Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribunes trib Cast for Tuesday, June second. I'm elean Or Klibanoff, Law and Politics. I'm Eleanor Clibanoff.
I'm sorry, did you get your title wrong?
My title wrong? Now it's my turn. Okay, I'm Eleanor Clivanoff.
Law, and you're not cutting out. Just to be clear, I was starting.
Law and politics reporter joined as usual, but my co host, Editor in chief Matthew Watkins, Hello, thanks for being.
I'm so happy to be here right now. You're having a.
Great day this week. We are going to be diving into a topic that I think is very familiar to a lot of people in Austin, particularly people who take public transit or would like to be taking public transit, and I think widely important to all Texans who would like to see more public transit options in their cities
as well. We're going to be talking about Project Connect, major public transit project that Austin voters approved property tax increased to support in twenty twenty, and looking at where things stand now. We are joined by Joshua Fector, the Urban affairs reporter for the Texas Tribune, author of the recent article, bigger price tag, smaller footprint. How Austin's Project Connect went off the rails. Josh, thanks for being.
Here, Hey, thanks for having me.
We are also joined by Ashika Gangouli, the executive director of Transit Forward, an independent nonprofit that partners with the city to educate, engage, and provide accountability for the development of Project Connect. Thanks for thanks for being here.
Of course, happy to be here.
So why don't we start with you Ashika? You can sort of give us the original, big picture overview of Project Connect, like what was the original plan and why did it feel like it was something that Austin needed.
Yeah, you know, I think our city for a long time has had a little bit of a delayed reaction when it comes up to keeping up with growth, both in terms of transit, major transportation infrastructure and housing. I'm born and raised at Austin, so I know many of us that have been around for a while, and folks longer than me have always seen this kind of like if we don't build it, they won't come.
Attitude in our city.
And so there was a much needed mechanism to try to make an impact on our traffic issues and create greater mobility and connectivity across the city for a long time, and so Project Connect, I think, is really us trying to play catch up in a sense and try to retroactively get some of that connectivity that we've needed in
our city for a long time. And so light rail has been posed to Austin voters as early as two thousand, but most recently was passed and twenty twenty as part of a ballot proposition, and the original the original proposal was to build a world class transit system with ongoing maintenance and operations to create greater connectivity and mobility for the city of Austin. So you know, many aspects of the city have changed since that was passed in twenty twenty.
Many aspects of our daily life have changed since twenty twenty. But the city has made so many strides, especially in terms of housing and creating greater affordability for living across the city, and we are still working to catch up to the transit side of that piece. So Project Connect is a much needed investment to fill in those gaps in connectivity in the city and we're working as a city to try to deliver the mobility that we desperately need.
In Austin, and Josh, you know, you were digging into this for this story. Where do things stand now with this propose project that was initially approved in twenty twenty.
Sure, so, the voters in Austin in twenty twenty voted for Project Connect. It was, you know, basically the seven point one billion dollar expansion of the city's public transportation system. Voters basically agreed to fund this expansion with a twenty cent or not twenty percent increase in the city's property tax rate. Basically, you've had all kinds of things attached to it. You had high frequency bus routes, you had expanded shuttle pickup service. Obviously, at the heart of this
was twenty miles of light rail. It was going to go from you know, you know, sort of pretty deep into North Austin and into South Austin. It would hit ut Austin, it would hit the State Capital Complex, it would go downtown, and it would reach all the way to the airport. But you know, as as the design on this progressed following the vote, you know, costs increased. The initial estimated cost of the light rail was five point eight billion, and then in the years following the vote.
You know, that grew by about seventy five percent. So to deal with those higher costs, officials had to claw it back a bit. They had to cut the scope from about twenty miles to less than ten. It'll no longer reach the airport. The number of stops was cut from twenty six to fifteen. And now the total project will cost about eight point two billion dollars. And you know that's at less than half the proposed length, the initial proposed length. The costs are now something like eight
hundred and forty million dollars per mile. It's the costliest public transit project per mile in the state's history. And it's also among some of the most expensive light rail projects in the country on a per mile basis. And now what it's facing is, you know, a couple of things on a different, few different fronts. It needs about four point one billion dollars in federal funds that it's
seeking from the Trump administration. And it's also trying to beat back basically this legal fight over whether the property tax mechanism itself that funds the project is legal.
