Is Austin's Project Connect Off the Rails?

Austin’s Project Connect is getting dragged in the headlines as “off the rails” and “one of the most expensive light rail projects in the country,” so we slow down and fact-check the story with the full timeline. We walk through what Austin voters actually approved in 2020 under Proposition A, why that plan was always based on early design assumptions, and what the new Austin Light Rail Phase One does and does not include. If you’ve been wondering how a 27-mile vision became a roughly 9.8-mile starter line, we lay out the tradeoffs.

If you care about Austin public transit, light rail, CapMetro, and the future of mobility in a growing city, this one is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend in Austin, and leave a review with your take: is Project Connect a derailment or a necessary foundation?

Transcript

Headlines Claim Project Connect Failed

SPEAKER_02 0:18

You may have seen headlines recently claiming that Austin's Project Connect has become one of the most expensive light rail projects in the country. The Texas Tribune recently ran an article titled How Austin's Project Connect went off the rails, giving critics the opportunity to make their case from shrinking plans and ballooning costs to the removal of major components like the airport connection.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

What's lacking in the article is giving equal ink to the supporters who would argue that Austin is experiencing exactly what nearly every major transit project in America has experienced, and that is inflation, political fights, legal challenges, and the realities of building rail infrastructure in an already developed city.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

So today we are gonna do another recap of Project Connect. This is a topic we have covered on the show in the past, and I guarantee we will cover it again in the future. It is near and dear to our hearts. Uh, but we're gonna take a look at what was promised initially, what has changed since the ballot measure that made this a reality in 2020, uh, and ask the question is the Texas Tribune right, is Project Connect truly off the rails?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah. So first, what is Project

What Voters Approved In 2020

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Connect? Again, if you've watched the show, you know that we have talked about it pretty extensively in previous episodes. So if you want to learn more about it, I do encourage you to go back and check out some of those episodes. But Project Connect is an initiative that was approved by Austin voters in November of 2020 through what was then called Proposition A. And at the time, 58% of voters approved Project Connect. Now, this was uh not only a rail project, but there were other initiatives included. One thing that we should note, because this is going to come up sort of throughout this episode about cost, is that these 58% of voters approved a 20% increase to property taxes, which came out to about eight and three-quarter cents per $100 of valuation. I know that's a lot of numbers thrown out at one time. Uh, so the folks in Austin, we we knew what we were uh going to be paying for Project Connect. I think that's very important uh to include there.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Absolutely. Um, and what the plan is as a whole or what was presented in 2020 was a couple different things. Uh, the biggest kind of headline element of this was the light rail. So, in total, 27 miles of light rail with 31 stations, including some potential future extensions that were listed. So the number is a little bit smaller uh in reality, but uh the full build-out would have looked like 27 miles with these uh extensions included. You would have had uh the orange line and blue line as the main light rail lines. Uh, you would have had a downtown tunnel, uh, which was you know gonna cross the busiest streets and kind of separate the light rail from traffic. It was gonna include some, you know, a concourse underground with shopping, all sorts of different elements to it, as well as a connection to the airport.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And there were also bus improvements with four new metro rapid routes planned, uh expanded frequent bus service and other transit priority improvements. Uh, and this also included extensions to services like Cat Metro pickup, uh adding new parking rides, and making some additional improvements to our existing commuter rail, the red line.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yes. And again, we have done a deep dive into a lot of this stuff in two previous episodes where we went through, again, it's kind of more the updated plan, but if you want to see maps of exactly where all this is going and more in-depth discussion about, you know, why the route was chosen in the different locations, uh, I encourage you to check out those episodes, which will be linked uh down below for you. But um overall, though, this initial project that we just outlined here uh was estimated to cost somewhere between 5.8 and 7.1 billion dollars. So uh definitely a big price tag, but that's what folks were expecting at the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And with that upwards to $7.1 billion transit plan, what should also be noted is that when you look at the original 2020 map that was proposed, again, it was a proposed map. It wasn't the you know exact map that Project Connect was going to take. The extensions weren't included in that total cost. So if you look at that map, there are some areas where you have dotted lines that show uh some future potential extensions. Those were not part of the $7.1 billion estimate.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Another thing worth noting, and this was mentioned in the Texas Tribune article as well, is that this project, when they put it up on the ballot, that

