Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before landing in Austin, Cathy Cocco lived in both New York City and Tokyo, where she enjoyed the convenience of robust public transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n So given the chance, she was happy to cast a vote in 2020 for a state-of-the-art, 20-mile light rail system, running through the heart of Austin all the way to the airport \u2014 even though the plan didn\u2019t directly serve her neighborhood in northwest Austin.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to vote for what\u2019s good for the city,\u201d Cocco said.<\/p>\n Some 242,000 Austinites agreed with her. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Austin voters made a bet on the capital city\u2019s future, indefinitely raising their own city property taxes by 20% to fund Project Connect, a $7.1 billion proposal for an electric, urban rail system along with a bevy of other public transit improvements, including new high-frequency bus routes and expanded shuttle pickup service. Construction was slated to begin in late 2024.<\/p>\n Nearly four years after Cocco cast her vote for the rail, she sued the city to stop it.<\/p>\n Today, not a single foot of light-rail track has been laid. The total cost of the light rail alone is now $8.2 billion \u2014 up from the initial cost of $5.8 billion \u2014\u00a0but its footprint has been slashed to less than 10 total miles. The new plan no longer reaches Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and the number of stops was cut from 26 to 15. \u00a0At less than half the original proposed length, the light rail now costs almost $840 million per mile, three times more than it did in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n window.addEventListener(\u201cmessage\u201d, function(event) { \/\/ Set the new height dynamically Project Connect is now the costliest public transit project per mile in Texas history. \u00a0It\u2019s also the seventh most expensive light rail project per mile in the U.S., out of 34 compiled by the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University and adjusted for inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The massive jumps in cost and shrunken scale left Cocco disenchanted with the project. She and a group of taxpayers sued the city in 2024 to stop it from collecting property taxes to fund the project, arguing that it wasn\u2019t what voters had been promised.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said you\u2019re going to do all this, and then you do a fraction, and then you\u2019re still going to make us pay for the whole thing,\u201d Cocco said. \u201cAt what point is that illegal?\u201d<\/p>\n From the beginning, Austin officials vastly underestimated the cost of the light rail. A key reason, transit experts say, is that very little of the project was designed before it went to voters. And amid an unprecedented pandemic that created global economic uncertainty, transit officials did not account for rampant inflation and surging real estate prices that would balloon costs over the next few years.<\/p>\n Now even the more modest rail\u2019s future is in doubt.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Best of the Tribune in your Inbox<\/p>\n Keep tabs on Texas politics and policy with our morning newsletter.<\/p>\n The project still requires billions in federal dollars, covering half of its costs. It has received none. The final decision to give those dollars rests with the Trump administration, which hasn\u2019t agreed to fund new transit projects since President Donald Trump returned to office. And U.S. Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> recently said he opposes Austin rail getting any federal funds, adding his voice to the long list of Texas Republicans in power who oppose or are actively fighting the project.<\/p>\n Even the local property tax dollars are in question. While Cocco\u2019s lawsuit is pending, a separate legal battle threatening to gut the light rail project is moving ahead. That fight will determine whether the city\u2019s use of a property tax hike to fund the transit system is legal, and it will ultimately be decided by the Texas Supreme Court.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bait and switch on taxpayers,\u201d said Bill Aleshire, an Austin attorney and Travis County\u2019s former top elected official who filed the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin officials project confidence in the light rail project, while acknowledging the higher costs and smaller footprint. No major infrastructure project, city and project officials have argued, was immune from cost increases spurred by global inflation.<\/p>\n Officials and transit advocates say that even the smaller light rail plan is necessary to give people more options to move around the state\u2019s fourth-largest urban area as it grows.\u00a0<\/p>\n Greg Canally, who heads Austin Transit Partnership, the city-backed nonprofit charged with building the light rail, said the system can still be expanded in the future. Officials now refer to the current map as \u201cphase one,\u201d a nod to the fact that they hope to eventually reach the original scope put before voters.