June 3, 2025 • 20 mins
Transit projects across the country are making measurable progress despite earlier funding and political challenges. We revisit four transit initiatives from previous episodes to highlight the positive developments that show momentum for public transportation investments.
• SunRail expansion in Orlando has secured the full $6 million needed for project development and environmental studies, with Universal contributing $2 million
• Dynamic testing has begun on Maryland's Purple Line, which is now 76% complete with a projected opening in winter 2027
• Dallas Area Transit Alliance (DATA) successfully fought against legislative attempts to cut DART's budget by 25%
• Austin City Council approved support columns for future I-35 caps downtown and stitches near Airport Boulevard, adopting a phased approach to urban reconnection
• These projects demonstrate the importance of public-private partnerships, grassroots advocacy, and strategic compromise in advancing transit
If you enjoy Transit Tangents, please like our videos, leave comments, and consider supporting us through Patreon or buying us a coffee through our website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Your local bus might be stuck in traffic, but these
transit news updates arecruising in the express lane.
We're circling back to fourpast episodes with fresh updates
, all packed into this week'sride on Transit Tangents.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
revisiting a few topics that wecovered earlier this year that
have all had some pretty mostlygood news updates to them, which
is always nice to see,especially now.
I mean, we've been a littledoom and gloom with some of the
(00:55):
recent funding mechanisms andall sorts of stuff in regards to
transit, but it's nice to havea little bit of good news.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, good to have good news.
So this will be a little bit ofan update episode, maybe a
little bit shorter today, but wewanted to make sure that you're
up to date on the latest onthese four topics.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We're going to start off with one that was a pretty
exciting topic to talk about atthe time and it's gotten some
positive news, which is thedevelopment of SunRail in
Orlando.
And in that episode we kind ofposed the question is Brightline
spurring public transitinvestment in Florida?
And we were kind of like acautious yes at the time.
(01:33):
And the cautious yes has turnedless cautious.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It is spurring.
Now it's just a yes, yes, yes,it is.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So for those of you who didn't see that episode
number one, I'd recommend youcheck it out.
But number two for a quickreminder um sunrail, as it
exists today, is a commuterservice that goes north, south,
running through orlando.
Um it's almost 60 miles long,or?
About 60 miles, really, long,long track um, which is pretty
wild that it does that.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Um gets you close to the airport but not quite not
there um.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It also, you know, interfaces pretty well with the
existing bus services that arein the orlando region um.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In 2024 it saw about 1.2 million riders um but for
which it's good, because that'sabout 12 higher the year before,
so there's definitely growth onthe line.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, and the proposed SunRail expansion will
hopefully only add to this.
So the expansion that was beingproposed is for the Sunshine
Corridor that would essentiallyconnect the airport in Orlando,
which is also the currentterminus of Brightline.
It would connect it to theexisting Sunrail north-south
(02:46):
line and it would connectfurther to the west,
encompassing some areas closerto the convention center and
destinations such as Universaland Disney Springs.
So this would basically connectdowntown Orlando, the airport,
as well as some of these big,both tourism but also employment
(03:07):
centers, all via rail.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, which is huge for an area that is largely car
focused.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Orlando has a lot of highways all over the place, so
this is a huge advancement forpublic transit in this area and
hopefully gets more people offthe road, especially if you're
connecting these employmentcenters like get people off the
road, especially if you'reconnecting these employment
centers, like get people off theroad and allow them to take
trains from their place ofresidence to Disney, where
they're probably working right,and when we talked about this in
that episode, we had mentionedthat the next step that was
(03:37):
needed was to raise six milliondollars for the project
development and environmentalstudy.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
We noted at the time that six million dollars is not
that much in the grand scheme ofthings when you're talking
about governments.
At the time, two million hadalready been contributed from
the Florida Department ofTransportation, a half a million
had been contributed fromSeminole County and a half a
million from the city of Orlando, and as of now, the entire six
million dollars is now fundedand as of now, the entire $6
(04:06):
million is now funded.
So to make up that remainder,we had Universal actually
chipping in $2 million, and thenyou also had the Central
Florida Tourism OversightDistrict, as well as Orange
County, each chipping in a halfa million each.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know, Disney could have paid for something.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I was actually a little surprised.
I mean, so we talked about itin the episode was some drama
between like, where will thestops be?
On that side, um and uh,universal had set aside some
land I believe that they've kindof given to the project.
Um, the stops won't be directlyat universal or directly at
disney springs, but it will beclose enough for like a little
(04:43):
shuttle yeah, and I think it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think it's a smart move on their part Um,
especially with universal.
I mean, they've invested a lotof money in the area.
