From new design plans and major contract bidding to legal hurdles and progress toward billions in federal funding, these six updates track how Austin’s light rail endeavor, Project Connect, advanced throughout 2025.

1. Light Rail preliminary design plans released
The agency tasked with building the city’s light rail, Austin Transit Partnership, released a draft of its environmental impact study Jan. 10, kicking off the first in a series of major milestones slated for the upcoming year.

The document outlines several proposed adaptations from the last plans released for the rail system, which date back to 2023, when transit officials reduced plans for the rail by roughly half.

2. ATP recognized for community focus
Project Connect was honored March 26 by local nonprofit Community Advancement Network for the initiative's work toward collaboratively addressing community needs.

3. ATP opens bidding for $3B Austin light rail contract
Austin Transit Partnership officially launched the agency’s official solicitation process for a design and construction contract worth an estimated $3 billion.

City leaders have detailed how more than $5 million of Austin's social service contract funding will be reallocated to support the city's fiscal year 2025-26 budget. The service shifts and cuts follow the failure of Proposition Q's tax hike and passage of a trimmed city spending plan this fall.

The details: Finance staff reported during this fall's budget revisions that many city social service initiatives would face reductions. Nearly a month later, those changes were detailed in a memo from City Manager T.C. Broadnax shared with council members Dec. 17.

A total of $5.28 million of Austin's more than $74 million allocation for social services will be reduced or reallocated, mostly covering public health and homelessness response. Nearly $17 million across social service contracts is projected to be cut next year.

The city will continue to look into social service contracting this year, including possible program mergers and updated performance measures, as part of a wider citywide efficiency process launched this fall.

A city of Austin pilot program aimed at making left turns safer is showing strong early results, according to a new report from the city’s Vision Zero program. The study found a 46% drop in left-turn crashes involving pedestrians and an 82% reduction in related crash costs.

Explained: The pilot tested low-cost, “quick-build” safety changes at 16 signalized intersections in 2024. These improvements were designed to slow turning vehicles, improve turning angles and make driver behavior more predictable. City staff tracked turning speeds, angles and crash outcomes throughout the pilot.

Between 2020 and 2024, Austin recorded 204 crashes involving left-turning vehicles and pedestrians at signalized intersections, accounting for about 13% of all pedestrian crashes. The new treatments reduced injury crashes involving pedestrians by 46% and cut crashes involving other vulnerable road users by 32%.

Of note: The city estimates the community is saving about $3 million annually in emergency response, medical and related costs. Officials will continue monitoring the intersections and may expand the program citywide if results hold.

Austin’s attempt to keep in place a local ordinance limiting low-level marijuana enforcement has likely ended more than three years after city voters adopted it.

Residents passed the “Austin Freedom Act,” or Proposition A, in May 2022. The two-part ballot measure prevented local enforcement of some drug-related misdemeanors including marijuana possession, and also banned Austin police from executing “no-knock” search warrants.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued several cities including Austin over similar marijuana enforcement policies last year, claiming they conflicted with Texas drug laws, and an appeals court eventually sided with the state's push to block Austin's policy. The city sought further review of its case from the Texas Supreme Court, which was denied in December.