Maguire told the Council members on the Mobility Committee that the Texas Department of Transportation had decided to break its monumental, multibillion-dollar project to enlarge I-35<\/a>, called the Capital Express Program, into two phases. The first phase will upgrade I-35\u2019s bridges and frontage roads, breaking ground in 2027 and wrapping up, maybe, in 2031. The second, larger phase of the project \u2013 which includes Cap and Stitch and was supposed to begin this year \u2013 has been pushed back to 2029. It\u2019s estimated to be complete in 2033.<\/p>\n This has implications for Cap and Stitch, Maguire said. When Council approved the $104 million in May, it was to pay for concrete pillars, called \u201croadway elements\u201d by TxDOT, that crews will build along the sides of the highway as they dig out its underground path. The pillars are necessary to hold up the caps in Cap and Stitch. The caps and stitches are concrete-and-rebar slabs that would be laid atop the pillars and serve as the foundations for the parks and bridges that will stitch together communities previously divided by the highway. The caps would support \u201camenities\u201d \u2013 green space, playgrounds, bike paths, amphitheatres, and even one- and two-story buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Council members knew when they committed the $104 million that they would need to approve a second, larger, as-yet-unspecified amount of money to build the caps themselves. Estimates for that expense have shifted<\/a> over the last few years with changing designs and rising construction costs<\/a>, but run as high as $900 million<\/a>. Council was supposed to vote on the caps this November. But Maguire told the Mobility Committee that, even though TxDOT has postponed construction of the concrete pillars, it has not postponed the date by which it wants the city to decide whether to commit more money for the caps. In fact, it has moved that date up. TxDOT now wants the city to make a decision<\/a> on the caps by May \u2013 three months from now.\u00a0<\/p>\n Looking up into the Council members\u2019 faces, her glasses perched atop her head, Maguire explained why this is a problem. She referred to the tariffs Donald Trump imposed last year, which are driving higher-than-normal inflation and a general financial unease. She told the committee that TxDOT\u2019s delayed timeline meant that the city would have to make a decision on the caps before the highway\u2019s design was even halfway complete. And she said that the $104 million the city has already committed for the concrete pillars \u2013 the roadway elements \u2013 could very well underestimate their actual cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose costs that Council approved for the roadway elements were based on 30% design \u2013 on very generic examples from other cities in the state of Texas prior to the tariffs, prior to any of the current pricing market,\u201d Maguire said. \u201cWe are recommending, from a financial services perspective, that we need to look at the entire deal structure of what Council wants to do before we commit to a civil loan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe city does not have a role in design, in delivery, in permitting, et cetera. It\u2019s a TxDOT project. I don\u2019t want to belabor that point, but I just wanted to highlight, from the financial risk perspective, what this might mean.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Christine Maguire<\/p>\n Last, and most important, Maguire reminded the Council members of a crucial part of Austin\u2019s agreement with TxDOT: The city will be responsible for all cost overruns associated with Cap and Stitch. If the cost of the concrete pillars winds up being larger than $104 million, the taxpayers of Austin will be on the hook for the difference. It\u2019s the same with the caps, despite the fact that their true cost may not be known until 2029 or later.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have a draft [agreement] from TxDOT which clearly states the city accepts all cost overruns,\u201d Maguire said. \u201cThe city does not have a role in design, in delivery, in permitting, et cetera. It\u2019s a TxDOT project. I don\u2019t want to belabor that point, but I just wanted to highlight, from the financial risk perspective, what this might mean.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Council Member Paige Ellis, who chairs the Mobility Committee and has seen all the ups and downs of Cap and Stitch over the last six years, had no difficulty understanding what that might mean. \u201cI will also be a Debbie Downer,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cThis is hugely concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n IMAGINING A DIFFERENT I-35\u00a0<\/p>\n Even longtime Austinites will struggle to remember a time when I-35 was not under construction. It\u2019s hard to imagine the highway without its work crews, lane closures, and concrete cattle chutes. As for when the construction will end, TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams clarified that in an opinion shared in 2024 \u2013 the work between Austin and San Antonio will \u201cnever conclude<\/a>,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n TxDOT began laying the groundwork for the Capital Express Program<\/a>, Austin\u2019s portion of the highway expansion, in the late 1980s<\/a>. Crews are currently laboring on the north and south sections of the program, and have been since 2022. The central part<\/a> of the project \u2013 again, it isn\u2019t slated to get under construction until 2029 \u2013 will stretch from Ben White Boulevard in the south to Highway 290 up north, 8 miles of road that TxDOT estimates will cost $4.5 billion. The project will add two lanes in each direction and send the highway 30 feet underground from Holly to Airport. It will also remove the highway\u2019s upper deck from Martin Luther King to Airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n The section of I-35 that slices through Downtown has historically been viewed, to quote Mayor Kirk Watson, as \u201ca screaming monument to racism<\/a>.