The Original Cost Assumptions

SPEAKER_02 4:55

they were basing the cost estimates on a 5% design. Um, this is fairly common when you're trying to put together a project like this, but these really were uh, you know, educated guesses at this point. So leaving some wiggle room for error and and having things adjust is not the most shocking thing in the world, as we've seen with so many transit plans and extensions across the US at this point.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah. So fast forward a couple years, now we're in 2026. We are planning to break ground in 2027, and the Project Connect plan does look a little different than what was proposed in 2020. Now, the current plan, it still maintains pretty much all of the non-rail elements, including the rapid bus lines, the expansion of Cat Petro Cat Metro pickup uh and other services. The major changes came with some consolidations and a change in the rail plan and what they are calling Austin Light Rail Phase One. Uh, it has reduced the total amount of rail miles from the again proposed 27 that included extensions to 9.8 miles, uh, all consolidated into um basically one line with sort of a T shape to it.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, and this new plan would have 15 stations. Uh they would spread from the South Austin at Old Torf, uh in East Austin at Yellowjacket, which is at the end of Riverside, uh, and headed north up to 38th Street on Guadalupe right now. So it hits areas like downtown, UT Austin, South Congress, um, you know, uh it ends kind of near Hyde Park. Uh lots of dense corridors along East Riverside, Pleasant Valley area. So it really does still, though, hit some of the densest and highest ridership areas of the city.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah. And the reason why this plan was reduced, as you said, a previously 5% planned. But we will also get into all of the other reasons of why costs just absolutely ballooned over the last couple of years. But to avoid massive overspending, uh, I think at the time when they were going back and redoing the cost estimates, they had estimated if we built out the system as planned, it would have gone from around $7 billion to over $10, almost $11 billion. Instead of massively overspending or going back to taxpayers and asking for more money, the plan was reduced to fit within the original budget as closely as possible. Now we're not exactly penny to penny on where we were on the previous budget. There are other realities that caused some costs to go up. So where we had an initial $7.1 billion as the uh capital cost, we now also have to tack on about $1.1 billion in uh project financing. So it comes out to a total of about $8.2 billion at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

And that increased price tag, again, even though it's marginal, um, as well as the reduction in scope of what is going to be delivered in this phase one, is what critics have really been hampering on on this. Um, you know, we're paying more and getting less. Uh, and some of the criticisms there are fair, but in reality, there have been so many reasons as to why this has happened. And in some regard, you know, you you you you can look at this two ways, in my opinion. You can either respect that they're trying to keep this within the initial budget and trying to, you know, uh over time set up to be able to build this out further and further. Um, and the other option they could have done was, no, we're building this whole thing and the budget's gonna look, you know, 10, 11, 12, who knows how many billion dollars. And I think that those same folks would have been also complaining of like, even though you're getting the whole thing, you're now spending a significant amount more. And they chose to do what is probably the more financially responsible thing to do in the moment. And again, it was just you had to pick one of those two options, and you know, the funding hypothetically should all be there for this first option. So they went with that route. So, with all that, let's talk about how we ended up in this situation.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

So, first and foremost, there is a giant sick elephant in the room, and that is COVID. No one could have planned for the impact that COVID would have had on the public transit sector or the economy as a whole. Keep in mind, Project Connect was approved in November of 2020. So, yes, the pandemic had already uh started in these earlier phases, but immediately after we approved this plan, things went absolutely crazy. You had construction inflation surging, labor costs all increased dramatically, material prices skyrocketed, supply chains around the world fully collapsed, interest rates rose to some of their highest levels, and property values, especially in Austin, exploded with the population growth and all of the people moving uh from other states into the Austin area.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yes, and that is literally the time that I arrived. I am one of those people who moved to Austin at that time. Lewis, you killed Project Hilly. I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, terrible. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's it was like a perfect

