Ridership is a quite straightforward criteria: the number of riders the system expects to serve on a daily basis indicates the level of demand for and success of the system. This is possibly the best starting point we have in evaluating a successful transit system.

Relevant Indicators:

• ATP’s estimates for ridership for each route here

Access to a wide variety of local or regional activity centers is one of the main goals of any transit system. Connectivity is the criteria which measures the degree to which the system facilitates this, whether the access is through a connection directly to a key destination (or within walking/rolling distance), or through additional modes of transportation, such as a bus, bike, or car. 

Relevant indicators:

• Connections to essential and daily needs, such as jobs, affordable housing, and grocery stores.
• Connections to services, such as medical services, gyms, and parks
• Connections to places of personal enrichment such as schools, universities, and libraries
• Connections to personal and group entertainment, such as museums, movie theaters, bars, and clubs
• Connections to forms of transportation that fill in the gaps (BRT, bike or vehicle shares, pedestrianized areas)

A key factor in the continued success of a light rail system is the rider experience. Even if a route is connected well and can handle high ridership, if the rider experience is consistently negative, people are much less likely to use it. Major factors in rider experience can be measurable, such as frequency and speed, or more qualitative, such as accessibility and comfort.

In order to achieve our mobility goals our light rail system will need to be attractive and useful to both transit dependent and all purpose riders. So Rider Experience is of critical importance to the success of both Project Connect and Austin mobility as a whole.

Relevant indicators:

• Route Frequency
• Average speed
• Reliability
• Accessibility 
• Comfort

It’s also important to note that certain indicators, like Route Frequency, are ridership multipliers. So we would get significantly more bang for our buck out of any expansions (or in the initial build) for a system with higher frequencies and similar indicators.

Expandability is how easy the system will be to expand from the completion of the first phase of the system. It’s a measure of the potential for the rail system to grow to accommodate more riders and lay track to complete the original vision of Project Connect in the future. Or better yet, become even bigger and better than the original Project Connect vision. 

More critically, the initial rail options that have a line “forking” to Oltorf visiting South Congress will be easily expanded in the same way onto South Congress. These two options are:

Relevant indicators:

• Disruptiveness and flexibility of future expansions
• Political feasibility of expanding in each direction after phase 1 is built

Good transit systems have priority for multiple modes of getting around, which includes pedestrianization. Pedestrianization is a priority for urbanists in its own right.

Since there are very few areas that are fully pedestrianized downtown currently, there’s a lot that can be gained by prioritizing good pedestrian spaces next to transit. This not only improves accessibility of transit, but creates great, memorable, public spaces.

In all of the options, the Drag has been mentioned as a candidate for pedestrianization.

Relevant indicators:

• Potential pedestrianized blocks for each scenario

A comprehensive transit system can connect people from all backgrounds to opportunities. Community Reach is a criterion for evaluating a light rail system based on the extent to which it serves different neighborhoods or districts within the city. Equity ensures that regions and people of all backgrounds have access to opportunities.

Relevant indicators:

• Number of districts covered
• Low-income & minority neighborhoods covered

Ratings will reflect ATP’s metrics on the number of affordable housing units within a ½ mile of each stop, detailed at https://www.atptx.org/about/light-rail.

• Grade Separation
  • Partially covered as part of Rider Experience but does not have its own criteria
• Airport Connection
  • Partially covered as part of Connectivity but does not have its own criteria

If you’re interested in reading the full evaluation you can read our comprehensive evaluation rubric document.