Ashika, I mean, what's your perspective on where this stands and sort of where things started to, as Josh's headline puts it, you know, go off the rails in terms of original footprint and the original cost.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the feelings that folks could be having are completely valid, and I completely.
Hear people where they're coming from.
As an Austin resident, as someone who voted for this project in twenty twenty. It is in someone who talks to people who want transit in our city so much and so badly. It is frustrating to feel like there was a big, grand plan in that what's currently happening is in quite.
Measuring up to that plan.
However, I think I speak for myself and I believe many others in the city who believe that we want to do something, and we want to do it now, and we.
Talk a lot.
I talk a lot at Transit Forward about creating a healthy transit ecosystem and that involves not just light rail, and I talk a lot about we're not creating a war on cars. We want to create a healthy transit ecosystem where there are many options on the table. So that includes single passenger car travel and carpooling, That includes a light rail that includes our best rapid transit lines that have recently come online that it's right. So that
includes our commuter rail, our micro transit options. So having a little bit more of all of these options on the table is always helpful to the mobility and the traffic easeman.
Of our city.
I'll also say that a lot of the opponents saying that we're getting much less of the original plan haven't looked that closely at the maps.
You know, we're still getting.
Of the light rail stops that we're in the original plan. And when thinking about supply chain issues that have come about since COVID and how almost every major infrastructure project in Texas and acrass the nation has up to seventy percent increase in costs, The fact that we're still getting the majority of our light rail plan, we're still getting the majority of the other non light rail components of Project Connect. And we've already seen the bus rapid transit
come online. We've already seen two new parking rids be constructed, We've already seen two new pickup zones in the city become constructed, and they're moving.
Like gang busters.
People are using the bus rapid transit at higher rates than we've ever seen the Decker and Dove Springs pickup zones that are being used at higher rates than we've ever seen. These only show us that transit is needed, it's wanted, and when the light rail comes online eventually, I promise you that it's going to be used just as much as those services.
So just you know, cards on the table here right, like Josh, your your story it you know, it had the headline, you know, talking about it going off the rails.
I think there were people, particularly supporters, people who are very you know, of the more urbanist ilk who you know, pushed back about against the idea in this story, but also the broader narrative of you know that this is a failure or that this is you know, a disaster, and in terms of how this has rolled out, I want to get into that, but I think there's a
really interesting conversation to have here. But let's just like, let's let's stay a little bit for a little bit on kind of how things have gotten more expensive than expected and a smaller footprint than expected. As we've been talking, I've like written down like four different potential culprits for this. I think probably the accurate answer is that it's a combination of these culprits. But to kind of s up what you have already said, Josh, and what's in the article,
one being just bad timing. Right, this happens in twenty twenty. Immediately after that, this pandemic comes and drives up prices, the global supply train, the just the cost of building these things got dramatically more expensive. That is unfortunate timing. Also, at the same time, all these people moved to Austin during the pandemic, and you know the price of real estate and all those things went up as well. I
assume probably had an impact on the cost. Then you have just the broader something that Ashika you just touched on, just it's really hard to build mass infrastructure and transit projects in Texas and across the country. Right, Like, all you have to do is look at the other sort of like whivving boy topic of transit, the California High Speed Rail and how that has gone, and see that this is not a problem that's particularly unique.
Right.
I think everyone can can sort of see that those two things are sort of indisputably true. There's two other aspects to this that I'm interested in drilling into one is, you know, there are a lot of people who have sort of made the accusation that the people leading this project, that the local government here is, you know, has shown a certain amount of ineptitude in allowing this to happen, and then sort of on the other side, a feeling of you know, people who support this project saying that
you know, our state leadership, our representation in Congress, other you know, is actively opposed to this and trying to kind of throw up as many obstacles as possible from making this happen. Josh, I wonder if you could just sort of like lay out those two aspects, what are the arguments for and against? You know, pointing to those two culprits is kind of getting in the way of the development of this.
I think the big thing on the former, which is like, did you know the locals basically over promise, you know, regarding this project is you know that'll that'll be what I'll tackle first on that.
The main thing that I would.
