also under consideration by the transit working group — as a logical next step to the Red Line. The proposed circulator would include stops at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the University of Texas, and the Triangle and Mueller developments.
“The [circulator] provides synergy to the Red Line. The Green Line doesn’t; it’s much more about establishing a regional network. [The Green Line] is cheaper, that’s the big temptation,” Langmore says. “What do you do first? Do you go with the regional line because it’s lower-hanging fruit or the one that is effective at catalyzing the entire system?”
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