Now they open a new park notadvertising for the new park,
but I want to go now, use thisline to get to the new park.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yes, uh, one thing that I noted here I mean like
you don't think of Florida as atransit state, so well, yeah.
And I mean like the fact thatlike right off the bat was like,
oh, florida dot, yeah, we'llthrow in two million bucks for
the study right away.
It was positive.
And then, uh, I pulled a quotefrom mass transit magazine here.
Uh, f dot described the projectquote as another
(05:14):
transformational project for ourregion and it's just like
imagine text not saying thatabout any non-highway project.
They would never, they wouldn'teven, they wouldn't even comment
and they would immediately denythe two million dollar request.
Yeah it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Texas.
What are you doing?
We can.
We can be better than Floridaright, you're letting, you're
letting.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Okay, we're gonna.
We're gonna try to create someconservative Competition for
transit.
Greg Abbott, you're letting.
You're letting Ron DeSantisbeat you out.
Come on, greg, get on it.
Sorry, ron DeSantis beat youout.
Come on, greg, get on it, sorry.
This study is going to take twoyears and is a necessary step
to gain federal dollars for this.
(05:53):
Obviously, federal dollars willbe a whole other hurdle, but my
guess is, this being Florida,ron DeSantis and Trump.
Although they've had a rockyrelationship, I think they
mostly have made amends at thispoint yeah yeah, but there will
need to be federal dollars forthis, as the price tag is
somewhere in the realm I've gotit on here uh is about four
billion dollars to make thishappen.
Um, bright line will also bevery much involved in this, as
(06:16):
the this corridor will also bewhere the bright line trains
will run before making their wayeventually, to tampa which I
think they're going to besharing the lines right, or at
least sharing the right-of-wayExactly yep, so wanted to give
you that piece of positive newsthere, though, that that project
is still moving forward.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, right now I think it's still in the study
phase, though, as you said,we've raised the money for it.
That study phase will takeabout two years before they then
submit for those federaldollars.
So definitely plenty of time tokeep this.
Keep this as a recurring topic.
To come back to yep.
The next on our list is thePurple Line in Maryland.
So we actually got a chance todo an episode about the Purple
(06:53):
Line.
We went to one of the stationsthat was sort of being built at
the time.
It was very cold.
Who's freezing?
so cold this is part of ourlarger DC episode, so Take a
chance to go back and look atthat purple line up.
So look at the DC episode ifyou're interested in that region
.
But as a recap, the purple lineis Eventually going to be a
(07:16):
ring route that goes around thethe DMV area.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
For now, that's being optimistic.
But yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But yeah, the ultimate plan, the ultimate plan
, the grand plan, is it will goall the way around the dmp area
um.
What we are seeing right now isthe maryland portion that is
nearing completion around 70complete yeah and it's the one
that is connecting uh forbethesda to new carolton.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Basically, is that stretch where it's connecting?
And first off, I did want toapologize as well.
I said Silver Springsthroughout the entire episode
and y'all were not happy, nothappy at all.
One spring, silver Spring, onespring, my bad, I mean.
I don't think it detracted fromthe rest of the episode.
(08:02):
I even wrote Silver Springs onsome of the maps too, and they
were like oh my God.
So apologies, my bad, but yeah.
So over 76% complete.
The big news though, as ofrecently on the Purple Line, is
that dynamic testing began inApril on some of the alignments.
So they've actually got thelight rail vehicles on the
(08:23):
alignment testing driving them,which is pretty exciting, and
that is an important stepforward in any project like this
.
They've made a lot of progresson kind of all different types
of segments.
You've got some big flyoverbridges that have been complete.
Tunneling section near Bethesdais in really good shape right
now and is progressing forward,and this was kind of a unique
(08:45):
project because it does havetunnels, bridges on street.
It's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's a little bit of everything.
This one also has got a lot ofcriticism because it's one of
the most expensive projects byrail mile in the country, and so
there's been a lot of a lot ofpeople giving it flack.
But to see it finally gettingto a point where we're in the
testing phase, where we'renearing the completion phase, as
you said, that is really,really excited to see.
Yep, and even though it's beenplagued by some delays and,
(09:12):
again, cost overruns, uh, thecurrent target date to open is
winter of 2027.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, so we are quickly approaching that yep, uh
, but happy, happy to see thepositive progress forward here.
If you're interested in more onthis project, we went very
in-depth in that episode, whichwe'll have linked here for you.
We're going to jump right backinto this episode in just a
second, but first, if you havenot liked this video, go ahead
and do so.
Also leave a comment.
(09:37):
We love reading all of them andrespond to as many as we can.
