Always wanted to try riding the bus? Now might be your chance to start.
Starting on June 3rd, our city’s public transportation provider is launching Cap Remap, a massive overhaul of our city’s bus routes.
(As you might remember, Cap Remap comes out of a process called Connections 2025, which was a large-scale planning effort launched by Cap Metro to increase ridership on its transit services.)
Here’s what’s coming with Cap Remap:
- 14 high-frequency bus routes (with buses coming every 15 minutes or faster). Currently, Cap Metro only has six.
- More direct routing for the bus system
- The closure of some bus routes throughout the city.
The closure of bus routes has been the controversial part. In an effort to more efficiently utilize its resources and boost ridership, Cap Metro decided to close some bus routes and focus more of its money on increasing frequency along other routes with the potential for more ridership.
This led to a lot of debate over the merits of trying to attract new riders (who perhaps don’t need to use public transportation, but in doing so could help to address our region’s traffic and environmental problems) versus serving Cap Metro’s current riders. However, as the Austin American-Statesman reports, Cap Metro officials have said that the new plan will almost double the number of low income people living within a quarter-mile of a frequent bus line.
If your bus stop is closing, there should already be a pink sign hanging there to let you know of the change. You can either check out this website or call 512-474-1200 for help in finding new transportation options.
How can you explore the new Cap Metro bus system?
In order to encourage new riders to check out its more frequent bus service, Cap Metro is offering free rides from June 3rd to June 9th. You can try out some trip planning, as well as investigate all of the system’s bus routes here>>
