Westgate Transit Center

The Westgate Transit Center is a new Park and Ride facility and bus transit station intended to serve South Austin’s public transit riders through a partnership between Capital Metro and TxDOT.

The project is tucked away under the main lanes bridge structure of Ben White Boulevard, entirely within the TxDOT right of way. The project consists of a 10-bay bus transit area, an operator’s restroom facility, and a 203-space park & ride with associated utilities and drainage. The site design incorporates low-impact development features such as direct rainwater irrigation, solar power, and electric vehicle charging stations.

Capital Metro selected Halff under an existing IDIQ contract to prepare design plans which would accommodate these features. Construction phase services included providing submittal review, responses to RFI’s, site visits, participation in progress meetings, and record drawings. Halff and the subconsultants provided survey design, civil engineering, landscape architecture, architectural, structural and MEP design of the restroom facility.

There are numerous structural concrete columns that support the elevated highway above the site that must remain in place, some of which have internal storm drain downspouts that daylight at their base. These physical obstacles constrain vehicular circulation, act as visual barriers causing safety concerns, and create drainage issues for the proposed improvements.

Halff engineers worked to provide an efficient layout maximizing the number of parking spaces, allowing for internal circulation of buses and passenger cars while accommodating the downspout drainage through naturalized channels which adds to the aesthetic appeal of the site.