Austin Light Rail Phase 1

Alignment

Phase 1 is a 9.8-mile, 15-station light rail line, built mostly at grade in dedicated lanes in the center of the street. It runs in three branches from a junction on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake. The north branch begins at 38th Street and runs down Guadalupe Street past 29th Street and UT stations. Between 27th and 22nd streets, Guadalupe becomes a transit-only corridor at the West Mall entrance to the University of Texas. South of MLK Boulevard, the line continues on Guadalupe to 15th Street and Wooldridge Square, turns east on 3rd Street to Congress station, and runs south on Trinity Street to Cesar Chavez station. A new light rail bridge with bicycle and pedestrian lanes carries it across Lady Bird Lake.

On the south shore, an elevated Waterfront station on East Riverside Drive sits where the branches split. The south branch runs down the middle of South Congress Avenue to South Congress (SoCo) and an at-grade terminus at Oltorf. The east branch stays elevated in the median of East Riverside Drive as far as Travis Heights Boulevard, then runs at grade past I-35 to Lakeshore, Pleasant Valley, Grove, and Montopolis stations. It ends at Yellow Jacket station, just west of State Highway 71. The project also includes three park-and-rides and a 62-acre operations and maintenance facility.

Phase 1 is what remains of the light rail plan in Project Connect, the $7.1 billion transit program Austin voters approved in 2020. The original system would have run about 20 miles, with a downtown subway and service to the airport. In 2023 it was cut back to this surface line. The airport branch and a northern extension to Crestview are now unfunded future phases.

Updates

2026-10 — Major contracts in place; early construction packages for 2027

ATP says it has awarded all of its major contracts: light rail vehicles, about 10 miles of civil and systems work, stations, and the maintenance facility. Contractors are already advancing the design. The project holds a medium-high rating in the FTA’s Capital Investment Grants program and is working to move from Project Development into the Engineering phase. ATP is preparing early construction packages for 2027.

2026-07 — Stadler selected to build the trains

The ATP board chose Stadler to build 21 CITYLINK-based low-floor light rail vehicles under a fixed-price contract capped at $352 million. The board authorized $39 million for preliminary work, and further spending needs later board action. ATP still expects service to begin in 2033.

2026-05 — Texas Supreme Court sends bond case back to trial court

On May 22, 2026, in Paxton v. City of Austin and Austin Transit Partnership (No. 24-1078), the Texas Supreme Court ruled for Attorney General Ken Paxton. It held that the Travis County trial court must decide the Attorney General’s jurisdictional challenge before it can rule on ATP’s request to validate the bonds that would fund the project. The Attorney General contends the court has no jurisdiction to hear ATP’s bond validation suit. Taxpayer suits challenging Project Connect’s property tax financing have also been pending since 2023. Days earlier, the Texas Tribune reported that the line’s cost had risen from $5.8B to $8.2B and that ATP was seeking about $4.1B, roughly half the cost, in federal funds.

2026-02 — Construction contractor selected

ATP selected Austin Rail Constructors, a joint venture of Stacy Witbeck and Sundt Construction, as the line’s construction contractor. It approved an initial $60 million contract for preconstruction and final design. Full construction is set to start in 2027. ATP does not expect a federal funding decision until after construction begins.

2026-01 — FTA issues Record of Decision

The FTA issued a combined Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision on January 16, 2026, completing federal environmental review two years after the project entered the NEPA process in January 2024. Design changes since the draft included replacing a planned parking garage at 38th Street with a smaller surface lot and moving Montopolis station to avoid displacing four homes.

2023-06 — Plan cut to a 9.8-mile surface line

CapMetro’s board and the Austin City Council approved a scaled-back first phase that cut the line from 20.2 to 9.8 miles. The new plan dropped the downtown subway, the direct airport connection, and the link to the Crestview Red Line station. The light rail estimate had grown from $5.8 billion to $10.3 billion, and the downtown tunnel alone had doubled from $2 billion to $4.1 billion.

2020-11 — Voters approve Project Connect

Austin voters approved the $7.1 billion Project Connect plan, funded by a permanent 20% increase in the city’s property tax. The original light rail estimate was $5.8 billion. The Austin Transit Partnership, a city-backed nonprofit, is building the light rail.