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re focused on delivering for Austin: getting Austin Light Rail phase one built,\u201d Canally said. \u201cThat\u2019s an expandable system so that future Austin can keep on growing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin Transit Partnership officials intend to break ground on the light rail project next year, and don\u2019t expect a decision on whether federal dollars will be made available for the project until sometime after that. ATP won\u2019t say exactly how much of the project they\u2019d be able to build without federal funds.<\/p>\n This all comes as the Texas Department of Transportation \u2014 responsible for building highways \u2014 has called for more public transportation if the state is going to keep growing. The success or failure of the Austin project could be a bellwether for the rest of the state as places like Tyler and Fort Worth consider similar efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin riders won\u2019t set foot on a light rail car until 2033 at the earliest.<\/p>\n Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said despite the setbacks, the city cannot afford to wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n Watson was also Austin\u2019s mayor in 2000, the first year voters were asked to weigh in on a light rail plan. But they rejected it. That would have been the best time to have started work on such an ambitious and long-ranging transit project, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe second-best time is now. It\u2019s never going to be cheaper,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Austin light rail\u2019s current plans would reach as far north as 38th Street. Credit: Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n A big idea<\/p>\n After Austin voters shot down light-rail proposals at the ballot box in 2000 and 2014, traffic congestion fueled by the city\u2019s continued growth only worsened. Officials with Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Austin region\u2019s primary transit agency, went back to the drawing board in 2016 \u2014\u00a0and later came back with the first draft of a sprawling vision for the city\u2019s public transportation system called Project Connect.<\/p>\n The light-rail line would run at least every 10 minutes and include an underground tunnel through downtown with a flashy shopping concourse. Planners sketched out potential future phases that could take light rail further into North and South Austin.<\/p>\n The plan included upgrades to Austin\u2019s existing suburban commuter rail line, which connects downtown Austin to the northern suburb of Leander, aimed at enabling greater frequency and ridership while adding new stations. A new arm of that line would stretch into eastern Travis County. High-frequency, rapid bus routes would criss-cross the city. An existing on-demand service operated by CapMetro would expand to more neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we had a city that was ready to invest in itself,\u201d said Steve Adler, who was mayor at the time of the 2020 vote, in an interview.<\/p>\n The project\u2019s costs were peer reviewed through the American Public Transportation Association. To Roberto Trevi\u00f1o, who sits on the board of the Houston region\u2019s primary transit agency and participated in the review, the overall project\u2019s $7.1 billion price tag was reasonable, given its scale. But that review took place in January 2020 \u2014 a couple months before COVID-19 shut down the global economy.<\/p>\n Seven billion dollars \u201cin 2020 got you a lot. And if you do a cost-per-mile basis of that, it seems reasonable,\u201d Trevi\u00f1o said in an interview.<\/p>\n But when officials asked voters to greenlight Project Connect, only 5% of the light rail had been designed, according to an April 2022 agency memo. That initial lack of design meant the project\u2019s costs would almost certainly go up, transit costs experts said \u2014 even without historic inflation.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just not enough design work to really have a solid sense of the numbers,\u201d said Rohan Aras, a senior transportation policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, a nonpartisan think tank.<\/p>\n Major transit projects often go before voters with little design work done, a problem that bedevils public transit in the U.S., transit costs experts said. Fully designing a project takes money localities often don\u2019t have, making cost overruns common.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re voting on is sort of like a dream rather than an actual constructible plan,\u201d said Eric Goldwyn, who researches public transit costs at the Marron Institute.<\/p>\n There wasn\u2019t a viable way to firm up the project\u2019s costs and design more before going to voters in 2020, said Wade Cooper, an Austin lawyer who chaired the CapMetro board during Project Connect\u2019s formation.