Austinites aren't the only ones who
are bringing some change to the new
year. The airport in Austin will
be undergoing some modifications in
2026.
More gates, more flights, more
construction.
The change is happening at
Austin-Bergstrom, plus a major
milestone has been reached in the
construction of a new water delivery
system underneath Lake Travis.
Once it's finished, the system is
expected to increase the water
supply for Cedar Park, Leander,
and Round Rock to 145
million gallons per day and reduce
vulnerability to drought.
We've got those stories coming at
you next.
The Austin Signal is a production of
KUT News hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
And maybe you've decided to cut back
on alcohol to start the year.
That doesn't mean your drink should
be a boring one.
We've some recipes that'll jazz up
your 2026.
Coming up next on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, thank you for
tuning in. This is Austin Signal.
It's Wednesday, January 7th.
We are completing our first full
week of 2026 and
we're very glad you're spending part
of it right here with us.
This is listener-supported public
radio, KUT News.
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
Let's get into today's show.
The Austin Bergstrom International
Airport will be undergoing a few
changes in 2026.
It's a story that KUT's
transportation reporter, Nathan
Bernier has been following.
He was out at a press conference
held at the airport this morning,
and he's here in the studio with us
now for an update.
Howdy, Nathan. Hey, Jerry.
So, take us back a little bit,
I know this goes to August of last
year, City Council approved an
expansion to the airport, and also a
new deal that made that expansion
even bigger?
Yeah. So basically what happened is
this expansion really, it's been in
the works for years.
It got paused during COVID
because, you know,
because, and, uh,
and then after COVID
people started flying in
droves. Yeah. Yeah.
The numbers really went up.
Yeah. And so they started the
expansion, but they never really
knew exactly how big
the expansion would be.
One of the biggest pieces of this is
something called Concourse B,
and this is a standalone facility.
It's like a new building with at
least 20 gates connected to the
existing Barbara Jordan terminal by
an underground pedestrian tunnel,
and the renderings show a moving
walkway, so, you know, it'll make it
a little bit easier for you, Jerry.
Yeah, yeah.
But, so anyway, what
happened late last year is
the city finally
negotiated 10-year
lease agreements with the seven
biggest carriers.
At Austin Berksham International
Airport, like those with the biggest
presence, Southwest, Delta American,
and those were finalized
by the airlines in
recent days.
So those 10-year
contracts give the
city a couple things.
Number one, a very clear idea
of how much gate space
these airlines are planning to lease
over the next decade.
And now this Concourse B, for
example, that's slated to
open in the early 2030s, so within
the next decade.
So it gave them how much an
idea of exactly how much gate space
we can get into that if you want to
talk about specific airlines.
I mean, Southwest is looking to
perhaps more than double its
presence.
The second thing it did is it gave
the city the ability
to borrow against that,
those contracts.
So the airport expansion, it's
now pegged at over $5 billion.
City doesn't have that.
And this money, by the way, does not
come from property tax.
I was gonna ask you, where does it
come from?
So it comes from loans that
are repaid with airport revenue.
Now, and some of it is paid up
front, it's not all loans.
Some of this is like literally, you
know, the airport takes in a lot of
money. They charge the airlines,
they make a ton of money from
parking. So you can think about that
every time you stay in the red
garage for a few nights, you're
helping for the airport expenses.
Especially after the holidays.
So, so that, so now it's all coming
together. And today they finally
said, this is exactly
how many gates we are planning to
open and the number is,
you wanted me to say it?
32 gates.
Now that's not all concourse B.
So this is something that, uh,
people may be less familiar with
concourse M.
So concourse, B I told you about
that. That's going to have a
20.
Six gates, 26 gates,
Concourse B, we didn't know that
until today, they're going to open
with 26 gates most of those are
going to southwest, they are going
be the new anchor tenant of
Concourse b, then there's something
called Concourse M, M stands
for midfield, so this is like
a pre-manu, the
term the airport official used with
me was pre-engineered, a building,
basically they're gonna put a
building in the middle of
the airfield And you'll get to it by
going down to gate 13 in the Barbara
Jordan terminal, hopping on a bus,
taking a three to five minute bus
ride to Concourse
M. And that's gonna have six gates.
Some of them will be kind of like
the south terminal now where you
literally walk onto the airfield and
like walk up a flight of stairs to
get on your plane.
There'll be a couple, some of them
we'll have actual jet bridges like
the tube, the tunnel you walk
through to get onto the plane.
But right now they don't have any
airlines committed to Concource M.
Their initial plan is to use it for
like flight diversions or maybe
charter flights. And they hope
that they can convince.
