Project Archive: Downtown Station
We built a place that both serves our CapMetro Rail customers and provides a grand welcome to downtown. Downtown Station creates a great public plaza that ties together transit, the Convention Center and surrounding hotels and businesses.
Ready to Ride?
A Mobility Hub
Located at 4th & Neches, the new Downtown Station and adjacent plaza enhance the area's public space. Its primary function is to make easy connections between Rail and other types of transportation. Customers are able to connect to:
- Bus service (Route 2 on Cesar Chavez and Route 4 on 7th St.)
- MetroBike
- Electric scooters
- Austin's bicycle trails
- With more to come through Project Connect, Austin's comprehensive transit expansion program
Station Overview
The station features parasol structures mounted on columns. The pentagonal roof atop each column not only offers a striking visual welcome to downtown, but it also provides overhead protection for riders as they wait for, enter or exit the trains.
Construction began in March 2019 and the station opened in October 2020.
Improving Rail Service
There are four platforms at the new Downtown Station, allowing us to expand the capacity of our Red Line. A larger waiting area and improved crowd control operations are essential for the station.
Events like SXSW or Pecan Street Festival bring huge crowds to the station arriving and departing in short periods of time, and Downtown Station needed to be able to handle that rush. We added waiting and ticketing areas to reduce platform crowding during these times, and the tracks are set below street-level so the platform is even with the sidewalk.