Point to there because you hear people critics specifically saying, look like we thought we were getting this, we're in fact getting this, and they call it a bait and switch, and you know, in my reporting, you know what I sort of understood was that part of the reason why the costs went up so much, any big reason why is because very little of it had been designed by the time it went to the public. About five percent of it had been designed by the time voters were
asked to green light Project Connect. And you know that basically left the project vulnerable to not only would costs have gone up already because of the small amount of design, because as you progress that design, you figure out, like, what are the other what are some unexpected costs that
are going to go up? Your costs are basically guaranteed to go up at that level of design, Right, But then you just go headlong into the inflationary environment of like the COVID era, right, you have you know, big jumps in supply chain costs, labor costs, the cost of real estate, and Austin really went up. And you know, I asked people like, look like, is this something that you know Austin officials could have you know, baked a little bit longer and you know, really solidified the design
and thus really solidified the costs. And you know, what you'll find is that this is basically a problem in any major project, because localities basically don't have the money to fully design a project before taking it to voters. Basically, what you're asking them to do is put up money to design the project further. And so that was a big sort of driver of the costs that that happened on the local side. In the meantime, on the state and federal side, you do have state lawmakers trying to
throw up barriers to this project. State Representative Ellen trox Claire in particular has repeatedly, you know, sought legislation that would basically, you know, make it harder for the project to come to fruition if at all the Trump administration is is not in a sort of giving mood in terms of federal funds that the project needs.
Uh.
And you know, there's there's a certain argument that I have people make that you know, the fact that you know, Austin went this way with Project connect and asked for specifically a property tax rate increase is in part because the state does not pay for public transit. So it is it is a collection of except we're basically just working against this project from the get go.
I I hear that like loud and clear and you know, I think the question of like, should there have been a better estimate of the costs is a really interesting one and it is really hard. It seems like too you know, a project that you know is going to go out ten years maybe longer into the future, have a really strong and solid, confident understanding of how much
that's going to cost. On the other hand, you know, it does seem like there are signs, there are things that you can point to to be like, is this being run the most sufficiently efficient way possible? And Josh, I will now go to something you've heard me talk about many times, which is the mccaulla Place station on the Red Line in Austin. This is not a Project connect project, but it feels like, in some ways illustrative of some of the challenges here. Right for folks who
are who you know, are elsewhere in the state. They might not know that. In June twenty nineteen, the Austin City Council voted to bring Austin FC, the football the soccer team here British football American soccer team here.
Yes.
And when they did that, they said they were going to build a stadium on a piece of property called mccaullough Place, which is up by the domain, the sort of shopping center in Austin. There is a train line, the one area of train that currently operates in the city runs through this property. And the idea was the team would build a stadium and cap Metro would build
a train station on that site. And the team built the stadium and played three and a half seasons in the stadium in the time it took to build the McCall a Place station, which is essentially two slabs of concrete and like some signs and a place to stop. And that to me feels like a level of like an indication of inefficiency of like how you see things happening, you know, in the private sector compared to you know, these government projects that just like didn't seem to operate
as quickly and effectively. And I think just like raises these questions of like why is it so hard to do these things? And why can we not build them faster and more efficiently? And you know, I don't know, I just I feel like I haven't received a great answer.
To that question yet.
Just you know, I'm not saying from you, Josh, or from either of y'all, but just like out there in the world right.
Now, Like I mean ask, I'm curious from your perspective, Like obviously that's not a project connect project, but like you, I'm sure have to deal with a lot of like the people who say, like, well, the private industry, you know, private industry can get a building up in ninety seconds, Like why do things take longer when we're in the public sector, Like what does sort of account for that gap?
Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with Joshua that we have a lot of things working against us. That is a reality of the project. That's the reality of the circumstances that we're in. I think if the private sector was going to build some of these things for us, a lot of people are waiting for this magical, you know, private sector solution to transit into our traffic issues in Austin.
But we are the only ones who can do it.