Airlines, this is something you want
to use. Now, Allegianton Frontier
are currently in the South Terminal,
which is going to close in the
spring, so they can knock it down
and make space for more
taxiways.
So maybe Allegiantont Frontier will
operate there? I don't know.
I asked an airport official back
today. They said, you know, no one's
committed yet. So right now,
Allegentont Frontiers are going to
be just in the Jordan terminal, as
far as we know, as we know for now.
Okay, well, we have been speaking
with KUT's transportation reporter,
Nathan Bernier. As I said, he was
out at the airport today.
He's gonna have more coming up later
on KUT.org and
we will have that story in our show
notes. Nathan, thanks for coming on
the show.
Glad to be here, Jerry, thank you.
Alright, well central Texas cities
get their water in a mix of
ways. North of Austin, the Brushy
Creek Regional Utility Authority
just completed a major milestone in
getting water to the residents of
Leander, Round Rock, and Cedar Park.
That's underground tunnels beneath
Lake Travis.
For more about this, we're speaking
with KUT's Hays County reporter,
Kailey Hunt.
Kailey, thanks for coming on the
show.
Hey Jerry, how's it going?
I'm doing pretty well, how are you?
I'm good.
Alright, so tell us about
this project.
What is it and why was it
implemented in the first place?
Yeah, so you know it's really
interesting. This project actually
dates back about 20 years,
all the way back to 2006-2007,
which is actually when the cities of
Cedar Park, Leander, and Round Rock
came together to form the Brushy
Creek Regional Utility Authority,
or as you might known as the BCRUAs,
people say.
Much simpler.
And, yes, so,
and what they
decided was that these cities
together was that they needed a
safe and reliable, but more
importantly, cost-effective way to
supply water from Lake Travis to
these three fast-growing cities.
And so that was
priority number one.
Second, as we've gone through
the years, we've had some terrible
droughts, right? We've covered that
quite a bit at KUT.
Mm-hmm. So the other part of
it was they needed to make sure that
they were constructing a system that
would be quote drought resilient
right allow them to continue
to draw water from Lake Travis even
when those water levels drop.
Yeah, so now that they have these
tunnels underneath Lake Travis,
that's how they are planning to get
their water. A few more steps to
come, we're going to talk about
that. First I want to ask, how do
they get their water right now?
Yeah, so that's perfect.
You kind of need to know how we're
currently getting our water to kind
of understand how this new system
is really going to help us out.
Mm-hmm.
So currently the cities of
Leander, Cedar Park and Round Rock
use what are called floating barges,
which is like those big like flat
bottomed boats and ships
that you often see.
And so we have these barges that are
located all throughout Lake Travis
and they have these pumps that
are attached to the bottom.
And that's how we actually pump
water from the lakes and then those
are connected to the pipelines that
go to our water treatment plants.
So.
The problem with these barges
though, Jerry, is that during
extreme droughts they
can actually sink and
bottom out and at
that point they're only gonna be
pumping out sand and not water.
So the idea is
that with these new tunnels and by
drawing water from deeper parts of
Lake Travis, we won't have to
worry about that during droughts.
We'll still be able to continue to
pump water just because we're in a
deeper part of the lake.
Okay, that makes sense.
So tell us, as I said, this is a
major milestone that these tunnels
are completed, but there are still
steps to be taken.
What is the next one?
Yeah, so again,
really significant amount of work.
This is a five year project.
It started in 2022.
So we're about three and a half
years in now.
They've completed all the
underground components.
So that was a big milestone.
Still to be completed though is
a big pump station which is
gonna be able to pump all of this
water.
Mm-hmm.
Back to our cities in Leander Cedar
Park and Round Rock.
And apparently Jerry is so big that
they had to get these pump
parts like custom made in
Spain. So we have that
to look forward to.
And then also on top of that too,
the BCRUA is also concurrently
doing an expansion of its water
treatment plant.
So, you know, right now we're
talking about drawing water from the
lake. Well, that water isn't
necessarily clean or ready to drink.
So that's where the water treatment
plan comes in.
So. With the expansion of that,
then the cities will see more
available clean and treated water
available as we go forward into the
future.
Excellent. Well, we have been
speaking with KUT's Hayes County
reporter, Kailey Hunt.
We're going to have a link to her
reporting in the show notes and over
at kut.org
slash signal.
Kailey, thanks for talking with us.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Jerry, you too.
And thank you for spending part of
your Wednesday here with listener
powered public radio.
This is Austin Signal on
KUT News.
We're coming up on a break and after
the break, you know, we've been
talking all week long about
resolutions and making yourself a
little bit better.