Phase One Becomes A Smaller Line

SPEAKER_02 10:15

storm. And like when you look at all the graphs of uh, you know, property values in different cities and like people moving places, like this is when Austin was just starting to take off like a rocket ship. Now, I'll be curious now, as prices are kind of starting to come down in Austin, if we could end up fortunately with some potential savings there in the future. But regardless, when they were putting together that ballot measure, which probably started well before, you know, putting together the language and everything started before COVID began, and no one could have predicted what would happen to the economy in all of this. So, you know, with that very limited knowledge, of course they they were gonna get it wrong. Like if that was a ballot measure at the end of 2021, I think I think that the budget would have looked significantly different than it did that year before. So that definitely um yeah, cre created issues for trying to estimate what this thing would actually cost in the end.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Absolutely. The 2020 Project Connect budget was built for a world that effectively stopped existing after 2020. Uh and that doesn't eliminate the accountability that Project Connect and ATP and and everybody involved, you know, still has to uh uh adhere to. Um, there is a lot of accountability that has to happen, but it does provide some context on the very unfortunate timing of Project Connect being voted on.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah. Uh another key piece to the cost behind this is that doing a system from scratch, having a starter system, is always going to be more expensive than you know building an extension to something. So a major criticism that's been repeated and is mentioned in this article as well is that this is one of the most expensive projects by a cost per mile basis in the US as far as light rail is concerning. Um, and in the article, it says that the project is exceeding $800 million per mile. Um, if that sounds outrageous, it's because it is outrageous, but the article isn't necessarily being as fair as it could be when it's pulling that number together.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, the the total amount when you bake everything into this $800 million per mile doesn't really consider things that we would think of as one-time costs uh and one-time major investments for, again, setting up a brand new system. It also doesn't include the initial 40% contingency that was built into the budget, which came uh once project or ATP noticed that uh you know COVID was having this big economic impact. They increased their contingency in the in the budgeting. And it also doesn't include the financial.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

And I think that 40% number, sorry to interrupt, that 40% number is huge. Like, I don't think people realize like we're talking it's the the budget is almost double what they're expecting it to be. So like these numbers are there's a lot of flexibility still, even today, in the numbers. Didn't mean to interrupt, but like that 40% number to someone who doesn't pay that close attention is something that they don't think about.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, and most projects don't necessarily have to have a 40%. I don't uh if you're watching and you are screaming at us that we're wrong, let me know. But I don't think 40% is the required amount of contingency for transit projects in general, but they added that extra buffer when they saw that there was a lot of uncertainty on the horizon as costs started to go up. And that contingency is really meant for you know really complex utility relocations and being able to handle those, having to acquire additional properties that you didn't plan for, um, any other design or system changes that are going to further complicate the engineering. That is what that contingency is for. And we have quite a large runway of it in this project. Um, but Austin Transit Partnership with the startup costs, when we talk about these one-time investments, they are building maintenance facilities and operation centers, uh, the new power infrastructure and creating new signaling systems. All of that uh are pieces of the project that could be used for future extensions that you wouldn't necessarily have to pay for again, at least not to the extent that we are talking about here.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

In addition to that, we're talking buying new vehicles. You have to buy the light rail vehicles themselves. Uh, they're building this bridge over the lake, which is a very expensive piece of the project. Uh, all the utility locations that are happening in the densest part of the city, we're building the most expensive, most difficult part of this to build first. The extensions will be

COVID Inflation And The Perfect Storm

SPEAKER_02 14:45

significantly easier in comparison because we're building through the densest parts of town right away. And again, buying the uh necessary property that uh is required along the route as well, again, in the densest, most expensive parts of town as well. So all of these things sort of add up to this perfect storm of you know, building to this very expensive per mile cost.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, so at the end of the day, I don't really like how the Texas Tribune framed this argument about cost because we shouldn't be judging Project Connect's phase one on this initial segment. We need to be judging it against we are building a foundation for a future system that's going to be larger than 10 miles. It may eventually get to 20, 30, 40, 50 miles, but we are making an investment in the future of Austin. And that is how I think that needs to be framed.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Yeah, no, I I agree with you. I think 50 miles is optimistic, but I agree with you. Hey, you know what? Like it's let's be positive, all right? Let's be positive. 50 miles, let's do it. Um, but in terms of breaking this down exactly though, so again, this $840 million per mile is uh the the headline number uh for per mile cost of the Austin Light Rail. But we do have to remove some of these levels to get to a more true cost, if you will. So uh again, as Chris mentioned, financing um that brings the total down to $730 million per mile. Uh, if you remove the contingency, even being generous here now with a 25 to 30 percent contingency, because in reality it's probably gonna cost more than just the initial that they asked for, that gets us down to $580 million per mile. And then lastly, removing some of those initial startup costs, things like buying the vehicles, building the maintenance facility, gets us down to somewhere in the realm of $450 to $500 million per mile. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

