Capital Metro FY2009 Budget

Capital Metro's proposed budget for FY 2009 (Oct. 1 - Sept. 30) is now available to the public online.

The Capital Metro Board will conduct a public hearing regarding the proposed budget on Sept. 22, and will consider approval of the budget on Sept. 29. Read more

Capital MetroRail: Keeping You Informed

In a letter to the editor in today’s Austin American-Statesman, a Cedar Park resident asked "how these important parts of the (Capital MetroRail) plan were allowed to slide by Cap Metro." He was referring to a recent Statesman article about two of our rail stations that won’t be complete until early 2009.

Actually, we’ve worked hard to keep you informed about the progress and challenges of our project. Every month, our president/CEO writes a letter to the community that we publish in our All Systems Go electronic newsletter. The letter includes a station-by-station MetroRail project update. You can view this month’s newsletter and subscribe here: enewsbuilder.net/capmet/. Read more

Weirdest Commute Contest

Today was the kickoff event for Commute Solutions Month, which aims to raise awareness about the benefits of carpooling and mass transit. What fun! Part of the festivities was the Weirdest Commute contest. I had heard about the guy who rode a motorized bar stool last year, and he was back!



The designer/owner was Mike, and he won second place and a Kona bicycle.

First prize went to Jeff. Check this out, a bat bike! Notice his roller skates, too...


For first place, Jeff won a pair of three day passes to the Austin City Limits Festival.

During Commute Solutions Month, you can win some great prizes, too, by participating in the Commuter Challenge.
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Beefing Up the Huddle Shuttle

Last Saturday was the opening game for the UT football season and the return of the Huddle Shuttle. If you were one of the many Huddle Shuttle passengers, you may have encountered long lines and a longer trip than normal. We acknowledge this caused some frustration. And, as the Assistant Director of Transportation, I assure you we are taking steps to provide better service for the next game.

Increased seating capacity at the stadium prompted more traffic and higher ridership than we were expecting. We also tried some different routes to avoid traffic and get to the stadium quicker.

Here are some of the ways we plan to beef up the service:
* Schedule more buses to arrive at the loading locations earlier
* Increase the amount of buses for the shuttles by 30% (an additional cost of more than $4,000 per game)
* Add more signage to assist passengers returning to the shuttles after the game

Even though we are working out some of the kinks, we’re really pleased with the new drop-off location closer to the stadium. If you want to avoid waiting in line for a ticket, you can buy a season pass for the remaining home games at www.capmetro.org/riding/buy.asp

We want nothing less than quality service for all customers and we hope you’ll stick with us for the remainder of the season. Hook 'em horns! Read more

Commute Solutions Month Kickoff

September is Commute Solutions Month. Tomorrow is the official kickoff, and the Commute Solutions Coalition of Central Texas (Capital Metro is a partner) will be celebrating at Republic Square, 4th & Guadalupe, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Festivities include music from Austin Home Grown, food, information booths on commuting options, the UT cheerleaders, Austin Energy's Cody the Clean Air Car, and more.

A highlight of the event will be the Weirdest Commute Contest. Commuters with great imaginations and a tremendous sense of fun are encouraged to participate. I'm sorry I missed the motorized bar stool last year. That's my kind of ride. Judging will begin at noon and the winner will receive a pair of 3 day passes to ACL!

Learn more about Commute Solutions Month and take the Commuter Challenge!
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Detour Drama

If you tried to get around downtown over the Labor Day weekend, you know firsthand how difficult it was to navigate. Several special events closed city streets and created transportation headaches for everyone, whether you were in a car or a bus.

To those who were relying upon Capital Metro, we apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Street closures are a big, big deal to us because they create detours for our bus routes and cause some bus stops to temporarily close—in essence they interfere with our business and make it hard for our customers to get around!

Don’t get me wrong. I love all the delightfully Austintatious events in this city, and a number of my friends and coworkers compete in the many foot and bike races in town. But speaking with my Capital Metro Employee Hat firmly in place, street closures are a real pain.

In order to effectively let our customers know about detours that will be in place for an upcoming event, we print and post signage for affected bus stops (and on the buses that run those routes) about a week and a half in advance, and then post the detour information to our Web site during the week before the event. We actually have a staff committee that meets every week to review and plan for special events detours. We also meet regularly with City of Austin staff (the city approves and implements the street closures for special events) so that we can develop bus route detours effectively.

Unfortunately the plans don’t always go smoothly, and the city closes additional blocks, or the streets are closed earlier than we anticipated, and our buses are forced to detour the detour, on the spot. When this occurs, our signage at bus stops and on our Web site is no longer accurate. During major events, Capital Metro’s field supervisors patrol the routes, looking for people who need help catching a detoured bus. With so many routes on detour this weekend, it was hard.

We will continue to work with the city to improve the coordination between them and us for street closures and detours. We have been monitoring closely the work of the city-sponsored Downtown Street Event Closure Task Force and are providing input to that group. Hopefully it’ll be a smoother ride for all of us in the future. Read more

ACC Rio Grande: Get There

A story in today’s Austin American-Statesman highlighted parking problems at ACC’s Rio Grande campus located at 12th & Rio Grande. If you read the story, you might get the impression that Capital Metro’s recent ‘Dillo changes are part of the problem. In reality, there is excellent bus service to this location. Nineteen different routes stop within one to three blocks of the campus.

As we’ve discussed at length here on the blog, Capital Metro launched a revamped ‘Dillo system when fall service changes took effect August 24. At the same time, we changed route 3 to serve ACC Rio Grande. This is a significant improvement over the Red and Gold ‘Dillo routes that used to stop there.

With the old schedule, the Red and Gold ‘Dillos operated from approximately 6:15 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday. Each route came by anywhere from every 13 to 25 minutes depending on the time of day. Now route 3 serves this area every 20 to 23 minutes during weekday mornings and afternoons, and every 40 minutes at night. It runs from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays, 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays, and 6:15 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.

Capital Metro works closely with ACC to provide transportation options for students, faculty and staff to its campuses. The Rio Grande location is well served by public transportation. Here's a list of all the routes that stop nearby: 1L, 1M, 3, 5, 9, 19, 29, 100, 101, 103, 171, 935, 982, 983, 984, 986, 987 and two UT Shuttle Routes: ER, LA.

With the improvements we’ve made to route 3 and the existing routes that serve this area, we hope that students, faculty and staff will consider these options.


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