Thursday, October 16, 2025, 1 p.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Mobility Committee
The Mobility Committee, chaired by Council Member Paige Ellis with Council Members Harper-Madison, Laine, and Vela present (Vice Chair Qadri absent), approved the September 18, 2025 minutes and adopted a 2026 meeting calendar. The committee received an Urban Transportation Commission briefing on its CapMetro Transit Plan 2035 recommendations, followed by a detailed CapMetro presentation on the draft Transit Plan 2035 covering bus, rail, pickup, and UT shuttle changes, with members questioning park-and-ride utilization, the 183/northwest corridor, and airport connections. Austin Transportation and Public Works presented FY26 proactive maintenance service plans and a new mapping tool, and former Capital Metro board member Mike Rogers briefed the committee on eVTOL ('air taxi') land-use planning concerns. No public speakers were present.
0:00 Ready to go. Welcome everybody.
0:03 Uh, this is the mobility committee.
0:04 It is October 16th, 2025 and it is 1:05 pm I am Council Member Paige elli.
0:10 And I chair the mobility committee and I am joined by Council Member Harper Madison lane.
0:15 And Vela, uh, we're having a little bit of computer issues, so you May see some folks up
0:20 here trying to help make sure the equipment is logging in correctly, but we're gonna go ahead and
0:24 get started. We are here in Austin City Hall today and we do not have any public speakers,
0:32 is that correct? Correct.
0:35 We do not have any public speakers.
0:37 So let's move on to item one.
0:39 Approve the minutes of September 18th, 2025.
0:42 Mobility committee meeting. Motion is made by Council Member Harper Madison.
0:45 Do I have a second by Council Member Vela?
0:48 All in favor of approving the minutes?
0:50 Say aye. Aye. Aye.
0:51 That is unanimous for those of us present.
0:53 Um, vice chair cadre is not with us today as he has a newborn at home.
0:58 So we will continue on with the schedule.
1:01 Item number two, discussion and possible action on the mobility committee meeting schedule for calendar year 2026.
1:08 And the dates we have proposed are January 15th, February 12th, March 5th, April 2nd, May 14th, July 9th, September 3rd, October 1st, November 12th, and December 10th.
1:24 I don't believe there's any presentation on this.
1:26 I think this is just an item that we can go ahead and have a motion on.
1:29 Do we have a motion to approve the calendar for 2026?
1:33 Mobility committee moved. Oh, moved by Council Member Vela, seconded by Natasha Harper Madison, today, all in favor
1:40 of approving that calendar.
1:42 Aye. Aye. Perfect. That's unanimous for the four of us in attendance today.
1:49 Item number three, briefing from the urban transportation commission regarding actions from the October 7th, 2025 meeting.
1:57 And I believe we have chair susan summers here to present with us remotely.
2:01 Welcome, susan. Hello. Keep toggling my video wrong.
2:05 Um, thank you so much for having me.
2:07 Um, council members really, really appreciate, um, the opportunity to present.
2:12 Um, we had only two action items.
2:15 One was simply identifying our 2026 meetings.
2:18 The other one was much more substantive and, um, I hope you'll take opportunity to look at it.
2:22 Particularly those of you who also May serve on the, um, cap metro board because it was a
2:28 utc recommendation on cap metro transit plan 2035, which is of course their exciting development of their long
2:35 range planning. I'll truly try to focus very quickly on our be it resolved items that we, um,
2:41 recommended. So the first one, which I think is a really, really crucial one for our community was,
2:46 um, offering some feedback without being totally, um, tied to, um, specifics about the, some of the proposed
2:54 options. But they proposed some options for how transit, uh, bus transit on, um, guadalupe lamar will look
3:01 when the light rail Austin light rail comes into existence.
3:05 And we recommend that they continue to study two options.
3:09 Um, that being either a, um, uh, 8 0 1, 8 0 3 alignment that builds a new spine going down san jacinto
3:18 and trinity and the eastern, um, side of downtown.
3:22 Or, um, perhaps, um, looking at the 8 0 3 and 8 0 1 as feeders into the light rail where they
3:29 would stop at the, um, endpoints of the light rail.
3:33 So we were, um, recommend those two options continue to be studied.
