Sponsored by Capital Metro
At the heart of a healthy, thriving and equitable city is a reliable transportation network that allows its residents and visitors to get to work, appointments, school, and other destinations without needing a single-occupancy vehicle.
Project Connect is a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure investment passed by voters in 2020 to expand our region’s public transit network. As the future owner and operator of the new transit lines, CapMetro has a vested interest in growing ridership through targeted and equitable strategies along the high-capacity transit corridors.
The idea to align housing and transit through a multi-agency effort led to the Equitable Transit-Oriented Development project, or ETOD. CapMetro is leading ETOD in partnership with the City of Austin, the land use authority, as well as the Austin Transit Partnership, the agency responsible for Project Connect. The partners recognize the importance of supporting housing for all income levels to ensure that communities benefit from transit and transit-oriented development, and not just those who can afford to live there.
Why should you care? Policies and guidelines set forth by ETOD will promote equitable development along the transit corridors, embodied by the 6 Goals of ETOD:
• Enable All Residents to Benefit from Safe, Sustainable, and Accessible Transportation • Help to Close Racial Health and Wealth Gaps • Preserve and Increase Housing Opportunities That are Affordable and Attainable • Expand Access to High-Quality Jobs & Career Opportunities • Support Healthy Neighborhoods That Meet Daily Needs • Sustain Austin’s Diverse Cultural Heritage and Small Businesses
Ultimately, ETOD is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to implement policies ahead of major infrastructure development. This would help establish strategies with mutual consensus from all three partners before any shovel goes into the ground.
For years, transit agencies, including CapMetro, followed a traditional Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) framework, which prioritized transit-supportive growth with mixed-use residential and commercial developments around transit stations. You can see that framework lives out along CapMetro’s Red Line regional rail service, including Plaza Saltillo, MLK and Crestview Stations. However, as the development continued, the agency acknowledges that growth based on market strength alone has an unintended consequence of displacing vulnerable communities through increased rents and taxes.
In summer of 2021, Council directed City staff to craft an ETOD Policy Plan, which represents a menu of future options that can be implemented to help Austin achieve our ETOD Goals. The Austin City Council adopted the ETOD Policy Plan in March 2023, a milestone achievement for the ETOD team.
“To me, the ETOD process leading up to the approval of Policy Plan is a shining example of inter-agency partnership with potential to serve as a template for co-creation, collaboration and partnership for overall Project Connect that draws in the strengths and resources of partners,” said Sharmila Mukherjee, CapMetro’s Executive Vice President, Planning and Development.
The ETOD project is funded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which awarded CapMetro with more than $3 million in grants. The project delivered a solid plan for implementing equitable TOD strategies in Austin, including a policy toolkit and helping the City of Austin’s Housing and Planning Department to deliver the ETOD Policy Plan.
After the adoption of the ETOD Policy Plan, the ETOD team is working on station area vision plans for two CapMetro-owned properties earmarked for pilot TOD development using ETOD principles and policy recommendations. The area vision plans will set priorities for land uses and area characteristics within ½ a mile for North Lamar Transit Center and South Congress Transit Center to inform necessary regulatory changes to enable TOD development. The community engagement process, already underway, is extensive and prioritizes turning up voices who have been marginalized in the past.
Having a systemwide equitable TOD strategy is an important and necessary step to ensure that the Central Texas region has affordable, transit-focused communities as the agency’s public transit network expands.