And Mayor Watson often says, uh, you know, the most expensive day is today. Sorry, the cheapest day is today, uh, and then tomorrow will be even more expensive. So we we've got to invest in this now. And to your point about the McCalla Place station, it did take long, and it did take time to get it up and running. But now that it's here, and now that that's been invested in, it's used by folks all over the city to get to games. It's completely packed to the gills
every weekend for soccer games. I have season tickets. I'm there every weekend and taking the train, and people take the train all the time. So, you know, I think we need to be realistic about our expectations about the timelines that we can deliver things, and about what we can deliver and how. But we also need to invest and care enough to put our money where our mouth is and take the time to create these infrastructure projects for our city.
Josh.
One of the things people have said in reaction to this article, but also just the broader you know, pushback to Project Connect is that yes, it has come in over budget. Yes maybe it is taking longer than we would have liked, but that happens all the time with highway projects and their developments like that, and and they don't receive the same type of scrutiny in that realm. Is there any truth to that argument?
Uh?
It's when when I after the after the the story published, you know, I went and looked at you know, some of the promile costs of of you know, Texed, tex Dot, you know, various projects, and I mean you do see highway projects that do exceed the UH project connect light rails promile.
Costs for example. Right. So this is this is.
Something that that has plagued all forms of transportation.
Right.
No, no major infrastructure project in the post COVID era has been immune to like the post COVID shocks. Right, So that affected highways, that affected public transit projects, that affected you know, people's ability to build a house, right, like every kind of project you can think of, Like inflation hit it, right, and there was and there's there's
truth to that. I mean, obviously highway projects costs have gone up, right, And but you know the other portion of this that I'm that I'm thinking about sitting here is that, you know, tex dot put out a report last year saying that, hey, it turns out Texas does need a lot more public transit if it's going to continue to boom and if we're not all going to angry at each other on the freeway.
Right. And you know, the.
What I see Austin's light rail project as is a basically a test of that, Like can anybody in Texas sort of build public transit the kinds of public transit that you know, even the state's transportation planners say that, you know, the state needs in order to build its or or you know, to relieve congestion and to and to move people, right, and so like, this is a real test of that, And I wonder to what extent you know, And this is also just like a test
of of you know, officials ability to sell public transit right if you are if you're dealing with something where we're thrown this much like, how how do you then sell that to the public. And I think that's a real test for U for transit advocations.
Well, sorry, do you mind if I piggyback off that? Sure?
Well, I totally agree with Joshua and your question earlier also is talking about what makes public invest infrastructure private investment, And I think one of those pieces that comes to
light with Project connect is accountability. There's so many different entities at play, both you know atp kat Metro, the City of Austin, and then our state partners and our federal partners, and so all of these entities are providing accountability checks and measures on each other checks and balances on each other, and the public is also providing accountability. So to Joshua's point, I think public perception has a
huge part to play in this project. And there are many vocal proponents and many many vocal opponents of the project, And so even the fact that we're sitting here having this conversation right now is a measure of accountability for this project. And when we're using citizens' money. When we're using public money to fund a project, it does require a lot more scrutiny, a lot more accountability, and a lot more time to sit and talk about the benefits and the measures and are.
We doing everything we can be.
We've already seen entities between the City of Austin and atp ASK Questions provide checks and balances on one another. We're seeing the federal government provide some checks on us right now as they go through our funding process and decide when and where we can get our fund federal dollars for the project. So I think all of those create a timeline that's different from a private project, and hopefully, well we can get it done and deliver this to the people of Austin.
Yeah, I mean, I think like the implication in your question, Matthew, right, is like that this is getting particular scrutiny because it's public transit, and that like people don't have issues with cost overruns on like you know, highway expansions, which like they do, right, I mean I think people, yes, people are generally our government is generally more permissive to car base transit.
We're not talking about like whether the legislature next year will like come in and like shut down all highway construction because it's come over over budget and the way, but that could happen possibly.
Yes, And also like it's not that like Project Connect has been running completely smoothly without any hiccups and they just are trying to take it out back and shoot it.
Yeah, that on those grounds alone, exactly, I bet you know.
And on the other hand, like one of.
The most effective ways to get public support behind transit would be to have a public that's confident that it could be built in a way that you know will be done efficiently and you know actually you know, serve the needs of the people trying to get around and and you know, I think it's it's worth asking the question whether you know the leaders in Austin have succeeded in meeting that bar right.
