Capital Metro’s Red Line

Capital Metro, the transit agency for Austin, is gearing up for a launch of the first rail-based mass transit solution in near a century at the end of this month. The line, running from the Austin Convention Center to Leander, will save the sanity of folks who normally drive U.S. 183.

I visited the Plaza Satillo station during an open house and it’s… nice. There really isn’t much to write home to mom about on this one if you’ve seen any other light rail station. The train itself is nice, room for six bikes, Wi-Fi enabled, a few “VIP” seats that form into a conference table (no, there’s no VIP ticket, first-come, first-serve). I do want to take a round-trip on it and see if I can get any work done while using the conference table. It’s like a coffee shop, except no coffee.

I hope people who will actually use the line are receptive to it. Living near Congress/Oltorf means I’ll never ride the Red Line (except whatever day I choose to kill a morning riding it and back and forth once), but I’m encouraged at this direction for mass transit in Austin.

Green Line (Manor-Elgin), here we come!