And we love reading all of themand respond to as many as we
can, and be sure that you aresubscribed so that you catch
every episode as they come out,Please share this with your
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that are out there.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Just be sure to leave us a rating and give us a
comment.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Our next update here we have kind of revisited this
topic a handful of times.
This is an update on thefunding for transit in Dallas.
We talked to our friends atDATA the Dallas that there had
(10:21):
been a bill introduced into theTexas legislature with the goal
of essentially cutting DART'sbudget by more than 25 percent.
It was a budget cut and thenalso a reallocation of some of
the funding.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I also I want to make a call out to data in the hard
work that they've done in tryingto fight the legislature's
attempt to maybe kill thistransit agency essentially which
we can talk about but they havereally focused on getting the
word out, doing petitions,getting people involved.
They brought over two dozenpeople down to Austin for a few
(11:00):
days to do canvassing atlegislators' doors in their
offices, got a ton of meetings.
They really put in the work.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And this is an organization that is like barely
they might not even be a yearold, yet they're barely a year
old if they're a year old.
So kudos to their team who havekind of gotten this going.
I know Connor and Tyler Kuiseveral people whose names I'm
forgetting right now but yeah,they've really been crushing it
to make this happen.
Yeah, and the hard work haspaid off so far.
(11:31):
There's still a little bit ofthings that could go wrong here,
but the big opposition thatthey came to the statehouse to
come and speak with legislaturesabout was this specific House
bill.
That House bill is no longer.
There is still a version in theSenate, but it has kind of just
been sitting there.
The Texas legislation sessionis almost done.
(11:53):
If, when we're going to editthis, this has already been done
, we'll insert a littledisclaimer right here saying
that that Senate bill has alsobeen killed.
But some cautious optimismright now that the DART bill has
not moved forward.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, so love to see that, love to see the community
involvement in fighting this.
Another update here is that thecity of Plano, which was sort
of the driving force in fightingDART and enlisting other cities
to oppose the DART board and goto the legislature to force the
legislature to then uh reducethe amount of contribution and
taxes and all that go back toour dart episode.
(12:26):
There's a lot happening there,but plano, who is the main
instigators?
Uh has had a recent election inmay of this year and they have
elected new members of theircity council for new places and
two of the new council membersare pro-DART.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Or at least more transit friendly.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Definitely friendlier to.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
DART.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They still want to challenge DART on where is our
money going?
How can it be better used?
But two of the candidates arenot in favor of removing the
funding entirely.
We have two other candidatesthat are a little less friendly
to DART, but it does look likethere's some pro-transit
advocates now within the PlanoCity Council, so it'll be
(13:09):
interesting to see how thatplays out in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Absolutely yeah, and I mean in general, it was not
looking good for a little bit.
I feel like the bill was kindof having some momentum and
whatnot.
It made a lot of news, but gladto see what's seeming like a
positive resolution to this.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Absolutely the last one on our list is right here at
home.
It's a topic that we've talkedabout several times, and that is
the Austin CAP program.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, the CAP and STCH program we talked about in
depth when we did an episodewhile we were in Dallas actually
, program we talked about indepth, uh, when we did an
episode while we were in dallas.
Actually we talked about cladwarren park where we were in
dallas, but we also talked aboutthe proposals for cap and
stitch here in austin.
Um, the short version of thestory is, with the i-35
expansion um text dot trying tothrow a bone to the city of
(13:58):
austin if you will, uh said, hey, well, if you want, we can
build the infrastructure so thatyou can have caps.
Now it's not really throwingthat much of a bone when you're
going to make the city pay forthe infrastructure to put the
caps on and everything having todo with the caps.
But I digress there, I guess.
Um, there had been severalproposals brought forward that
we kind of went more in depth onand they were really expensive,
(14:21):
was the issue.
If you were to go through withall of the cap and stitch
options that had been laid out,it was over a billion dollars
started at 800 million, and thenit quickly rose to over 1.2
billion yeah, um, which is a lotof money, especially when it's
just basically the city doing it.
Um, I mean, we did end up at onepoint well, not at one point.
They technically still have aReconnecting Communities grant
(14:43):
that would cover something like$140 million of cost, but now
all of these sorts of grantslike that are up in the air,
given that it's coming from thefederal government.
So the city had to basicallytry to decide what to do.
Next.
There had been some delays fromTxDOT.
This initially was supposed tobe decided on back in fall and
(15:04):
then in December and then inMarch.
It was December and then inMarch the can kept getting
kicked down the road.
Essentially TxDOT was havingdelays which worked out to the
favor of the Austin City Council, I would say, because they had
some more time to figure outwhat to do and in the end we've
ended up with kind of acompromise commitment here from
(15:26):
the city council.
So I'm going to read from KUT'stransportation reporter here,
just to have the specifics.