I mean, like she could go back to something you said early on is like, you know when people are critical that this is sort of a smaller footprint like that, Well when you look at it closely, like that it is going to be all these great things, which I think is true. But also that is a smaller footprint than originally imagined in this phase one like those it will generate. You know, Yes, it sounds like us are on track to accomplish all these great things that is
less than what was originally intended. So I mean, how do you sort of when you get pushed back about well, yes, but we were promised this many miles. We're getting this many miles, Like, how do you sort of square that?
Yeah? I think it's a difficult conversation to have with people, and I think, you know, it's the former teacher in me. I need to validate people's feelings. First, we're all a little frustrated, and that's okay.
But the thing I always.
Come back to is that we need to put down the heart of the system, and once we have step one built, every step coming off of that heart of the system is going to be that much easier to extend. We talk a lot about the airport extension, we talk about the North extension. Both of those things will be much easier to do once the heart of the system is in place. We've already seen that with our redline rail we had. You know, it took a long time
to get that initial rail line in place. But now we have our North Burnett station, that maybe the mccaulle station open, We're doing double tracking at other stations. All of those things are happening in a more expedited fashion, and they're happening easier once we had the initial system in place. So we're going to see that with light rail.
We're seeing that with our best system. We're seeing that with all the other things in place, and I think, you know transit and our light rail system, it does have a pr problem. A lot of people don't really know what's going on behind the scenes with the project, and so that's kind of my job as an independent nonprofit partner is to go around and tell people what's going on behind the scenes, and we try our best to do that. But you know, y'all spoke earlier about
is the city officials delivering what the people want. And I can speak from my own experience to just the amount of community engagement that I've seen on the part
of cat Metro and ATP is really astounding. They have endless focus groups that they do with community members, the public input process that they did for the NEPA process and to receive federal funding, the amount of comments that they sifted through, and I have seen them make changes to the plans for the system based on the public inputs. So what I want people to know is that your city officials are listening to you.
We know you're frustrated. I say we.
I'm not a city official, but they know you're frustrated. But they also know that we need this and they're ready to hear you and they're ready to deliver.
I mean, this project has also had, you know, sort of some pr issues beyond just the like like you said, some of these things that are plaguing all of these transit projects across the country. I mean, there was sort of a bruhaha earlier this year about the ATP wanting to move into these very expensive offices that was Lee are backed off. There's these lawsuits that are you know, being filed against the project, including by some people who
supported the project initially. I mean, it does seem like, you know, it's getting faced, this project is facing a lot of headwinds. Do you feel like a shida, like everyone is sort of on the same page, like keep this rowing in the same direction despite some of these internal external squabbles.
Yes, for the most part.
I mean, of course, there are vocal opponents. In my time in and around the community, I believe that this is a vocal minority. And I will say that even proponents of the project have things that they like to see done differently, that they like to see done better. But we all come back to the same answer at the end of the day, is that this is a necessary investment for Austin, and it's only going to get
more expensive from here. So we you know, and we are seeing it with the choices that are public is making across the city. We're seeing it with the types of with the types of council members that we're voting in to the Austin City Council. We're seeing it with the housing choices that are being made around the city. This is a city that wants that once a system of transit that can connect them from one side of the city to the other, and they want it done quickly.
To your point, right, the the the vote was you know,
by a pretty decent margin. Back when this happened, right, there was a signal that people said, you know, they want more options and able to get around in this city, and that you know, the point that you made, the point that Mayor Watson has made several times, is like that sort of like first step of getting that first track, the first system running is often the hardest part, and it seems like, you know, the aim here is to get that done and the hope then that will be
easier from then. You know, we've we've seen you know, other cities with more mature systems, Dart for example, up up in DFW, up in Dallas. You know, in that situation. We had three cities vote earlier this year on whether
to you know, pull out from that system. Two of them may be a bit surprisingly given you know where we thought this was headed, you know, decided to stay in right and and so you know, once this becomes sort of like part of the fabric of people's lives, once we've kind of developed that muscle of building and
done it, maybe it will be a different situation. It's just there seems to be a race of like, let's of the people supporting this, of like let's get this done, let's not push it back any further so we can kind of move into that expansion stage as opposed to the development stage.
