By Subcontractors USA News Provider
Downtown Station Now Open!
Capital Metro has built a place that both serves their MetroRail customers and provides a grand welcome to downtown. Downtown Station creates a great public plaza that ties together transit, the Convention Center and surrounding hotels and businesses.
A Mobility Hub
The new Downtown Station and adjacent plaza enhance the area’s public space. Its primary function is to make easy connections between MetroRail and other types of transportation. Customers are able to connect to:
- Local MetroBus service (Route 17 on Cesar Chavez and Route 4 on 7th St.)
- Electric Cab
- Car-share
- MetroBike
- Scooters
- Austin’s bicycle trails
- With more to come through Project Connect, Austin’s comprehensive transit expansion plan approved through the passage of Prop A
Station Overview
The station features parasol structures mounted on columns. The pentagonal roof atop each column not only offers a striking visual welcome to downtown, but it also provides overhead protection for riders as they wait for, enter or exit the trains.
Improving MetroRail Service
There will be four available platforms at the new Downtown Station, allowing them to expand the capacity of MetroRail Red Line service. This will mean more customers can take advantage of a service that operates at standing-room-only levels during the morning and evening commutes.
A larger waiting area and improved crowd control operations are essential for the station. Normally, events like SXSW or Pecan Street Festival bring huge crowds to the station arriving and departing in short periods of time, and Downtown Station needs to be able to handle that rush. (Obviously that is different during the pandemic, but the crowds will return.) New waiting and ticketing areas reduce platform crowding during these times, and the tracks are set below street-level so the platform is even with the sidewalk.
For more information, please visit www.capmetro.org.
Source: Capital Metro
