AUSTIN (KXAN) — More and more people are ditching cars and choosing public transit, according to Capital Metro’s latest ridership data.

“We saw a year-over-year 8% increase in ridership across our system,” said Sam Sargent, Deputy Chief of Staff of Capital Metro. “As Austin grows, more people here in Central Texas have been using Capital Metro and using public transit.”

Downtown MetroRail station scheduled to open next year

Friday, Cap Metro offered a tour of its construction site on East Fourth Street in Austin. They’re building a brand new Metro Rail station.

“Before we began the downtown station project, we had seen continued ridership increases on Metro Rail as more people began to live out in northwest part of our system,” Sargent explained.

Marcus Guerrero, Project Manager at Capital Metro, said, “The project was really designed as a long-term station, so with the three tracks and space up to four trains, maybe potentially a fifth train in the future, it’s a long-range station.”

According to Guerrero, the new center platform will be much longer than the old platform. They’re also making sidewalk and bike lane improvements and adding a plaza to an area near Brushy Square.

Metro Rail runs from downtown Austin to Leander.

Last year, the downtown station shut down altogether for construction. Cap Metro saw its rail ridership decline due to the closure, but saw its Metro Express ridership skyrocket about 25%.

Those are buses that run from Austin to Park and Ride parking lots in the suburbs.

Metro Express and Metro Rail run every 30 minutes during peak hours.

Meeting the increasing demand

Sargent said they have extended Metro Rail’s Saturday service recently. It used to stop at Lakeline, but now it goes all the way up to Leander on Saturday nights.

“We’ve seen a lot of good ridership out of Leander on Saturdays. We’ve seen a lot of families who are trying the system for the first time,” he told KXAN. “We do plan on increasing the frequency on Metro Rail, especially once the downtown station project is completed. We know the demand is there for Metro Rail, especially as you see a lot more apartments and housing going up on around Howard, Lakeline and Leander “

The new downtown station is scheduled to open next spring.

But Capital Metro will need to address another issue in order to run the trains more often.

“Right now, there are only two places in our system where trains can pass one another, and that really constrains what we can do with the 32 miles worth of track,” Sargent said.

He said too many trains without enough passing points would cause a back up.

“Thanks to some federal grant money though, we’re currently expanding the number of passing points,” Sargent said. “We’re expanding the downtown station, of course. All of those things are going to allow us to get down into the 12-15 minute frequencies.”

Sargent added, “Our goal is to make the best use of the assets that we have, and we expect that next year, we’ll be able to increase the frequency.”