And all of this is, you know, estimated. It's kind of hard to pinpoint the exact amounts you would spend for all these startup costs. So take our numbers with, you know, that understanding that it's not those aren't exact um savings, but that's just generally what we could estimate. Austin's cost per mile is still expensive, but it's not nearly as outrageous as some of the critics would lead you to believe. In fact, it is much more in line with what we typically see in other urban rail projects across the country. And some of the example projects that we pulled out are the recently completed Seattle East Link, which was built for around $300 to $350 million per mile. The LA D line extension, also recently completed, famous for the ride the D shirts, uh, completed at around $800 to $900 million per mile. We also have the Honolulu Skyline, which is still in development through this uh three-phase approach where they started in the rural parts and are moving into Honolulu. That's around $500 to $700 million per mile. And then you have things like the New York City 2nd Avenue Subway, which is the most expensive transit project in the country at around $2 billion per mile. So, hey, we're doing better than New York.

unknown 17:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, not uh the New York one is not really uh an exact comparison here. And yeah, I mean to offer like a little bit of pushback on this and play devil's advocate a bit, these comparisons are a bit different. Obviously, setting New York aside, the Honolulu skyline is elevated for the entire thing, fully grade separated, automated metro. Um, the D-line extension is literally a ton, like it's our true subway. Um, and then even Seattle, I mean, you you've got a mix of elevated, there's a small tunnel. So these are coming in at lower costs, but again, um, you know, most of these are extensions. Um, so that's like the the big piece here.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

They're not spending the amount of money on the startup costs, they have the expertise from their systems, they have supply chains already formed because except for Honolulu. Except for Honolulu is doing this from scratch. But all the others, they have these supply chains already formed, they have the expertise, they have an entire world of infrastructure built around making extensions, which are obviously going to find uh you're gonna find more efficiencies and lower your cost.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Right.

The Real Story Behind Cost Per Mile

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Um, if we were to pick one that like looks almost exactly like the types of right-away being used, I like the Phoenix example as well. Phoenix's light rail is generally for the most part running in the center median uh of the roads there. Um again, this is an extension, so not it's it's apples to oranges, but uh 200 million per mile uh is where they're at. Um, so you know, again, is is Austin's uh overly expensive? Yes, but there are there are reasons, and I think that, you know, in time we can improve this. It is still frustrating. Like I I am also frustrated with how expensive it is. I wish it wasn't this expensive, but uh to me it feels like, and I'll get into it a little bit later, uh, in learning some things from the recent ATP board meeting, it feels like they're trying to take steps to head in the right direction, but then sometimes they do things that make you think otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Another thing we need to make sure that is not lost in this conversation is that the total cost of Project Connect is not just light rail. And we mentioned that at the top of the episode, but there are costs that are associated with other transit items. And a frustrating part of this whole conversation and what was uh repeated in the Texas Tribune was that Project Connect has delivered nothing, and that is just absolutely false. So go to those Texas Tribune reporters and the Bill Alshires of the world who say that Project Connect is not delivering and push back because there are absolutely pieces of Project Connect that you can go out and you can see right now.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Those come most obviously with the launch of the two new rapid routes that uh happened in the last uh year or so, two years. Uh, you had both the Rapid 800 Pleasant Valley line and the 837 Expo line. They started on lower frequencies to begin with, but just recently in the last couple of weeks, they have now come to their kind of full promise of operating at every 10 minutes or so on weekdays. Uh, so these are now two new fully functional rapid corridors in the city. Uh, you also have Cap Metro Pickup, which is kind of the on-demand transit service in kind of the lower density parts of towns that were harder to serve by transit, uh operating in several areas throughout the city. And then last but not least, the new McCullough station on the red line serving Q2 Stadium. I actually put on my Austin FC shirt uh for for the app. We were talking about Austin today, so I put the Austin FC shirt on uh to show some love there. So, you know, uh not everything has been built, but they are making progress along the way. Yes, the light rail is like the big shiny object here, but a lot of the more nitty gritty things have been happening along the way.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, absolutely. And there there are two more rapid lines that will be coming in the future. We don't have dates for those yet. So again, we Fully admit it has not been built to the extent that we would have hoped. But that doesn't mean, as you said, Lewis, that progress isn't being made. Uh, there are a couple other risks I want to highlight before we uh go forward, and that is there are still some financial risks to the project that we have to talk about. And the biggest one is that we are currently planning to break ground on the first portion of this project of the rail project in 2027. And that would actually be well before the federal government has grants committed to the project. Right now, we're expecting the federal government to cover over $4 billion worth of the project. It sounds like those conversations are going well, which Lewis, I know you're going to talk about in just a second. Um, ATP is very hopeful that they will receive the full funding. We have reached all of the major milestones that the federal federal government requires as far as the environmental and the planning hurdles go. However, in the Trump administration, in this current administration, uh we have not seen approval for any new starch grants, which is what this would fall under uh in the current

