The U.S. Department of Transportation picked eight states, including Texas, to collect data and come up with a plan for “air taxi” infrastructure.

AUSTIN, Texas — The sky is the limit for innovative ways to get around Central Texas.

The U.S. Department of Transportation chose eight states, including Texas, to help figure out how to make “air taxis” a reality. 

“Here it is,” Weston Rhoden said, as he and family stopped by The Long Center in Downtown Austin to watch people fly LIFT aircrafts. “It’d be weird to see, like, hundreds of these all around the skyline.”

The 14-year-old and his family could not help but to stop and look at the future for themselves.

The single seat aircrafts that LIFT lets people test run gives an idea of what could become of future daily travel for Texans, and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has created a coalition to make it happen. 

“The future is going to be 90 days after we get the green light from the FAA,” Sergio Roman said. 

Roman works for the Aviation Division of TxDOT and is collecting data to help the federal government come up with guidelines to make air taxis safe and reliable one day. 

“We have the space, and we have the conditions to answer the questions about pretty much everything that they’re looking for,” Roman said. 

For now, the coalition is putting its own money and resources into the project. That includes providing sensors, electric chargers and possible prototypes for what an air taxi could look like. Roman said it could very well hold multiple people aside from just the driver of the air taxi. 

The Austin region also brings a key factor for the infrastructure needed to allow for air taxi travel. 

“There’s plenty of general aviation airports here, and then other ones that connect into the Hill Country,” Roman said. 

Roman said he envisions stops where these air taxis can take off and land from having ports that can accommodate multiple aircrafts, and the way TxDOT wants the vessels to be designed could mean not adding much to the noise pollution that already exists from roadways and major city metros. 

“You’ll have goods and passengers loaded onto these aircrafts quietly departing because these are electric aircrafts,” Roman said. 

The planning going into this will also account for rural communities. Roman believes that air taxis can help with getting resources to communities quicker. That could also mean getting community members to a hospital at a much quicker and frequent pace should medical emergencies emerge. 

“TxDOT and its partners will be working on its statewide policy harmonization to ensure that across the entire state,” Roman said. 

The air taxis could also be affordable to everyone.

“The idea is that when this is at scale, this would be comparable to what you would spend on a rideshare,” Roman said. 

For now, air taxis are far down the road. 

“I guess that will probably be the future, in my adulthood,” Rhoden said. 

Roman said he is hoping the idea takes off within the next decade.