Texas Transit Association

A new public transportation plan recommends starting daily bus routes both within and between cities to serve the county’s growing population. Williamson County is one of the largest counties in the state that does not have a fixed-route bus system.

Plan calls for daily bus routes in county
Regional service would let commuters travel between cities, connect to Austin
Austin American-Statesman, March 20, 2003

In a county where the car is king, traveling around Williamson County without getting behind the wheel might be a little easier in the future.

A new public transportation plan finalized last week recommends starting daily bus routes both within and between cities to serve the area’s growing population. Williamson County is one of the largest counties in the state that does not have a fixed-route bus system, the study found.

“We just can’t build enough roads to keep everyone in their cars,” said Marge Tripp of the Williamson County and Cities Health District. Tripp served on the committee that guided the study with other representatives from the county, several area cities and local transportation agencies. Round Rock was not included in the review because it is now too large a city to qualify for rural transportation money from the federal government.

So to get some people out of the driver’s seat, the study calls for launching a regional service by 2006 that would connect commuters from Georgetown, Taylor, Liberty Hill and Cedar Park to Round Rock or the Capital Metro hub in Pflugerville as a way to move them into Austin. Also on the drawing board are plans for local routes in Georgetown, Cedar Park, Taylor and Pflugerville that could provide access to major shopping, medical or education centers within the cities.

These suggestions would certainly help meet the changing transportation needs of the county, which in some places are outgrowing the dial-a-ride system that the Capital Area Rural Transportation System now operates, said Dave Marsh, executive director of CARTS.

In Taylor, two bus routes would run through town to provide access to the shopping areas, schools and medical facilities that are springing up on the north side of town. The buses would run every hour or half-hour six days a week from early morning until night. That kind of regular service would particularly help Taylor’s elderly or disabled residents, who now rely on the CARTS service, which requires reservations and does not run on the weekend, said City Manager Frank Salvato.

“The plan is good,” Salvato said. “It would help a lot of people in Taylor.”

The challenge is in paying for the new system. The price tag for starting both the local and regional daily services is an estimated $2 million. Although state and federal money will pay for part of it, the local communities will have to make significant contributions to create the transportation system, Marsh said.

“There is no firm plan about where (the funding) comes from,” Marsh said. “It is not something that is going to happen tomorrow, because the funds aren’t going to be there.”

But the cities have all expressed a willingness to discuss the plan and consider different money sources when the planning group presents the study to them next month.