Austin voters recently approved a property tax rate increase to assist in funding Project Connect, the region's $7.1 billion mass transit project that has been in the works for many years. The initial investment includes 27 miles of rail service, 31 stations, and a transit tunnel through parts of downtown Austin. Project Connect is the region's comprehensive transit plan that aims to support its continued growth while combatting climate change and congestion. The undertaking consists of multiple projects developed in a phased approach with some components not slated to come online until the next decade. Others include improvements to the systems existing Red Line and Metro Rapid bus routes to be implemented in the near term. With Proposition A’s passage in November, voters approved a property tax rate increase to provide funding for the massive undertaking. The City and Capital Metro (Austin’s Transit Authority) are counting on roughly 45% matching funds to help pay for the project to come from federal grants.
One of the first orders of business post-election was selecting board members to serve on the Austin Transit Partnership (ATP), a separate local government corporation formed jointly by the City of Austin and CapMetro. This board will oversee the many necessary details that still need to be worked out as Project Connect is implemented. The ATP will guide staff and consultants through critical decisions such as the final engineering of the system, details of the “Downtown Tunnel,” and, more importantly, a plan for addressing transit-related displacement due to Project Connect implementation areas that are vulnerable to the same. According to the project’s website, “the board will consist of five members - an Austin City Council member, a CapMetro board member, and three community experts meeting certain qualifications related to finance, engineering and urban planning.” The board’s final selection was approved during a joint session of both the Austin City Council and the board of directors of Capital Metro on Friday, December 18th. Along with the ATP board’s community members, the group approved the formation of a “technical advisory group” to assist the board in its duties. According to Capital Metro’s website, “these individuals have expertise in areas such as engineering, construction, finance, community planning, and sustainability and can contribute this expertise through appointment to technical committees, workgroups or other appropriate ways as determined by the ATP board.”
The members of the ATP board are the following:
Expert in Finance: Tony Elkins
Expert in Engineering and Construction: Veronica Castro de Barrera
Expert in Community Planning and Sustainability: Dr. Collette Pierce-Burnett
The members of the Technical Advisory Committee are:
Art Alfaro - Executive Director for Texas Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems
Karen Bondy - General Manager of Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority
Samuel Franco - Founder and President of Infravest Strategies, a local infrastructure consulting firm with expertise in public-private partnerships
Patrick Howard - Currently responsible for providing management oversight and leadership for a public housing agency (PHA) and a housing finance corporation (HFC)
Frank Kitteridge - Director of HKS Advisory Services, a division within HKS Architects
Cindy Matula - Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase and runs the Middle Market business in Central Texas
Heidi Ross - Assistant Director for the Network Modeling Center at the UT Center for Transportation Research (CTR)