Austin's city leaders and managers at Capital Metro, who are working together on hiring a dedicated urban rail program manager, say the effort is making progress with some interviews for the position having already been conducted.

"I think it's really important to reinforce the idea that it's a system and not a particular component," Mayor Lee Leffingwell said during a meeting at city hall about transit.  "Phase one, [the stakeholders] will be the University of Texas and downtown businesses, but another big component will be state government complexes," he said.

Capital Metro Vice President of Planning, Todd Hemingson, says the ideal candidate will understand that it's not an idea in isolation. "It's got to be communicated to the broader public and the community at large that this is a system," Hemingson said.

Urban rail would begin in the downtown area and be expanded to Mueller, eventually south of the river and onto East Riverside.