3:37 We were not, um, what were not setting the recommendation a bit there is that we're less, um,
3:42 high on the idea of the, um, one and three, um, moving or stopping at some point.
3:48 We really think that the one and three should be, uh, continue to be local through running service
3:53 throughout the area. And so we have some recommendations there, particularly if we were looking at the eastern
3:58 side of, uh, new spine, really looking at some of, uh, what capacity treatments would be needed there
4:05 to make, um, to make that work.
4:06 So I spent a lot of time on that one because I think it's something that's community has
4:10 been very focused on is how Austin light rail will affect bus operation.
4:14 So we're, we're a little bit neutral there.
4:16 We want more research and study on that.
4:17 You can review that.
4:19 Um, we also made a recommendation for, um, because they're proposing to remove route 4 66, which is sort
4:25 of a domain, um, area circulator that connects to the red line to look, um, at replacing that
4:32 with, um, more better tying in the domain to the an uptown a tx into some kind of
4:38 circulator or pickup service route.
4:41 Um, we also recommended a public safety improvement plan for the westgate transit center in light of the
4:46 new eight 15 metro rapid service.
4:49 We also recommend it, um, uh, that, uh, there be the, we talked about this one a lot,
4:56 so I'll read it out.
4:57 Um, that in the long term plan, upon the initiation of light rail service, the 20 should be
5:03 replaced with an express connection to the airport from either pleasant valley station or yellow jacket station with
5:09 frequencies that match the light rail timetable to minimize duplicity and ensure easy transfers from light rail to
5:16 airport. We talked about that one quite a lot, but it's, uh, really making sure that, um, people
5:21 have a easy airport connection who are getting off the light rail at the Austin light rail terminus.
5:26 Um, we, um, and we said that there would be an express connection there.
5:31 Um, and then, um, was another recommendation.
5:34 And then we said they, we recommend they put the gold line metro rabbit back into the five
5:40 to 10 year future network.
5:41 We recommend that cap metro continue to pursue and prioritize funding and grant opportunities for redline grade separation
5:48 at crestview and that, uh, transit plan 2035 be amended to include 15 minute peak frequencies on redline
5:54 when that grade separation is completed.
5:57 And, um, we also recommend that if any red line info station is included in transit plan 2035,
6:03 they have, uh, plans for etod around that, that can also connect to local bus routes.
6:10 And, um, we also recommend they work with local school districts to make arrangements or changes to bus
6:15 routes in response to school closures or consolidations that are going to have network effects on transit use.
6:22 So that is our recommendation.
6:24 It's, uh, on our website.
6:25 I believe you, the link has been shared, but I hope you'll review that.
6:28 Um, and if you had questions about it further, I'm sure you could email me or the vice
6:32 chair. We could, um, talk to you more about that as well.
6:35 I do think it's a really important one.
6:37 I really appreciate that update.
6:38 I know there's been some long range planning that is happening.
6:41 Things like light rail and different mobility and corridor improvements such as highways and things like that.
6:47 Um, but obviously there's a very real need to make sure that as a isd and other school
6:52 districts are going through everything that they need to go through to make sure that their finances are
6:57 resilient and that they're serving the populations of those school districts.
7:00 Um, they're, they're all impacted.
7:03 It's not just a isd, right?
7:05 S is going through it.
7:06 Um, there's many other school districts that operate within the city limits that are dealing with tough times.
7:12 And so we appreciate the, the look forward from the urban transportation commission on what is it that
7:18 we need to be accommodating and how do we move forward in a way that serves the families
7:22 and the students of all of these school districts.
7:25 So thank, thank you.
7:27 Are there any questions from the committee for the chair of utc?
7:31 Not a question. Council Member hubber Madison?
7:33 Not a question. Um, I hope you're not shy.
7:35 'Cause I'm about,
7:44 the mic is green.
7:45 It doesn't appear. Maybe try that mic.
7:52 No, I don't hear that mic either.
7:55 I'm not actually hearing ghost <laugh>.
7:57 You can, you can try my mic.
8:02 Test, test, test, test, test.
8:04 If there's one mic that works, at least it's all right.
8:07 Today's our lucky day.