So the Austin City Councilapproves support columns for
parks over I-35 at Cesar Chavezto 7th Street, 11th to 12th
Street, as well as two300-foot-long stitches close to
the red line crossing nearAirport Boulevard.
There had been a couple otherproposals all put forward.
(15:49):
The council was pretty split onthis, actually basically right
down the middle, and then a fewamendments had been tossed in,
so there were kind of twocompeting ones and this,
ultimately, from Zoe Cadre, wasthe proposal that went through.
Important to note here that itonly right now commits to
supporting funding for the, thesupport system, I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Uh, so no caps actually, which is the way that
I thought we should have done itfrom the beginning.
I mean the caps.
We can spend the next 100 yearsbuilding the caps whenever the
city has money.
That's fine.
I think most people in austinwould understand that and be
fine with that.
But the fact that we were sortof uh, forced to decide you
build the supports now or youdon't build them at all, right,
it's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
But I say, just build the supports and then do the
rest of it later well, althoughI will say you wanted the full
caps up north, I would love,love the full, I would love them
.
There is no support.
There is no support for thatright now.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, I would love the full program where you had
caps stretching across theentire stretch of interstate,
all that stuff.
I would love to see it.
But at the same time I willtake what we can get.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And if it's just building the support system?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
for it.
Let's build the support system.
Yep, yeah, and so, like youknow, the most important ones in
my view, like the Cesar Chavezto 7th Street, one makes a lot
of sense.
That's going to have a hugeimpact for the downtown area.
The 11th to 12th Street one iskind of weird to me, honestly.
I mean, I guess it doesn't hurt, but much money to do that, I
don't quite get it.
Uh, the university of texas ataustin, um, they kind of have
(17:20):
unlimited dollars.
So we actually haven't heard anupdate from them.
I haven't heard anything eithermy guess is they're gonna cap
their whole huge stretch, whichis going to be probably lovely
um, and then the two stitches upnorth um were kind of a
compromise.
So there was a plan for a fullcap up there which again to me
felt pretty strange, I mean,especially for right now.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I'd be like connecting some like strip malls
and a weird area some areasthat could definitely be
redeveloped and I think, I thinkin the future, this is going to
end up being a transit stop, atrain stop, uh, train station.
There we go, yeah, on the redline, and there will be more
development in this area.
So I do think that that isgoing to be a great amenity for
the future.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, it's not going to exist.
There won't be a when theybuild it.
They're building the, the trainstation or the cab, they're
building the stitches.
The stitches are going toprovide more space, the stitches
will be good, yeah, so yeah,you're going to have two wide
bridges, I guess, I think the,the train.
There will be room for trainand bike lane basically there,
but the cap in that area is nolonger.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Even if it's not a cap, it's still an opportunity
to improve the transit stationand connections in this area.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Personally, I like the cap up there, the stitch up
there, better than the cap.
I don't see the long game inthe cap up there as much, only
because you're still going tohave a pretty wide road for the
frontage roads and then it'slike airport boulevard and it's
just like that's another giantroad.
It just doesn't feel like aspleasant of a potential
(18:45):
experience that you might havedowntown.
But, um, we'll see.
So I mean, in general, uh, Ithink that they've landed in a
good spot on it.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Um, I was curious where it was gonna go yeah, I
was really nervous that we werenot going to get anything.
So yeah.
I'm happy to see at least someprogress on it.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yep, no, I think, and I mean it's going to be
interesting to see how it playsout too, in the sense that, like
there's still a lot of relianceon tech stock here to make this
happen, the cost could go updramatically still.
Tech stocks track record I'lllink this person's Twitter
account, but there's someestimates on just looking at
(19:25):
what TxDOT says the budget'sgoing to be and then what it
actually is on highway projects,and the chart is not looking
good.
So there's a very stronglikelihood that Austin City
Council is just going to be onthe hook for more money later,
which is not great.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
We're never getting an interview with TxDOT.
At this point I don't even wantone.
We've never have we saidanything good about TxDOT.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
There's not that much good to say.
I don't think it's not true.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
If there are other episodes that you've watched
that you want to see updates on,please let us know in the
comments or shoot us an email.
We'd love to do a deep diveinto any of the episodes that
we've done in the past andprovide you with the latest, and
we'll probably do more episodeslike these in the future too,
that are a little shorter,easier to consume.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, just kind of revisit the topics we've already
discussed yeah, and I thinkit's important to be like hey,
here's a little status update,so um, yeah, um.
With all that being said,though, if you have not liked
this video already, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also leave a commentand let us know if you agree,
disagree with the things we hadto say about these sorts of
things.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Um, if you uh want to support the show, you can do so
via our patreon, where theseepisodes will typically come out
a little sooner.