\u201d It sits on the former East Avenue<\/a>, the street city leaders used in their 1928 Master Plan<\/a> to create a \u201cNegro district.\u201d The plan segregated Black citizens, who then constituted a third of the city\u2019s population and lived in many<\/a> enclaves within it, coercing them to move to the other side of East Avenue by cutting off their utility services, closing their schools, and denying them permits to build<\/a>. The Black residents\u2019 homes and properties were sold to whites for pennies on the dollar. They and their Hispanic neighbors lived alongside industrial developments and suffered decades of redlining and neglect on the city\u2019s Eastside, until gentrification came in the 1990s, forcing many to leave.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n UT Professor Emeritus Sinclair Black, an architect and urban planner described in these pages as the \u201coriginal New Urbanist,\u201d<\/a> began urging TxDOT in the late 1990s to bury I-35 on its run through Austin and cap it with a wide, tree-shaded boulevard lined with commercial and residential buildings that could generate tax revenue to pay for the development. Austin\u2019s progressive community liked the proposal, wanting to erase I-35\u2019s symbol of institutional racism. Business groups such as the Downtown Austin Alliance supported<\/a> it for the same reason, along with the fact that it promised to increase property values, financial investment, and job growth.<\/p>\n Black co-founded the nonprofit Reconnect Austin<\/a> in 2012 with his daughter, Heyden Walker, to build support for the idea. The group presented research demonstrating that similar projects had vitalized the downtowns of major cities like Dallas, where the Klyde Warren Park was built over an eight-lane highway in 2012. The park straddles the city\u2019s arts district and features fountains, playgrounds, a restaurant, and a stage for performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n For over 10 years, Reconnect Austin joined allies like Rethink35<\/a> and the neighborhood associations strung alongside I-35 to fight the project. They emphasized that more vehicles traveling through the city\u2019s center meant more releases of petroleum particulates<\/a>, benzene, and nitrogen oxides. They argued that the project would only ease I-35\u2019s congestion for a year or two before an effect known as \u201cinduced demand\u201d \u2013 where more drivers begin using a highway once it is enlarged \u2013 brought traffic to a standstill again. The classic example of induced demand is the Katy Highway in Houston, which was widened to 26 lanes in 2011. Within three years, congestion was worse than ever<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n TxDOT hosted public engagement sessions<\/a> with Austinites and agreed in 2023 to adopt a design for I-35 that could facilitate Cap and Stitch, as long as the city paid for the caps. However, the agency refused to reduce the highway\u2019s width from its combined 20 lanes, even after the public learned in 2022 that the widening would force over a hundred homes and businesses to be demolished, including the historic headquarters of the Chronicle, which was knocked down in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Heyden Walker said Reconnect Austin\u2019s 14-year struggle with TxDOT has left her exhausted and demoralized. She continues to feel that routing more traffic through the heart of the city will cause a cascade of bad effects, which TxDOT ought to accept responsibility for by paying for the caps. \u201cThey\u2019re pushing that on the city,\u201d Walker said. \u201cBut, with that preface, I think Cap and Stitch offers a lot of benefit. It would mitigate a lot of the noise and pollution. It would reconnect the city in a really valuable way that the project, as a big open ditch, does not do. But I find it really frustrating that TxDOT is forcing the city to pay for it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n COMMITTING THE MONEY<\/p>\n Before the spring of 2025, most city leaders had accepted the idea that Austin would pay for Cap and Stitch, at least to some extent. But as the vote neared that May on the concrete pillars, some began worrying about its cost. A debate over the project arose as a 10-year run of positive cash flow came to an abrupt halt. In early April, City Manager T.C. Broadnax warned that tax revenue was down and Austin was facing its first budget deficit<\/a> in years. Later that month, Mayor Watson alerted Council<\/a> that a $105 million federal grant awarded for Cap and Stitch in early 2024<\/a> would probably be rescinded.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Council split into two camps on Cap and Stitch. Council members Chito Vela, Ryan Alter, Jos\u00e9 Vel\u00e1squez, Natasha Harper-Madison, and Zo Qadri wanted to stay with an ambitious plan \u2013 six caps and two pedestrian bridges. Vela argued that the city had to take the once-in-a-generation opportunity to beautify the city for future residents. He said capping the highway from Cesar Chavez to Seventh Street was particularly important. He reminded his colleagues that there had been doubts about projects like the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge across Lady Bird Lake and the Q2 soccer stadium in North Austin, but time had proven that these projects bring joy to Austinites.