Thank you for staying up to date with the Red Line Parkway. We’ve been hard at work over the last few months, and will have lots to share this spring, including events near you!

Sponsorship Opportunities

Do you represent a company or do you know someone in your circle that would like to support our work while expanding audience reach? We are seeking sponsors for our 2024 spring and fall event series and our next State of the Parkway. Visit our sponsorship landing page for more information, or reach out directly to Tom Wald to schedule a time to learn more. Spring series sponsorships close soon.

Keep Austin Beautiful Day on the Red Line Parkway

Join the Red Line Parkway Initiative for Keep Austin Beautiful Day, a city-wide day of service spanning 100+ sites in the greater Austin area. We invite you to join us on April 20, 9-11am. We will meet at Airport Blvd. and Guadalupe St., and pick up litter from the Red Line Trail (a.k.a. Red Line Parkway) and Waller Creek between Highland Station and Crestview Station.

This is an opportunity for folks of all ages to volunteer. We'll have refreshments, gloves, and trash pickers. Many thanks to Keep Austin Beautiful! Please register via GivePulse.

We thank our event sponsors

Stay tuned for more announcements of our spring events coming in the next couple of weeks.

Support our work by donating

If you didn’t get a chance to make a donation during Amplify Austin Day earlier this month, take a moment now to donate in an amount meaningful to you.

Eclipse-nic and more

You’ve probably heard that Central Texas will be greeted by a total solar eclipse this April 8th between 1-2pm. The entire Red Line Parkway will experience totality (i.e. the sun is completely covered by the moon), ranging from just over one minute long in East Austin to over 3½ minutes at Leander Station. To make the most of this opportunity, CapMetro has expanded their MetroRail Red Line service that day and is hosting CapMetro's Eclipse-nic at Leander Station. You can view the special MetroRail schedule for that day, and we encourage you to take an early train, since many other people will have the same idea to visit Leander by rail that day!

If you can’t make CapMetro’s Leander Station event, and are looking for ideas, the City of Austin has compiled Austin ideas and nearby area information websites here. 

MetroBike survey until tomorrow

Don't miss your chance to help shape the 10-year expansion of MetroBike, Austin's bike share! Take this quick survey from CapMetro, which closes tomorrow, March 29th. We hope MetroBike will eventually serve the completed 32+ mile Red Line Parkway, including access to all Metro Red Line Stations, and this upcoming expansion will be a great next step.

Red Line Trail Study - Sign up for updates

Thank you to those who participated in the CapMetro Red Line Trail Study Virtual Open House in November 2023. The next open house begins in May, and we want to make sure that you don’t miss it. If you did miss the last open house, you can sign up to receive direct updates from CapMetro by visiting their sign-up page.

Red Line Parkway and Connectors Updates

Lots of work is happening behind the scenes: We continue to meet with our government agency partners on the CapMetro Red Line Trail Study and various stakeholders for several projects along the corridor.

Just completed:

• CapMetro just completed the McKalla Station, including a new Red Line Parkway trail segment between Braker Lane and Q2 Stadium. This will connect with an upcoming Red Line Parkway trail segment that will extend to Walnut Creek Trail.
• The City of Austin completed walk, bike, and safety improvements on E. 12th St. providing additional connectivity to/from the Red Line Parkway in East Austin.

Coming soon:

• The City of Austin is beginning on walk, bike, and safety improvements on E. 38½ St., also providing connectivity to/from the current on-street Red Line Parkway route.

Under design (recent highlights):

• We continue to work with CapMetro, City of Austin, and area stakeholders on the E. 5th St. and Plaza Saltillo Station area rail and trail improvements. Our two major requests–completing the trail gap and providing a crossing at Chalmers–are still very promising.
• The Travis County voter-approved bond project for the Howard Lane Shared-Use Path, where it will serve as the Red Line Parkway, is making headway, with project design anticipated to start as soon as this summer,
• The City of Cedar Park is moving forward with design on a shared-use path along Brushy Creek Road, connecting the 183A Shared-Use Path with the growing Bell District urban center. Though we had hoped this project would instead align along the Red Line itself, the Red Line Trail Study was not far enough along to grant the space along the Red Line. The good news is that there is strong sentiment from Cedar Park staff and council members that the Red Line alignment is still important to complete as a future project.

Major funding secured:

• The City of Austin was awarded a $105MM federal grant to complete the caps over I-35 from Cesar Chavez to 4th Street, where the Red Line Parkway is. In addition, City Council authorized a loan from the State of Texas to secure funding for the remaining I-35 caps, including the caps adjacent to the Red Line Parkway crossing near 43rd St. in the Hancock/Cherrywood area. This is all fantastic news for the Red Line Parkway, and for making the most of an urban highway expansion project that has much of our audience concerned. We continue to work with the City of Austin, TxDOT, and neighborhood stakeholders to design the caps and nearby access and crossings.

Red Line Parkway Tour - Active Towns Video

During the recent national YIMBYtown conference that was convened in Austin, we hosted a narrated bike tour of the Red Line Parkway from Downtown Station to MLK Jr. Station. We were very fortunate to be joined by John Simmerman and Active Towns, who created this video of the narrated bike tour.