After contractual juggling and debates over the alleged dangers of steel rail ties, Austin’s Capital Metro opened its 32-mile MetroRail commuter line between the city of Leander, Texas, and Austin’s downtown Convention Center on March 22, a year later than originally planned.
“The overall integration of the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) system took longer to implement than anticipated,” Capital Metro spokesman Adam Shaivitz says. Last August, board-meeting minutes indicate, a system used for switching from freight to passenger rail had field-test problems.