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re trying to do here with the area surrounding I-35,\u201d Vela said. \u201cThose seven contiguous blocks from Cesar Chavez to Seventh Street, once they are capped you will have a stretch of parkland that may be the best park in Texas, hosting festivals and events and families with everybody enjoying that area. To pass up on that opportunity just really captures the old saying about being penny-wise and pound-foolish. We have to seize this moment. If we pass up this moment we cannot get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n Council members Paige Ellis, Vanessa Fuentes, Marc Duchen, Krista Laine, and Mike Siegel worried about what the commitment would mean for future infrastructure needs. They proposed cutting the plan in half, to two caps and two stitches.\u00a0<\/p>\n Laine said she was tired of hearing that Cap and Stitch was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, even if it was true. \u201cThe city of Austin is holding all of the financial risk of cost overruns, when we all know they are coming,\u201d she said. Siegel agreed that history was watching, yet said he was more worried about the near future than the far future. \u201cI\u2019m concerned that five years from now, we won\u2019t have enough money to fund our housing needs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe won\u2019t have enough money to fund adequate parks, to fund our public health programs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Two days before the May 2025 vote, Mayor Watson backed the more modest plan<\/a>. The final vote was a compromise. It committed enough money to build the concrete pillars for three large caps and two 300-foot-wide stitches. Pillars would be built for caps from Cesar Chavez Street to Fourth Street; from Fourth Street to Seventh Street; and from 11th Street to 12th Street. They would also be built for the two stitches, which would be placed between 41st Street and the area where the Red Line\u2019s tracks cross I-35, near Hancock Center. The vote was not unanimous. Duchen and Laine voted no. Siegel abstained.\u00a0<\/p>\n Three months after the commitment, Republicans in Washington, D.C., did indeed pull back the $105 million<\/a> grant for Cap and Stitch. The next week, Council passed a 2025-26 budget that depended on Austinites agreeing to raise their property taxes at an election in November. The tax hike, known as Proposition Q, would have generated $110 million a year \u2013 almost the same figure Council had approved six months earlier for the concrete pillars. During the Prop Q campaign, voters learned that they would be paying hundreds of dollars more<\/a> for county taxes and utility fees in 2026. They rejected Prop Q decisively.<\/p>\n As Austinites educated themselves about Prop Q, some began asking how the large infrastructure projects that Council has approved over the last five years will impact the city\u2019s budget in the coming decade. These projects include not just Cap and Stitch but the even more expensive plans to build a new convention center and to bring a system of light rail, called Project Connect, to the city. At a Nov. 17 town hall held after Prop Q\u2019s defeat, city resident and environmentalist activist Robin Rather asked CMs Mike Siegel and Vanessa Fuentes whether they supported scrapping the large projects.<\/p>\n Siegel explained that the money already committed to the projects comes from funding sources devoted strictly for building things \u2013 it can\u2019t, by law, be used for the ongoing city expenses at the center of the Prop Q debate, things like paying police officers and providing services for the homeless. However, Siegel continued, that didn\u2019t mean Council wasn\u2019t thinking differently about the money it had pledged for the projects. \u201cEven though, technically, we can\u2019t cancel these programs to pay for what Prop Q was going to pay for, I do think we need to reprioritize our investments as a Council,\u201d he said. \u201cI would support reopening the Cap and Stitch conversation. So far, we\u2019ve only authorized $104 million. I want to see if my peers on Council will be open to reconsidering that, if it\u2019s legally possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Fuentes had a slightly different take. She said that Council\u2019s commitment for the concrete pillars would guarantee that the caps could be built in the future \u2013 and that was enough for now. \u201cI don\u2019t feel comfortable putting one dollar more towards Cap and Stitch until we have a fully funded EMS system, until we\u2019re able to ensure that our essential services are intact,\u201d she said. \u201cI do think, moving forward, it is going to be a matter of priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n CAN WE PULL BACK? SHOULD WE?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And now, the city gets to have the Cap and Stitch debate all over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the city manager\u2019s office sent a memo<\/a> to the mayor and Council members outlining what comes next for the project. The memo summarized the information from the Dec. 4 Mobility Committee meeting. It made suggestions for how to proceed on the two stitches across from Hancock Center, now estimated to cost $69 million<\/a>. It said staff will present a strategy for funding the caps in March, which will include ways to protect the city from cost overruns. That presentation will detail possible private, philanthropic donations<\/a> to Cap and Stitch, when they could materialize, and how much money they might provide.