Lawyers in the Texas attorney general’s office filed an appeal in a Travis County courtroom Monday, halting the trial to determine whether the funding model for Austin’s planned multibillion-dollar light rail is allowed under state law.
Project Connect, which was approved by voters in 2020 with an increase of more than 20% in the city’s maintenance and operations property tax rate, originally was to include several transit projects and miles of light rail — the centerpiece of the proposition, which supporters lauded as a generational investment in Austin’s transit infrastructure.
Plans for the light rail portion of the project have since been scaled down to under 10 miles, and construction is estimated to cost more, city and Austin Transit Partnership leaders have said. The Austin Transit Partnership is a local government corporation established by the city and Capital Metro to plan and build the light-rail system.
Austin American-Statesman
by Ella McCarthy
June 17, 2024