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

The Silver Dillo service is (currently) the only free service that runs East to West. The Dillo was formed in the 1970s to serve the Downtown area, and Downtown is actually zoned from Lamar on the west side of town to Pleasant Valley on the east side. For those who are not aware of Austin's history, I-35 has been dubbed the "Jim Crow line" since segregation days, and it has served to sharply divide the city into two distinct areas.

Many believe that segregation has ended, but the remnants of it continue to linger. Cutting the Dillo service on the East side is a sign of this since there are effectively two downtowns: one to the west that has its "neighborhood association" of condo dwellers and commercial offices, and one to the east that has its family homes, some condos, and small businesses. Both will have rail, but East Downtown will no longer receive free service. West Downtown will.

The rationale for cutting East Downtown's free service is that they will replace it with more frequent service by routes 4 and 17, which currently run every 22 and 12 minutes, respectively. Capital Metro wants route 4 to run every 20 minutes. The 17 has a great headway at 12 minutes, so it follows Capital Metro has only said that they'll try to improve its headway but won't specify by how much. If the only change to supplement the loss of the Silver Dillo will be an improved headway of 2 minutes on the 4 route, then the overall loss of service will be 2-3 buses per hour. (The Silver Dillo and #4 each run every 22 minutes or so, which is a total 5-6 buses per hour, but cutting the Silver Dillo and improving the headway on the #4 means there's only 3 buses every hour).

The Dillo service on the west side of town will run, for free, every 5 minutes.

So that's East vs. West Downtown.