Downtown Station now open!
We've built a place that both serves our MetroRail 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.
A Mobility Hub
Located at 4th & Trinity Streets, the new Downtown Station and adjacent plaza enhance the area's public space. Its primary function is to make easy connections between MetroRail and other types of transportation. Customers are able to connect to:
- MetroBus service (Route 17 on Cesar Chavez and Route 4 on 7th St.)
- MetroBike
- Electric Cab
- Car-share
- 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 new station opened in October 2020.
Improving MetroRail Service
There are four platforms at the new Downtown Station, allowing us to expand the capacity of MetroRail Red Line service. This means more customers can take advantage of a service that operated at standing-room-only levels during pre-pandemic morning and evening commutes.
A larger waiting area and improved crowd control operations are essential for the station. Normally, events like SXSW or Pecan Street Festival bring huge crowds to the station arriving and departing in short periods of time, and Downtown Station needs to be able to handle that rush. (Obviously that is different during the pandemic, but the crowds will return.) New waiting and ticketing areas reduce platform crowding during these times, and the tracks are set below street-level so the platform is even with the sidewalk.