TRANSPORTATION UPDATES
COMPILED BY DARCY SPRAGUE & BEN THOMPSON
Project Connect rail cost jumps
ONGOING PROJECT
PROJECT CONNECT RAIL LINE COSTS INCREASE $4.5B As Austin’s Project Connect team moves from its 15% design to 30% design stage this summer, planners say factors such as real estate and construction costs and in ation are upping project costs 77%.
Original estimate (5% design stage)
Revised estimate (draft 30% design stage)
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BY BEN THOMPSON
New cost estimates show a 77% spike in cost as planning for Project Connect’s Orange and Blue light-rail lines is on track to progress from the 15% to 30% design stages this summer. Austin voters approved a $7.1 billion package for Project Connect in November 2020 to expand the city’s bus and rail network. At the 5% design stage, estimates for the light-rail lines totaled $5.8 billion: the Orange Line at $2.5 billion, the Blue Line at $1.3 billion and extensive tunnel work for both tracks at $2 billion. Now, heading into the 30% design phase, those gures have jumped to $10.3 billion. Transit o cials said the $4.5 billion revision, including $600 million more for the Blue Line and around $2 billion each for the Orange Line and tunnel, has several causes.
$1.3 billion
Blue Line
$1.9 billion
$2.5 billion
Orange Line
$4.3 billion
N
$2 billion
ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE WAS UPDATED AS OF MAY 16. NEWS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE OR OTHER LOCAL TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS? EMAIL US AT CTANEWS COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM. Fourth Street redirection The city of Austin is recon guring Fourth Street from I-35 to San Mar- cos Street into a one-way heading eastbound to prevent issues between cars turning right onto the feeder and pedestrians or cyclists using the Lance Armstrong Bikeway along the north side of Fourth. Timeline: April-second half of 2022 Cost: $500,000 Funding source: Austin quarter Cent Fund and 2016 mobility bond
Tunnel
$4.1 billion
0
$1B
$2B
$3B
$4B
SOURCE: CAPITAL METRO COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
Among those is a “signi cant” increase in land acquisition costs along the proposed rail lines given Austin’s hot real estate market and nationwide in ation that is driving up the construction budget. O cials said the new estimates will not a ect Project Connect’s voter-approved tax rate, but the extra cost could a ect the timeline
of the project. “The Project Connect program is not immune to the global and national economic pressures that everyone is feeling. Transit, air- port, highway, utility, housing and commercial projects are all seeing cost increases,” Project Connect Program O cer David Couch wrote in an April 7 memo.
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NORTH CENTRAL AUSTIN EDITION • MAY 2022
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