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a perfect world, sure, you have a bunch of money sitting around to design the project fully,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cBut practically speaking, in the time period that we had with a major election, I don\u2019t think we could have squeezed in anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Officials also had to figure out how they would pay for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin had hit a cap set by state lawmakers on local sales tax rates, a typical way cities and transit agencies elsewhere pay for new transit. Bonds could be issued to fund the construction and capital costs, but they couldn\u2019t be used for the system\u2019s day-to-day operations, planners deemed. Unlike places like California, New York and Washington, Texas largely doesn\u2019t help pay for public transit in its major urban areas. Texas spends significantly less per capita on public transit than other large states including Florida, according to a report from the nonprofit Transportation for America and the National Campaign for Transit Justice.<\/p>\n Austin officials settled on a 20% permanent hike in the city\u2019s property tax rate. For the owner of a $325,000 home, that meant a $284 increase on their annual city tax bill.<\/p>\n In November 2020, voters said yes by a 15.8-point margin.<\/p>\n \u201cI really do think that part of it was showing a huge vision package,\u201d said Susan Somers, former board president of AURA, an Austin group that pushes for better public transit. \u201cI think that was really inspiring to people.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics call the hike a blank check.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no budget, and there is no limit, because this tax is forever,\u201d Aleshire said.<\/p>\n Bigger price tag, smaller footprint<\/p>\n As the project\u2019s design progressed, unforeseen costs added up \u2014\u00a0tacking on billions.<\/p>\n The light rail\u2019s land acquisition costs nearly quadrupled amid a surge in Austin land values. Planners also discovered they\u2019d have to buy more properties along the line than they previously expected, according to an April 2022 agency memo.<\/p>\n Inflation drove up the price of construction materials, while a tighter job market increased labor costs.<\/p>\n Planners encountered the steepest overruns when designing the downtown tunnel, the centerpiece of the project.<\/p>\n Building a tunnel is expensive in part because it requires specialized labor as well as pricey boring equipment and techniques. A transit project with any amount of tunnel tends to be more costly than those that run at street level, transit costs experts said.<\/p>\n As its design progressed, planners found the tunnel would have to plunge deeper underground and run a longer distance. That finding significantly drove up the tunnel\u2019s costs \u2014\u00a0which doubled\u00a0from $2 billion to $4.1 billion, roughly $978.5 million per mile.<\/p>\n Overall, the total cost of just the light rail component of Project Connect ballooned by nearly 80% to $10.3 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following public input, Austin officials settled on a pared-down version of the light-rail line in summer 2023, stripping out the tunnel and slashing the system in half.<\/p>\n Under the new plan, the rail stops just short of the Austin airport, though officials have said a future airport extension is a high priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou have three choices when the cost of infrastructure goes up,\u201d Canally said. \u201cYou can just stop, you can go back and ask for additional funds or you can reframe the project and size it to live within your budget.\u201d<\/p>\n The project\u2019s costs remain puzzlingly high for a project that has no tunnel, transit costs experts said. It\u2019s the second most expensive light rail project per mile, when compared to 21 U.S. light rail projects that don\u2019t tunnel, according to Marron Institute data.<\/p>\n As the project shrank, so did its ridership estimates. Austin officials initially projected that within two decades at least 70,000 riders would take the line, including future extensions, each weekday. The smaller line would see 34,000 daily riders under new projections. That means the cost per rider for the light rail is around $200,000, enough that Austin could buy every rider an Aston Martin luxury sportscar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Goldwyn said the project\u2019s per-rider costs are alarmingly high, and it might make more sense to serve the project\u2019s expected demand with bus rather than light rail. It used to be that U.S. rail projects cost between $50,000 to $75,000 per rider, Goldwyn said, high compared with other countries. The Austin project is among an emerging group of rail projects with per-rider costs exceeding $100,000, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I\u2019m a New Yorker, I don\u2019t drive, I\u2019m as pro-transit as it gets,\u201d Goldwyn said. \u201cBut the people of Austin voted for something, and maybe they were sold a bill of goods that could not be delivered. I don\u2019t know, but that\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n While critics cast the shrunken version as a \u201cbait-and-switch,\u201d Austin officials have argued they had the authority to reconfigure the line in the face of higher costs.