Uh, you can also support us byvisiting our merch store using
buy me a coffee.
We just had somebody recentlybuy us five coffees.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Thank you, so much for that I was.
I got the caffeine jitters.
Yeah, with all that being said,thank you all so much for
watching.
Enjoy the rest of your transittangents.
Tuesday silver springs.
Your local bus might be stuck in traffic, but these
transit news updates arecruising in the express lane.
We're circling back to fourpast episodes with fresh updates
, all packed into this week'sride on Transit Tangents.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we are going to be
revisiting a few topics that wecovered earlier this year that
have all had some pretty mostlygood news updates to them, which
is always nice to see,especially now.
I mean, we've been a littledoom and gloom with some of the
(00:55):
recent funding mechanisms andall sorts of stuff in regards to
transit, but it's nice to havea little bit of good news.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, good to have good news.
So this will be a little bit ofan update episode, maybe a
little bit shorter today, but wewanted to make sure that you're
up to date on the latest onthese four topics.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We're going to start off with one that was a pretty
exciting topic to talk about atthe time and it's gotten some
positive news, which is thedevelopment of SunRail in
Orlando.
And in that episode we kind ofposed the question is Brightline
spurring public transitinvestment in Florida?
And we were kind of like acautious yes at the time.
(01:33):
And the cautious yes has turnedless cautious.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It is spurring.
Now it's just a yes, yes, yes,it is.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So for those of you who didn't see that episode
number one, I'd recommend youcheck it out.
But number two for a quickreminder um sunrail, as it
exists today, is a commuterservice that goes north, south,
running through orlando.
Um it's almost 60 miles long,or?
About 60 miles, really, long,long track um, which is pretty
wild that it does that.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Um gets you close to the airport but not quite not
there um.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It also, you know, interfaces pretty well with the
existing bus services that arein the orlando region um.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In 2024 it saw about 1.2 million riders um but for
which it's good, because that'sabout 12 higher the year before,
so there's definitely growth onthe line.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, and the proposed SunRail expansion will
hopefully only add to this.
So the expansion that was beingproposed is for the Sunshine
Corridor that would essentiallyconnect the airport in Orlando,
which is also the currentterminus of Brightline.
It would connect it to theexisting Sunrail north-south
(02:46):
line and it would connectfurther to the west,
encompassing some areas closerto the convention center and
destinations such as Universaland Disney Springs.
So this would basically connectdowntown Orlando, the airport,
as well as some of these big,both tourism but also employment
(03:07):
centers, all via rail.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, which is huge for an area that is largely car
focused.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Orlando has a lot of highways all over the place, so
this is a huge advancement forpublic transit in this area and
hopefully gets more people offthe road, especially if you're
connecting these employmentcenters like get people off the
road, especially if you'reconnecting these employment
centers, like get people off theroad and allow them to take
trains from their place ofresidence to Disney, where
they're probably working right,and when we talked about this in
that episode, we had mentionedthat the next step that was
(03:37):
needed was to raise six milliondollars for the project
development and environmentalstudy.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
We noted at the time that six million dollars is not
that much in the grand scheme ofthings when you're talking
about governments.
At the time, two million hadalready been contributed from
the Florida Department ofTransportation, a half a million
had been contributed fromSeminole County and a half a
million from the city of Orlando, and as of now, the entire six
million dollars is now fundedand as of now, the entire $6
(04:06):
million is now funded.
So to make up that remainder,we had Universal actually
chipping in $2 million, and thenyou also had the Central
Florida Tourism OversightDistrict, as well as Orange
County, each chipping in a halfa million each.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know, Disney could have paid for something.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I was actually a little surprised.
I mean, so we talked about itin the episode was some drama
between like, where will thestops be?
On that side, um and uh,universal had set aside some
land I believe that they've kindof given to the project.
Um, the stops won't be directlyat universal or directly at
disney springs, but it will beclose enough for like a little
(04:43):
shuttle yeah, and I think it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think it's a smart move on their part Um,
especially with universal.
I mean, they've invested a lotof money in the area.
Now they open a new park notadvertising for the new park,
but I want to go now, use thisline to get to the new park.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yes, uh, one thing that I noted here I mean like
you don't think of Florida as atransit state, so well, yeah.
And I mean like the fact thatlike right off the bat was like,
oh, florida dot, yeah, we'llthrow in two million bucks for
the study right away.
It was positive.
And then, uh, I pulled a quotefrom mass transit magazine here.
Uh, f dot described the projectquote as another
(05:14):
transformational project for ourregion and it's just like
imagine text not saying thatabout any non-highway project.