How Other US Rail Projects Compare

SPEAKER_01 23:10

administration or in this current uh uh term. So that is also a little concerning.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah, so uh as Chris was alluding to, I did just watch, uh, we're recording this on June 18th. On June 17th, there was an ATP board meeting. I watched the board meeting this morning, so you don't have to. And the uh the there were a couple takeaways in it that I wanted to highlight, and one of them was on this kind of how is the relationship with the DOT going? Uh, and they actually were sharing some photos from a recent trip that they took to DC to go meet with the DOT. Um, they at least made it sound like they're having fruitful conversations with folks there and that things are going well, and they didn't say anything that made me put up any red flags. Now, I'm not sure that they would, if even if they were getting red flags, if I'm being honest, it also could be that they're meeting more so with like DOT staff who are like staff who work at the DOT regardless of who the president is, and they're not kind of interacting with the political figures who are appointed at the top and who ultimately will unfortunately have final stands, some of this stuff. I don't know. Um, but I think it is positive that they're at least engaging with the DOT in person. Also of note, I noticed Andy Brown was there in a photo who has been on the show when we talked about uh Lone Star Rail. He's the uh Travis County judge. So uh I think that that is of note as well. And maybe we'll try to reach out and see if uh we can get any inside, inside scoop on what has happened at any of these meetings. One other note on this uh in that meeting, they did say that uh I'm paraphrasing a bit here, that they're about one year away from agreeing on the grant amount and triggering the development of the grant agreement. So take that with what you will. I don't exactly know what that means, but it sounds like they're about a year away from figuring out the grant. Uh, so we'll we will all wait uh with bated breath for one year from now to see what exactly that statement means.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, I think that statement could mean that we wait for more transit-friendly administration in two years.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah, yes, we will see. We will see. I do want to highlight one other piece here uh from the board meeting, just to give ATP some credit on trying to find some cost savings because uh it did actually seem like they were trying to do so. So uh I'll go quick on these because I don't fully understand all of it. The first one's pretty simple. They have a dig once initiative where they are working in collaboration with the city of Austin for when they're digging up the roadways to move utilities to be able to put the light rail in, they're going to do so in coordination with the city, and the city will upgrade any infrastructure they need to under the