<\/p>\n Voters asked for a light rail system funded with property taxes \u2014\u00a0and that\u2019s what they\u2019re getting, Watson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe purpose was to get a rail system in Austin,\u201d said Watson, who took office in 2023. \u201cThis is a meaningful phase one, and part of that purpose was to do it within a very specific monetary amount\u2026and we\u2019re doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Project officials have defended the light rail\u2019s costs.<\/p>\n For one, they\u2019re building a brand new system on some of the most expensive real estate in Austin \u2014\u00a0and retrofitting an already built urban environment to accommodate new rail.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s connecting the university with the government district, with downtown across the lake,\u201d said Veronica Castro de Barrera, an architect who chairs the ATP board. \u201cIt takes you through a route that is very pricey per real estate in its context. It also has the oldest infrastructure underground.\u201d<\/p>\n A new system comes with high upfront costs, ATP officials said, like a fleet of light rail cars, along with a 62-acre facility to store and maintain them.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are all sort of those one-time costs,\u201d said Bryan Rivera, ATP chief financial officer.<\/p>\n The project also calls for a new bridge over Lady Bird Lake, as well as elevated track southeast of downtown, both of which are significant cost drivers. The costs also include $1.1 billion in financing, which ATP expects will be eligible for reimbursement from the feds.<\/p>\n ATP officials said costs have stabilized and they\u2019re doing what they can to contain them going forward. Canally said he cut the agency\u2019s staffing plan by about 25% after he became CEO. The project\u2019s builders are now more involved in the design process so they can advise designers on how to contain costs, he said.<\/p>\n The project is still catching flak. Earlier this year, ATP officials proposed moving the agency into high-end downtown office space with views of Lady Bird Lake \u2013 for $32 million. The proposal drew fierce online backlash, and officials backed off the idea.<\/p>\n And while the project\u2019s future is in the balance, Canally, the top official, secured considerable pay bumps along the way. The ATP board hired Canally, then the project\u2019s chief financial officer, as interim CEO in 2022, after ousting his predecessor, at an annual base salary of $310,000. The following year, the board gave Canally a nearly 18% bump to $365,000 when they hired him as full-time CEO. Last year, the board bumped up Canally\u2019s pay once more \u2014\u00a0to nearly $405,000, about an 11% increase. \u00a0<\/p>\n Stiff headwinds<\/p>\n Moving forward, Project Connect still faces significant headwinds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Republican lawmakers have sought to sap the lifeblood of the project, pushing proposals in 2023 and 2025 to cut off the project from its voter-approved property tax funding mechanism. Those bills died after lobbying from Austin officials.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever one\u2019s position on light rail, it is simply inaccurate to say voters approved the project as it exists today,\u201d said state Rep. Ellen Troxclair<\/a>, an Austin-area Republican who tried to kill the project.<\/p>\n Still, Republicans helped lay the groundwork for the project to be challenged in court. In 2023, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt<\/a>, a Houston Republican, asked Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> to weigh in on whether Project Connect\u2019s financing mechanism is legal.<\/p>\n The measure voters enacted raised the portion of the city\u2019s tax rate that funds maintenance and operations, such as city employee salaries. The city then gives that revenue to ATP, which it intends to use in part to finance bonds crucial to the project\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n That May, Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion calling that arrangement illegal \u2014\u00a0which ATP officials contest.<\/p>\n Paxton\u2019s opinion gave a group of taxpayers part of the blueprint to challenge the project in court in November 2023.<\/p>\n That group, represented by Aleshire,\u00a0includes Dirty Martin\u2019s Place, a 100-year-old hamburger joint neighboring the UT-Austin campus that would have been demolished to make way for an earlier iteration of the line. An online petition to save Dirty Martin\u2019s from destruction garnered nearly 25,000 signatures, and the latest version of the light rail path appears to preserve the restaurant.