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Brief of diving:
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Austin Transit Partnership revealed Updated plans For Project Connect, the city’s $ 7 billion light railway project, including a new station near the city center and a bridge that would extend to Lady Bird Lake, as part of its environmental impact statement project published on January 11.
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The 9.8 -mile light railway project is taking Public comment Until March 11 and it is planning to complete its environmental impact statement by the end of 2025.
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The project, which the city’s voters approved in a referendum, faces possible funding and other challenges at the state and federal levels.
Divide vision:
The last update of the Plan includes a new station in Wooldridge Square, near Texas Capitol, partly comments from the community asking for more stations in the center area, said Lindsay Wood, Executive Vice President of Engineering and Construction with ATP, Local Agency supervises the project. It also adds a bridge over Lake Lady Bird, the body of water that divides Austin to the north and south, with an elevated station on the south side of the bridge.
“You have a narrower footprint when you are raised because on a bridge the only one [things] At the ground level are the columns versus the complete width of the system, “said Wood.
The light railway line would have 15 stations that cut north-south through the city center and turn east after crossing Lady Bird Lake. It also lists the farther northernmost priority stations in the east, including Austin Bergstrom International Airport, which would pursue if funding was available. According to ATP’s WebsiteThe light railway line hopes to be open to the service by 2033.
ATP plans to use federal funding to finance half of the project. The draft of the environmental impact statement came shortly before the Trump Administration tidy A freezing of federal funding on January 27. On February 25, United States District Judge Loren Alikhan resume background disbursementBut it is unclear if all funding flows have been resumed. The ATP said it does not foresee the freezing of temporary financing affecting the light railway plan.
“The project does not require federal funding in 2025,” said Jennifer Pyne, an executive vice president of the ATP of Federal Planning, Community and Programs Programs.
The project previously faced the opposition at the state level. An effort to prevent the local funding mechanism for Project Connect failed during the legislative session in 2023. The new Texas legislative session began on January 14, but from March 4, no bill has been presented to the project.