What Project Connect Has Delivered

SPEAKER_02 25:55

roadway while they've already got the roadway construction ongoing. So that might not necessarily save money on the Project Connect side, but it will save the city money uh in terms of not needing to close the road again and dig everything up again and repave everything again. So I was very excited to see that. And then the second one is a little bit more in the weeds, but it's related to the electricity for running the light rail vehicles. There essentially was a decision, and I'm sorry if you're a technical nerd who's very into the weeds here. I'm oversimplifying this. I might have it slightly wrong, but the principle will still remain the same. Uh, they had a decision point to on whether or not to use 1500 volt traction power or 850 volt traction power to power these uh light rail vehicles from substations, you know, along the line. And at first glance, the 850 volt option would have been cheaper from what I understand in listening to this meeting. Um, and as they look further into it, the 1500 volt option, the higher powered one, was actually cheaper for a variety of reasons that they, you know, would not surface initially. Um, for reasons such as with the smaller power ones, you would need more substations along the line, which means uh taking over, you know, uh more right of way or having to purchase more property to put more substations along the line. When you put those new substations in, you have to move more utilities each time. Whereas when you do these bigger ones, sure, each power station might be more expensive, but you need less of them. You have to move less items in the right of way. And for whatever reason, the buffer zone near the stations or near the line uh for utility relocation was able to shrink from eight feet to four feet. So, you know, you can imagine having, you know, a line here and then having to clear everything within four feet of it instead of eight feet can make a big difference over the course of it. So they did say that there was significant savings there. They don't say what the numbers are at this point, but I could tell that people who are working on this are actively looking for things like this to help cut costs where they can.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

The last thing I will say about the Texas Tribune article that also bothers me about this

Federal Grant Risk And The Timeline

SPEAKER_01 28:05

is that they also didn't really make a good point of what is the alternative. There are folks out there who want to see Project Connect absolutely fail, they want it to go away. I don't think that that is a possibility for Austin. We have already started this project, we already have a plan, and I think that the rail is absolutely necessary for the future growth of the city. But most importantly, is that waiting does not make this cheaper. At no point will waiting have so show that labor costs are gonna go down or that material costs are gonna go down. The longer we kick this can down the road, the more complicated it's gonna get, the more money it's going to take, the more disruption is gonna happen with the city. It just does not make sense to pump the brakes. We have to get this done.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, I agree with you. And like I I just I I there's no good faith arguments, I feel like, against it that are it's all like, oh, self-driving cars are gonna solve the problem. And like we've talked extensively about it. It's like there will be there will still be traffic with self-driving cars. There will still like, oh, more buses. Well, people don't want to ride the bus. Like, so there are it's it's so many of these little things. And yeah, a lot of the arguments to your point are not brought up with like, well, what is the solution then? Because Austin is still a growing city, it will continue to remain being a growing city, and just adding one more lane to a highway is not going to solve the transportation products, uh projects, problems uh throughout the city. So yeah, I I I I agree. I really, really hope that this continues to go in the right direction. Um, it does get nerve-wracking when it's like, well, a year from now, maybe we'll find out on the the grants and everything. I do hope they start construction before then, so that like I feel like once there are shovels in the ground, it will be a little bit harder to stop doing it. Um, but until that point, we will we will have to wait and see.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah. So at the top of the episode, we asked, is Project Connect off the rails? I would say we've maybe had a slight derailment, but that does not mean that we can't get back on track. And I think that

Cost Savings And Why Waiting Fails

SPEAKER_01 30:20

ATP will be able to pull this off, mostly because I don't think we have a choice. And I really hope that the one takeaway people get from this episode is that we're not comparing Project Connect to this 2020 plan that was put out there. You have to understand that the world has fundamentally changed since we voted on this project. We should be entirely focused on making sure that this initial investment in rail is a success, that we can create this high ridership spine that is going to support future growth in the city of Austin, because Austinites, we deserve to have better transit options. We deserve to have light rail in this city. And if Austin, the fastest growing city in the country, if we can't build a rail system, then I think there is a larger question that has to be answered. And is it that as a country in the US, in the largest economy in the world, are we just going to continually fail at building infrastructure?

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yes. So uh I hope that is not the case. I hope that that that map will start to fill in over time. And, you know, we'll start with our current section and maybe that Project Connect map that, you know, we don't want to do comparisons right now, but I do see a future where it starts to get filled in little by little uh over the years. Um, if you enjoyed

Final Takeaways And Listener Feedback

SPEAKER_02 31:50

this episode, please consider hitting the like button. It helps us out quite a bit. Leave a comment below. Let us know what you think of Project Connect in its current state. Um, we would love to hear from you. If you want to support the show, the best ways to do so are via our Patreon uh or buy us a coffee link down below. You can also check out our merch store. With all that being said, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Engines Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

I'm saving that goes back, watch me go.