Yeah, I mean I am curious, Josh. Like you, you live in Dallas, other cities in Texas, I mean are working on their own public transit projects, either sort of from scratch ish the way Austin is, or building on existing systems. I mean, what are the takeaways, Like if you don't live in Austin but you care about public transit from Project Connect, My.
Biggest takeaway for other cities.
Is, you know, you know a lot of our.
Public transit systems in this state, I mean specifically talking about rail, right, would be that it costs a lot to put rail in places where people are going.
Right.
Part of the reason why the Austin light roll project is so expensive is because, like it runs through the heart of the city and it's going to build a bridge across Ladybird Lake. And you know, the reason they put it there was that or they're trying to put it there. The reason that they're that they went that route is because that's where the big destinations are, that's where people are going, existing transit ridership is, and that's where a lot of your your you know, existing traffic is.
So if you're going to build transit in places where people are trying to go, it's going to be costly to do that in a in a big public urban environment.
Right.
And so you know, we see with Dart at the moment right where you know that that system there talks about trying to expand it all the way to McKinney. My my sense from from efforts to basically if you're trying to expand public transit here is that you know, are are you putting it where people are trying to go or are you you know, basically creating a system that that goes nowhere.
Right.
Part of the reason why I mentioned this earlier Austin is one of the most expensive light rail projects in the in the state is in part because the way that other systems got built was, you know, it was built on existing train right of way, it was built
away from sort of like the big traffic corridors. And so Dart system was built that way and it was built, or at least the initial system was, and so it was built a lot cheaper, right, And so if if you're going to you know, figure out like how is it? If like you take the text dot you know, gavel that's been thrown down and say, hey, we're going to try to build public transit, You're basically your task is basically, how do you how do you get this into places
where people want to go too? How do you do that in a cost effective way? And figure out is that possible?
Right?
Yeah, I mean it seemed like the Dallas model. There's two ways of going about this. There's the build transit in areas and hope development pops up around it, and then you can move between those different areas or build it where the people already are. That the latter is a lot harder, and we're seeing that it also might be more effective. We will see in getting more people to write it.
Certainly. I think, you know, Akisha, I'm I'm hoping you can sort of round this out and give us a sense of like what is next, Like where what can people who are paying for this with their property taxes, people who are supporting this project, maybe some of the skeptics like, what are like markers of success that they can sort of look ahead to in the coming months years.
Yeah, well, I think that we're actually doing a little bit of both to your point, where we're putting the light rail in the busiest areas of Austin, but also hoping that new development continues to grow around it. There are going to be a lot of transit oriented development projects already slated to happen in the next you know, ten twenty years around the hubs of the project that we're going to see come online. As far as markers of success, you know, we've already started doing some pre
construction work that happened just a few weeks ago. We've awarded contracts, We're going to award the contract for the actual light rail vehicles this June. So seeing those real concrete steps to getting the system online is going to be real markers of success. Another big one is when we break round in twenty twenty seven, people will see that we are serious about this work, it's happening, and then hopefully when we receive our federal funding, that's going
to be a real measure of success too. But I also want to really some of the good things that have already happened. Our project received a medium high rating from the FTA, which is one of the highest for a project like ours ever. We also completed the NIPA process in two years, which is a new record for
going through that federal funding process. And so many of the non light rail project connect investments, as I've already mentioned today, I've already come online, are already paying dividends for our city, and so I want people to feel
encouraged by that progress. We're seeing record numbers of writership on a lot of the new services, We're seeing new red line stations come online, and as we continue to make steps towards our light rail, which will be a really transformational, never seen before project for our city, I want people to feel encouraged by that work as well. And just know that your city officials are working very hard behind the scenes with one another and to get
public input from you. Keep your eye on social media pages, keep your eye on the ATP on Transit Forward on all of our websites and social media, to keep your keep up today with what's going on with the project. And when there are community input opportunities focus groups or online surveys, fill it out, let us know what you're thinking and what you'd like to see come from the system.
Great. Thank you, Thank you both for joining us for this conversation. I think a topic will be continuing to discuss in the months and years forthcoming. You can find Josh's whole article at the Texas Tribune website. And that is it for this week's episode of the trip Cast. We will be back next week. Our producers are Rob and Chris. You can find us anywhere you get podcasts and on YouTube.