They would never, they wouldn'teven, they wouldn't even comment
and they would immediately denythe two million dollar request.
Yeah it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Texas.
What are you doing?
We can.
We can be better than Floridaright, you're letting, you're
letting.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Okay, we're gonna.
We're gonna try to create someconservative Competition for
transit.
Greg Abbott, you're letting.
You're letting Ron DeSantisbeat you out.
Come on, greg, get on it.
Sorry, ron DeSantis beat youout.
Come on, greg, get on it, sorry.
This study is going to take twoyears and is a necessary step
to gain federal dollars for this.
(05:53):
Obviously, federal dollars willbe a whole other hurdle, but my
guess is, this being Florida,ron DeSantis and Trump.
Although they've had a rockyrelationship, I think they
mostly have made amends at thispoint yeah yeah, but there will
need to be federal dollars forthis, as the price tag is
somewhere in the realm I've gotit on here uh is about four
billion dollars to make thishappen.
Um, bright line will also bevery much involved in this, as
(06:16):
the this corridor will also bewhere the bright line trains
will run before making their wayeventually, to tampa which I
think they're going to besharing the lines right, or at
least sharing the right-of-wayExactly yep, so wanted to give
you that piece of positive newsthere, though, that that project
is still moving forward.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, right now I think it's still in the study
phase, though, as you said,we've raised the money for it.
That study phase will takeabout two years before they then
submit for those federaldollars.
So definitely plenty of time tokeep this.
Keep this as a recurring topic.
To come back to yep.
The next on our list is thePurple Line in Maryland.
So we actually got a chance todo an episode about the Purple
(06:53):
Line.
We went to one of the stationsthat was sort of being built at
the time.
It was very cold.
Who's freezing?
so cold this is part of ourlarger DC episode, so Take a
chance to go back and look atthat purple line up.
So look at the DC episode ifyou're interested in that region
.
But as a recap, the purple lineis Eventually going to be a
(07:16):
ring route that goes around thethe DMV area.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
For now, that's being optimistic.
But yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
But yeah, the ultimate plan, the ultimate plan
, the grand plan, is it will goall the way around the dmp area
um.
What we are seeing right now isthe maryland portion that is
nearing completion around 70complete yeah and it's the one
that is connecting uh forbethesda to new carolton.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Basically, is that stretch where it's connecting?
And first off, I did want toapologize as well.
I said Silver Springsthroughout the entire episode
and y'all were not happy, nothappy at all.
One spring, silver Spring, onespring, my bad, I mean.
I don't think it detracted fromthe rest of the episode.
(08:02):
I even wrote Silver Springs onsome of the maps too, and they
were like oh my God.
So apologies, my bad, but yeah.
So over 76% complete.
The big news though, as ofrecently on the Purple Line, is
that dynamic testing began inApril on some of the alignments.
So they've actually got thelight rail vehicles on the
(08:23):
alignment testing driving them,which is pretty exciting, and
that is an important stepforward in any project like this
.
They've made a lot of progresson kind of all different types
of segments.
You've got some big flyoverbridges that have been complete.
Tunneling section near Bethesdais in really good shape right
now and is progressing forward,and this was kind of a unique
(08:45):
project because it does havetunnels, bridges on street.
It's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's a little bit of everything.
This one also has got a lot ofcriticism because it's one of
the most expensive projects byrail mile in the country, and so
there's been a lot of a lot ofpeople giving it flack.
But to see it finally gettingto a point where we're in the
testing phase, where we'renearing the completion phase, as
you said, that is really,really excited to see.
Yep, and even though it's beenplagued by some delays and,
(09:12):
again, cost overruns, uh, thecurrent target date to open is
winter of 2027.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes, so we are quickly approaching that yep, uh
, but happy, happy to see thepositive progress forward here.
If you're interested in more onthis project, we went very
in-depth in that episode, whichwe'll have linked here for you.
We're going to jump right backinto this episode in just a
second, but first, if you havenot liked this video, go ahead
and do so.
Also leave a comment.
(09:37):
We love reading all of them andrespond to as many as we can.
And we love reading all of themand respond to as many as we
can, and be sure that you aresubscribed so that you catch
every episode as they come out,Please share this with your
friends, and if you don't havetime to watch YouTube videos in
the future, you can catch us onany of the podcast platforms
that are out there.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Just be sure to leave us a rating and give us a
comment.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Our next update here we have kind of revisited this
topic a handful of times.
This is an update on thefunding for transit in Dallas.
We talked to our friends atDATA the Dallas that there had
(10:21):
been a bill introduced into theTexas legislature with the goal
of essentially cutting DART'sbudget by more than 25 percent.
