Texas State Capitol, January 21, 2021
The history of public transportation in Austin is similar to that of other cities in the United States. Two years after Austin was selected by Texas voters to be the state capital, the first transportation company in the city was founded in September 1874, when Austin City Railroad Company won the right to build a horse or mule drawn railroad. This system accepted its first passengers on January 15, 1875. The Austin Rapid Transit Railway Company began operating electric streetcars on February 26, 1891, competing directly with the Austin City Railroad Company. This competition was short lived, as the two companies merged later that same year. At its peak, there were 23 miles of streetcar track in Austin, but buses began to replace streetcars starting in 1918. In 1939, the Austin Street Railway Company renamed itself the Austin Transit Company, at which time it also committed to converting the remaining streetcar routes to bus lines. The last streetcar was withdrawn from service on February 7, 1940.
The Austin Transit Company would continue to operate buses for another 46 years. In 1985, voters approved a referendum that would create a local transit authority that would be funded in part by a one percent sales tax. This authority became known as the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but is often just referred to as Capital Metro. Capital Metro took over the existing bus routes from the Austin Transit Company in 1986.
Capital Metro is one of the few agencies in the United States to trial a fare free system in order to boost ridership. The trial began in October of 1989 but ended in December 1990 because while ridership did increase, some of that increased ridership was deemed to be “problematic” in the eyes of bus operators who requested that fares be reinstated. Also in 1989, Capital Metro began operating shuttle routes on the University of Texas campus that had formerly been operated by private companies.
More recently, Austin has held several referendums to build rail lines in the capital region. The first such referendum was put to the voters in 2000 and called for building a 52 mile light rail network, but was defeated by about 2,000 votes. A scaled down version of the rail system was proposed again in 2004, and this time, a single commuter line. That line, known as the Capital MetroRail Red Line, began operations on March 22, 2010. Capital MetroRapid, two bus rapid transit routes, were launched in 2014, using specially branded buses with fareboxes at the rear doors to allow for all door boarding. A bus network redesign was implemented in 2019, increasing the number of routes with 15 minute or better service throughout the day. In 2020, Austin voters approved Project Connect, a plan to build two light rail lines, one new bus rapid transit line, and one new commuter rail line, along with a downtown transit tunnel, electric vehicles, and new park and ride lots.
As of December 2020, Capital MetroBus operates over 80 bus routes using a fleet of approximately 400 buses. The local bus fleet is made up of Gillig and New Flyer buses, MetroRapid is served by NovaBUS LFX and LFX Artic buses, and over the road coaches are used for "flyer" commuter services.
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Capital MetroRail service began on March 22, 2010. As of 2020, there is a single, 32 mile line served by 10 Stadler GTW railcars. Ridership averages about 2,900 passengers per weekday as of 2014.
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