<\/p>\n Mark Nemir, who\u2019s owned Dirty Martin\u2019s since 1989 but whose family history with the restaurant runs longer, said that\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I would like to see happen is this thing go away,\u201d Nemir said.<\/p>\n Austin Transit Partnership countered that lawsuit with its own, asking a judge to allow the entity to issue bonds for construction. The two lawsuits were combined into one legal proceeding, which is slowly making its way through the courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Austin light rail officials are seeking $4.1 billion in federal money.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the Federal Transit Administration hasn\u2019t awarded funds to any new transit project in Trump\u2019s second term, a break with past administrations dating back to President Bill Clinton, according to an Urban Institute analysis<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project has found itself without a vocal champion at the federal level \u2014\u00a0a departure from the Biden years, when then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg lauded the project.<\/p>\n That lack of support suggests that few of Texas\u2019 Trump allies are using their political capital to help get the federal funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Cathy Cocco, an Austin resident, voted to raise property taxes to fund Project Connect before suing the city to stop it nearly four years later. Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20250919-UT-File-MS-42-full.jpg\")
Students walk by the UT Tower on Sept. 19, 2025. The light rail route under current Project Connect plans would connect the university with downtown. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260326-Project-Connect-North-MS-25-full.jpg\")
A driver waits at a CapMetro bus stop on March 26, 2026. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260331-Project-Connect-Luncheon-MS-22-full-1.jpg\")
Guests listen to Greg Canally, who heads Austin Transit Partnership, the city-backed nonprofit charged with building the Austin light rail project, at Transit Forward\u2019s Project Connect luncheon on March 31. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260504-MS-Paige-and-Michael-013-full-1.jpg\")
Michael Ludwig and Paige Stumbough ride the CapMetro Red Line from Howard Station for their commute to work on May 4. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260408-Project-Connect-North-MS-20-full-1.jpg\")
A CapMetro rider attaches his bike to a bus near Wooldridge Square Park on April 8. The Austin light rail project is slated to run on Guadalupe Street. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260313-Austin-Growth-MS-15-full.jpg\")
People walk to the CapMetro Red Line train at its station in downtown Austin during the South by Southwest festival on March 13. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260504-Project-Connect-Dyrhan-MS-7-full.jpg\")
Dyrhan Hackfeld takes the bus to drop off her one-year-old her son, Tate Rutz, to daycare on May 4, 2026. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20251212-Abbott-Southwest-Austin-MS-18-full.jpg\")
Gov. Greg Abbott, center, is joined by Austin Mayor Kirk Watson during a economic development announcement at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Dec. 12, 2025. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260429-Project-Connect-ABIA-MS-08-full.jpg\")
Travelers enter the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on April 29. The Austin light rail\u2019s planned stop at the airport has been dropped from the plan\u2019s initial phase. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260424-Project-Connect-South-MS-22-full.jpg\")
The planned Austin light rail project would include stops near Auditorium Shores and on South Congress Avenue. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260425-Project-Connect-South-MS-02-full.jpg\")
A girl flies a kite at Austin\u2019s Auditorium Shores on April 24. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260424-Project-Connect-South-MS-47-full-1.jpg\")
Pedestrians wait to cross the street on South Congress Avenue in Austin on April 24. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260518-MS-Project-Connect-Bill-Aleshire-7-.jpg\")
Bill Aleshire, an Austin attorney and former Travis County judge representing a group of residents who have sued to stop the Austin light rail project, at his home office on May 18. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
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Attendees for an Austin FC game against the Houston Dynamo cross the tracks at McKalla Station, a stop on CapMetro\u2019s Red Line which takes passengers to Q2 Stadium, on April 25. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260425-Project-Connect-Austin-FC-MS-15-full.jpg\")
Attendees for an Austin FC game attendees stand at McKalla Station in Austin. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260425-Project-Connect-Austin-FC-MS-09-full.jpg\")
Attendees for the Austin FC game against the Houston Dynamo wait to cross the tracks after exiting the train at McKalla Station. Manoo Sirivelu\/The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n