It was a budget cut and thenalso a reallocation of some of
the funding.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I also I want to make a call out to data in the hard
work that they've done in tryingto fight the legislature's
attempt to maybe kill thistransit agency essentially which
we can talk about but they havereally focused on getting the
word out, doing petitions,getting people involved.
They brought over two dozenpeople down to Austin for a few
(11:00):
days to do canvassing atlegislators' doors in their
offices, got a ton of meetings.
They really put in the work.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And this is an organization that is like barely
they might not even be a yearold, yet they're barely a year
old if they're a year old.
So kudos to their team who havekind of gotten this going.
I know Connor and Tyler Kuiseveral people whose names I'm
forgetting right now but yeah,they've really been crushing it
to make this happen.
Yeah, and the hard work haspaid off so far.
(11:31):
There's still a little bit ofthings that could go wrong here,
but the big opposition thatthey came to the statehouse to
come and speak with legislaturesabout was this specific House
bill.
That House bill is no longer.
There is still a version in theSenate, but it has kind of just
been sitting there.
The Texas legislation sessionis almost done.
(11:53):
If, when we're going to editthis, this has already been done
, we'll insert a littledisclaimer right here saying
that that Senate bill has alsobeen killed.
But some cautious optimismright now that the DART bill has
not moved forward.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, so love to see that, love to see the community
involvement in fighting this.
Another update here is that thecity of Plano, which was sort
of the driving force in fightingDART and enlisting other cities
to oppose the DART board and goto the legislature to force the
legislature to then uh reducethe amount of contribution and
taxes and all that go back toour dart episode.
(12:26):
There's a lot happening there,but plano, who is the main
instigators?
Uh has had a recent election inmay of this year and they have
elected new members of theircity council for new places and
two of the new council membersare pro-DART.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Or at least more transit friendly.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Definitely friendlier to.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
DART.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They still want to challenge DART on where is our
money going?
How can it be better used?
But two of the candidates arenot in favor of removing the
funding entirely.
We have two other candidatesthat are a little less friendly
to DART, but it does look likethere's some pro-transit
advocates now within the PlanoCity Council, so it'll be
(13:09):
interesting to see how thatplays out in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Absolutely yeah, and I mean in general, it was not
looking good for a little bit.
I feel like the bill was kindof having some momentum and
whatnot.
It made a lot of news, but gladto see what's seeming like a
positive resolution to this.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Absolutely the last one on our list is right here at
home.
It's a topic that we've talkedabout several times, and that is
the Austin CAP program.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, the CAP and STCH program we talked about in
depth when we did an episodewhile we were in Dallas actually
, program we talked about indepth, uh, when we did an
episode while we were in dallas.
Actually we talked about cladwarren park where we were in
dallas, but we also talked aboutthe proposals for cap and
stitch here in austin.
Um, the short version of thestory is, with the i-35
expansion um text dot trying tothrow a bone to the city of
(13:58):
austin if you will, uh said, hey, well, if you want, we can
build the infrastructure so thatyou can have caps.
Now it's not really throwingthat much of a bone when you're
going to make the city pay forthe infrastructure to put the
caps on and everything having todo with the caps.
But I digress there, I guess.
Um, there had been severalproposals brought forward that
we kind of went more in depth onand they were really expensive,
(14:21):
was the issue.
If you were to go through withall of the cap and stitch
options that had been laid out,it was over a billion dollars
started at 800 million, and thenit quickly rose to over 1.2
billion yeah, um, which is a lotof money, especially when it's
just basically the city doing it.
Um, I mean, we did end up at onepoint well, not at one point.
They technically still have aReconnecting Communities grant
(14:43):
that would cover something like$140 million of cost, but now
all of these sorts of grantslike that are up in the air,
given that it's coming from thefederal government.
So the city had to basicallytry to decide what to do.
Next.
There had been some delays fromTxDOT.
This initially was supposed tobe decided on back in fall and
(15:04):
then in December and then inMarch.
It was December and then inMarch the can kept getting
kicked down the road.
Essentially TxDOT was havingdelays which worked out to the
favor of the Austin City Council, I would say, because they had
some more time to figure outwhat to do and in the end we've
ended up with kind of acompromise commitment here from
(15:26):
the city council.
So I'm going to read from KUT'stransportation reporter here,
just to have the specifics.
So the Austin City Councilapproves support columns for
parks over I-35 at Cesar Chavezto 7th Street, 11th to 12th
Street, as well as two300-foot-long stitches close to
the red line crossing nearAirport Boulevard.
There had been a couple otherproposals all put forward.
(15:49):
The council was pretty split onthis, actually basically right
down the middle, and then a fewamendments had been tossed in,
so there were kind of twocompeting ones and this,
ultimately, from Zoe Cadre, wasthe proposal that went through.
