Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas | El Sindicato de Pasajeros

Capital Metro board also approve Dillo overhaul, five new shuttle bus routes for commuter rail

By Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Capital Metro board gave tentative approval Monday to a two-step fare increase plan that would double the price of bus tickets by 2011.

However, Monday's unanimous vote mostly triggers a public comment period, including a hearing in late June. Three more votes, including one by a specially formed committee of local elected officials, would be required for the fare increases to occur. The current fare is 50 cents.

The board, on an unusually busy day that marked the end of Chairman Lee Walker's almost 11 years of leading Capital Metro, approved revamping the Dillo system of downtown busesand using the savings from that move to start five "connector" bus routes that will shuttle commuterrail passengers to and from two stations. The rail service from downtown Austin to Leander is expected tostart late this fall or early next year. The annual cost of the new bus routes: $1.5 million to $1.9 million. The Dillos, which are currently free, will cost 25 cents.

Board members, rankled about the state's insistence that the transit agency close a key bus stop near the Capitol, decided not to act on that. The board will send another letter to the State Preservation Board expressing its concerns about losing the 11th Street stop just west of Congress Avenue.

The fare increase plan is a throttling back of an immediate doubling of fares that was proposed last summer. That earlier version drew public flak not only because of the increase to $1 for the basic fare, but also because it eliminated some discounts. That had the effect of quadrupling some fares.

The current proposal sustains most of the discount programs. The basic fare would rise to 75 cents late this year and then go to $1 in 2011.

Seniors and some people with disabilities — those not eligible for special door-to-door paratransit rides — would go from having free fares to paying half price. Members of the military, police officers and firefighters would not have to pay if they were in uniform; service members not in uniform would get half off by showing military identification.

The proposal, after the public weighs in and another board vote (probably in late June), would go to a 13-member fare committee that would include Austin City Council members, county commissioners and suburban mayors. Then there would have to be another Capital Metro board vote.

As for the Capitol transfer center, its scheduled disappearance at 1 a.m. Aug. 24 could still occur on schedule — but not without the board making another pitch to keep it open. If it closes, Capital Metro plans to have most of the two dozen routes that stop there go instead to 10th Street and Congress.

State officials have said their desire for the closure of the stop is a matter of security, to prevent buses from blocking the southern entrance to the Capitol. But Debbie Russell of the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out Monday that for a bus to block that entrance, it would have to be sitting illegally in the 11th and Congress intersection.

The Dillo changes involve replacing the five existing routes with two that form, in effect, a cross downtown. The north-south Dillo will run from Congress and 17th Street to Congress and Riverside Drive, using San Jacinto Boulevard and Lavaca Street to jog around the Capitol. The east-west Dillo will run primarily on Fifth and Sixth streets, going from Bowie Street on the west to Red River Street on the east. The lines will run every five minutes, a frequency that the agency is counting on to boost Dillo ridership.

Using some of the approximately $1 million saved annually by offering less Dillo service, the agency will begin five bus routes that will ferry rail passengers between train stations and central city work locations such as the Capitol and the University of Texas.

Two routes will serve the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard station in East Austin, and three routes will serve the downtown station near Fourth and Trinity streets.

This service will run only during morning and evening rush hours when trains are arriving and departing.

bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698