8:08 So I wanted to say, you know, as we were prepping for this meeting, some of our staff
8:12 is relatively new and so getting ready for committee meetings, that's just one of those things, you know,
8:16 um, housekeeping things. And, you know, it occurred to me as I said it to him that I
8:22 had never said it to you.
8:23 I said, oh, you know, mobility committee, we're gonna get an update from suzanne summers.
8:27 And I mean, it's layman friendly and it's informative.
8:32 It's really telling us, you know, what it is that we're looking forward to in the future and
8:35 what it is, generally speaking, the sort of the tenor of the body.
8:39 And I think that's really important.
8:40 I think sometimes folks think that what you're bringing to us is the chair's perspective as opposed to
8:46 a comprehensive, you know, really well thought out report of, um, the makeup of the body.
8:52 And I just wanted to say, as I was telling him how much I appreciate it, that I'd
8:56 never said it to you.
8:57 So thank you very much.
8:58 Your reports are always very appreciated.
9:00 Thank you. And, and this, this item in particular was a result of a pretty extensive discussion and
9:07 compromise on multiple amendments on this.
9:09 So we really worked on this one quite hard.
9:12 And I always definitely wanna represent our body when I'm speaking to y'all.
9:16 So first are good.
9:20 Uh, councilman Madison, do you mind checking your mic one more time for me?
9:23 I think I fixed the issue.
9:25 Microphone check. One, two, one two. Perfect.
9:27 Thank you. Thank you.
9:35 Do we have any other questions from the committee members?
9:39 It does not appear, so.
9:40 All right. Thank you chair.
9:42 Thank you so much.
9:42 We appreciate, I appreciate the opportunity.
9:44 We appreciate your service and the rest of the commission for everything that you get to dig into
9:48 for us in great detail.
9:51 And that will lead us to item number four, the briefing on the cap metro transit plan.
9:56 And we have zane barnes here from cap metro as well as sharmila mukherji.
10:05 Welcome.
10:15 Did you test your I did.
10:34 Oh, now you can hear me.
10:36 That microphone works. That's great.
10:38 It does. Should I begin?
10:42 Hi, good afternoon. Um, chair alice, members of the mobility committee, city staff members of the public.
10:50 Um, I'm sharmila mukerji.
10:52 I, uh, serve as cap metro's, um, chief planning and development officer.
10:57 And I'm here today with my team, part of my team, um, to talk about transit plan 2035.
11:05 Um, before I begin, I wanted to mention that, uh, the, the team that you see sitting next
11:12 to me is a part of it, uh, led by project manager lawrence dieter, uh, deputy pm rose
11:19 liska joined mcgee, emma martinez, and roberto gonzalez, uh, who leads the service planning, uh, team.
11:28 The reason I mention them, because you have had multiple discussions with them in the past and they're
11:34 the foundations, uh, within cap metro that delivered the plan.
11:40 So what we will cover today, we'll cover, um, this three topics.
11:46 Um, today we'll like to provide you with an overview of what transit plan is and how we
11:52 expect it to, to shape cat metro's work in the next five to 10 years.
11:58 And then for bulk of today's time, we'll also discuss how we come up with the changes that
12:04 we are recommending for the future and what those changes are.
12:08 The recommendations are derived not just from extensive data analysis, but a robust public engagement process that reached
12:18 10,000 people. After the second round of public comments, we updated about 40% of our proposed routes based
12:31 on community feedback. I share that to highlight the level of engagement and its incorporation in the plan.
12:41 So here's a recap, but it is a pretty exhaustive recap.
12:45 So to start, let's talk about what transit plan 2035 is.
12:49 The plan is our data-driven roadmap and vision for cat metro's transit service over the next five to
12:55 10 years. It's important to note that the plan itself is not a service change.
13:01 Instead, it provides guidance that we anticipate will result in service changes.
13:08 It's phased in gradually over several years.
13:11 This changes won't happen overnight.
13:13 They will be implemented in stages and then align with milestones and ongoing work like the opening of
13:20 the rapid park and rides at goodnight ranch and expo center, or the new barnett, uh, new north
13:25 burn and uptown station that's coming alive in 2027.
13:30 The plan is phased.
13:32 The phased rollout gives us both direction and flexibility.
13:38 Each recommendation will still go through regular service change process.