Important to note here that itonly right now commits to
supporting funding for the, thesupport system, I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Uh, so no caps actually, which is the way that
I thought we should have done itfrom the beginning.
I mean the caps.
We can spend the next 100 yearsbuilding the caps whenever the
city has money.
That's fine.
I think most people in austinwould understand that and be
fine with that.
But the fact that we were sortof uh, forced to decide you
build the supports now or youdon't build them at all, right,
it's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
But I say, just build the supports and then do the
rest of it later well, althoughI will say you wanted the full
caps up north, I would love,love the full, I would love them
.
There is no support.
There is no support for thatright now.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Okay, I would love the full program where you had
caps stretching across theentire stretch of interstate,
all that stuff.
I would love to see it.
But at the same time I willtake what we can get.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And if it's just building the support system?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
for it.
Let's build the support system.
Yep, yeah, and so, like youknow, the most important ones in
my view, like the Cesar Chavezto 7th Street, one makes a lot
of sense.
That's going to have a hugeimpact for the downtown area.
The 11th to 12th Street one iskind of weird to me, honestly.
I mean, I guess it doesn't hurt, but much money to do that, I
don't quite get it.
Uh, the university of texas ataustin, um, they kind of have
(17:20):
unlimited dollars.
So we actually haven't heard anupdate from them.
I haven't heard anything eithermy guess is they're gonna cap
their whole huge stretch, whichis going to be probably lovely
um, and then the two stitches upnorth um were kind of a
compromise.
So there was a plan for a fullcap up there which again to me
felt pretty strange, I mean,especially for right now.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I'd be like connecting some like strip malls
and a weird area some areasthat could definitely be
redeveloped and I think, I thinkin the future, this is going to
end up being a transit stop, atrain stop, uh, train station.
There we go, yeah, on the redline, and there will be more
development in this area.
So I do think that that isgoing to be a great amenity for
the future.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, it's not going to exist.
There won't be a when theybuild it.
They're building the, the trainstation or the cab, they're
building the stitches.
The stitches are going toprovide more space, the stitches
will be good, yeah, so yeah,you're going to have two wide
bridges, I guess, I think the,the train.
There will be room for trainand bike lane basically there,
but the cap in that area is nolonger.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Even if it's not a cap, it's still an opportunity
to improve the transit stationand connections in this area.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Personally, I like the cap up there, the stitch up
there, better than the cap.
I don't see the long game inthe cap up there as much, only
because you're still going tohave a pretty wide road for the
frontage roads and then it'slike airport boulevard and it's
just like that's another giantroad.
It just doesn't feel like aspleasant of a potential
(18:45):
experience that you might havedowntown.
But, um, we'll see.
So I mean, in general, uh, Ithink that they've landed in a
good spot on it.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Um, I was curious where it was gonna go yeah, I
was really nervous that we werenot going to get anything.
So yeah.
I'm happy to see at least someprogress on it.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yep, no, I think, and I mean it's going to be
interesting to see how it playsout too, in the sense that, like
there's still a lot of relianceon tech stock here to make this
happen, the cost could go updramatically still.
Tech stocks track record I'lllink this person's Twitter
account, but there's someestimates on just looking at
(19:25):
what TxDOT says the budget'sgoing to be and then what it
actually is on highway projects,and the chart is not looking
good.
So there's a very stronglikelihood that Austin City
Council is just going to be onthe hook for more money later,
which is not great.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
We're never getting an interview with TxDOT.
At this point I don't even wantone.
We've never have we saidanything good about TxDOT.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
There's not that much good to say.
I don't think it's not true.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
If there are other episodes that you've watched
that you want to see updates on,please let us know in the
comments or shoot us an email.
We'd love to do a deep diveinto any of the episodes that
we've done in the past andprovide you with the latest, and
we'll probably do more episodeslike these in the future too,
that are a little shorter,easier to consume.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, just kind of revisit the topics we've already
discussed yeah, and I thinkit's important to be like hey,
here's a little status update,so um, yeah, um.
With all that being said,though, if you have not liked
this video already, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also leave a commentand let us know if you agree,
disagree with the things we hadto say about these sorts of
things.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Um, if you uh want to support the show, you can do so
via our patreon, where theseepisodes will typically come out
a little sooner.
Uh, you can also support us byvisiting our merch store using
buy me a coffee.
We just had somebody recentlybuy us five coffees.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Thank you, so much for that I was.
I got the caffeine jitters.
Yeah, with all that being said,thank you all so much for
watching.
Enjoy the rest of your transittangents.
Tuesday silver springs.
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