AUSTIN, Texas — As work on the huge transit overhaul known as "Project Connect" begins, project managers are looking for a lot of help.
New bus lines, light rail routes and more are all coming in the future as the first phase of Project Connect gets off the ground.
Bill McCamley with Transit Forward said this requires a massive workforce.
"You're going to need the construction workers that we see behind us. We're going to have new trains, new buses. That means you need new drivers. You need new mechanics to keep those things going," McCamley said.
According to the American Public Transit Association (APTA), every billion dollars invested in public transit supports and creates about 50,000 jobs, so this plan will create a lot of open positions.
"It's not just construction workers – you need all of the engineers that can go in and figure out how this works. You need the designers. You need the environmental scientists," McCamley said.
Project Connect isn't the only big project in the works, which is why the Austin Transit Partnership brought on experts like Cesiah Kessler from nonprofit Workforce Solutions Capital Area to partner with schools and government agencies to fill roles.
"We brought what you'll call your job creators, so those that partner with those project sponsors to actually bring people to work, and then our talent pipeline, so anyone who's training, unions, etc.," Kessler said. "We listen to the talent, you know, what are the barriers that they might come across every day to get to to their jobs? And then ultimately from there, collaboratively decide where we can make the biggest impact and start to work on that together."
Construction is already underway for Project Connect outside of Q2 Stadium. Construction workers are hard at work, but when it comes to new routes, new trains, new buses, more transit workers are also needed.
"On top of the current 850 bus operators we have, we need an additional 200 bus operators to meet the need of Project Connect," said Olivia Jones with CapMetro.
Jones started as a bus operator with CapMetro in 1998. She now leads the agency's Operations Control Center and Training Department.
She said with a project like this, every single job plays a crucial role.
"Without mechanics, we don't have available vehicles. And without bus operators, we have no mechanism to move the vehicles to transport our ridership to their destination," Jones said.
But those involved said even with some of the struggles ahead, to know Central Texans will have a pick at these hundreds of thousands of new roles needing to be filled is inspiring.