The state of Project Connect
And should the train go to the airport?
The past week brought a rare piece of good news for Project Connect, the mass transit plan funded by a tax hike voters approved in 2020. It only took two years (that's actually good!) for the light rail system at the center of the plan to get through the federal government's notoriously cumbersome "NEPA" environmental review process.
The project still depends on billions of dollars of assistance from the federal government, which I believe will be less likely to grant it under Trump. But the Trump presidency will, in fact, eventually come to an end.
Hopefully the apparent competence exhibited on NEPA by the Austin Transit Partnership, the agency overseeing the light rail project, is a sign of brighter things to come for the project.