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as the city prepares to address funding for the caps, some Council members want to reconsider the May 2025 commitment for the concrete pillars. Scaling back that commitment is apparently possible. In her remarks on Dec. 4, Christine Maguire told the Mobility Committee, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that we have solidified the execution date of the AFA for the roadway elements.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The AFA Maguire referred to is the Advance Funding Agreement \u2013 the contract between the city of Austin and TxDOT specifying how much money the city will pay for the pillars and where the money will come from. The AFA states that $63 million of the $104 million will come from certificates of obligation \u2013 a type of funding instrument that Texas cities use to construct big things like buildings or roads, but without having to hold an election on the specific project.\u00a0<\/p>\n The remaining $41 million would come from a loan from Texas\u2019 State Infrastructure Bank, which finances transportation projects. The loan would be repaid by the city over a term of 20 years, beginning this year, if the city finalizes the AFA, a city spokesperson told us. The spokesperson clarified that the city has not yet executed the AFA. They said the deadline for doing so won\u2019t come until 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n The upcoming May deadline for a decision on the caps is also more of a suggestion than an actual deadline, according to Richard Mendoza, the director of Transportation and Public Works. Mendoza spoke after Maguire at the Mobility Committee meeting on Dec. 4, telling the Council members that they can make \u201cchange orders\u201d on the caps all the way until construction begins in 2029.<\/p>\n \u201cThis May decision point that TxDOT has made available to us is not the final opportunity for us as a city to make a decision,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cIt\u2019s only if we want to have this included with the present designer and in this original bid package. We can always wait. We don\u2019t have to be pressured into a decision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Chronicle asked city leaders in December where they stood on financing Cap and Stitch. A majority wants to reduce the commitment to one degree or another. Mayor Watson, the swing vote in the May 2025 compromise that chose three caps and two stitches, told us, \u201cIt is likely that we will need to \u2018skinny down\u2019 and maybe eliminate some goals.\u201d Duchen told us, \u201cIf it were up to me, I\u2019d probably put a pause on the whole project at this moment.\u201d Ellis told us, \u201cI\u2019m not inclined to support any idea with unknown costs that we will be on the hook for.\u201d Siegel told us he wants the city to reduce its commitment to the project. Laine concurred. Fuentes reiterated that she doesn\u2019t want to spend another dollar on Cap and Stitch for the time being.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chito Vela, on the other hand, told us he does not want to pull back from the full proposal. Jos\u00e9 Vel\u00e1squez and Zo Qadri did not respond to questions on where they stand. Ryan Alter simply acknowledged that there doesn\u2019t seem to be enough support presently to fund all the caps. Natasha Harper-Madison said she is \u201cnot opposed to necessary change orders\u201d and is hopeful the city can find private partners to help to pay for the project.<\/p>\n Duchen and Laine said they continue to doubt that Cap and Stitch can proceed without incurring cost overruns. Siegel pointed out a little-discussed detail from the Dec. 4 meeting that speaks to that concern. The 10th slide of the city\u2019s presentation, titled \u201cTxDOT\u2019s Timeline,\u201d states that the estimated cost to design the caps rose from $19 million in May of last year to $25 million in December \u2013 an increase of over 30% in seven months.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CapAndStitch_Meeting.jpg\")
Christine Maguire of the Austin Financial Services Department speaks to Council members on the city\u2019s Mobility Committee this past December Credit: Screenshot via City of Austin<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CapAndStitch_Rendering.jpg\")
This rendering shows the cap over I-35 from Cesar Chavez to Fourth Street, a 5.3-acre stretch that would connect the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood with Downtown destinations like Palm Park and the Waterloo Greenway. If the cap plan has to be further downsized, some CMs have said this is the cap to prioritize going forward with. Credit: Our Future 35 \/ City of Austin<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CapAndStitch_Rendering2.jpg\")
This rendering shows a cap over I-35 between 11th Street and 12th Street, which planners have said presents \u201ca vital opportunity to reconnect East Austin\u2019s vibrant African-American business corridors with downtown.\u201d Credit: Our Future 35 \/ City of Austin<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CapAndStitch_Cap.png\")
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