Perhaps you've given up alcohol to
start 2026.
That doesn't mean that your relaxing
drink should be a blah one.
We're going to have ways to spice it
up, spruce it up and jazz up
2026 that's coming up next.
And it's right here on Austin
Signal.
This is Austin Signal, thank you
for tuning in today.
We are completing the first full
week of 2026 today
and for many of you out there, it
might mean day seven without any
alcohol.
Now you've probably heard of dry
January by now.
Abstaining from drinking during the
first month of the year has been on
an upward trend recently, but
for some this one month stint
can also kick off the idea of a
much longer break.
And some folks are choosing to stop
altogether and for many
different reasons.
And as more people are choosing to
avoid alcohol, options for
non-drinkers are also expanding
beyond sodas and sparkling waters.
Here to tell us more and share a
few mocktail recipes, we're talking
with Chris Marshall.
He is the founder and owner of Sands
Bar, an alcohol-free cocktail bar
here in downtown Austin.
Chris, thanks for joining us here on
Austin Signal.
Jerry, thank you so much for having
me. We are glad to have you here,
and we're excited to get these
recipes. But before we start there,
just because you're taking alcohol
out of the equation doesn't
necessarily mean that a nice
relaxing beverage has to be
a blah, right?
Absolutely. I think there's a
misconception around non-alcoholic
beverages. People think that it can
just be either soda,
water, or just a sugar bomb.
And I really do believe that adults
deserve adult beverages that
taste elevated and interesting.
And that's, I think that's the
beauty of Dry January.
It gives everyone an opportunity to
try something new.
Yeah. And tell us a little bit about
Sands Bar. How long have y'all been
operating in Austin?
Nine years.
This is coming up on nine years
and so we started off in East Austin
a couple years ago and then moved
downtown about three or four
years ago and it's just
been a remarkable journey
just to watch this idea that
I had a couple of years ago of
non-alcoholic beverages really
Transform into something that I've
been able to start here and take off
over the world.
It's been really interesting to
watch when I was
in college, I definitely
participated in alcoholic beverage
consumption.
And as I've
run Sands Bar and just been out in
the community, it's amazing to see
how many people come into the
bar and they're really excited about
trying really great drinks.
I think there's just a
move away from.
Socializing that's centered around
alcohol. I think alcohol will always
be a part of social life and
we're not prohibitionist by any
stretch of the imagination, but we
do observe so
many people who are just interested
in a life without
putting alcohol in the center of
their socializing.
And Austinites certainly enjoy
going out and enjoying themselves
with a nice drink, a nice meal,
and doesn't mean that alcohol
has to be part of that equation.
So speaking of that, let's
transition and talk a little bit
about the recipes that you brought
us today to share with
our listeners. Let's start with the
first one. What do you got for us?
All right, I got a sage blueberry
gin and tonic.
Okay, that doesn't sound boring at
all, you know? It doesn't sounds
like, no disrespect to sparkling
waters, I love my sparkling waters.
But sometimes they'll just be like,
lemon. Lemon Lime.
Say that again?
The sage and blueberry gin.
Gin and tonic.
Okay. So what is in that?
So the first thing is a
non-alcoholic spirit. I think that
that's a really important thing to
just kind of note off the top, that
there are a lot of great non-
alcoholic spirits that kind of
mimic the flavor of
spirits.
There's a lot great nonalcoholics
wines that do the same thing, that
have the same
profile that you would expect in a
traditional wine without the
alcohol. So this is a kind
of a play on a gin and a tonic, we
have some blueberry
sage Simple Syrup
We have a non-alcoholic
gin and tonic water.
So think of your G&T, give it a
little bit of sage, that earthiness
and just a bit of sweet on the
blueberry. It really is a nice
kind of spring to summer
drink here in Austin.
Yeah.
Feels very fragrant,
you know, I can smell that
blueberry, I'm almost being
crushed in the drink, it sounds
delicious.
Okay, let's go to the second one,
what do you have for us there?
So if you do like a little bit sweet
and I'm a person who's kind of
partial to sweet drinks.
I think that there's nothing wrong
with a little bit of natural
sugar. So this one is
something you can make today.
You can go home and probably have
the ingredients at home.
It is what we call the lady bird.
Whoa, that sounds good and sounds
very Austin very okay.
What what what do you what do we
need to make that one?
So for the ladybird, we have
muddled strawberry, three
or four sprigs of mint,
half ounce of lime.
I'm going to muddle that up really
good. Throw some ice on top and
you can top it with either club soda
or my favorite ginger beer.
And that way you got this
really interesting drink that's got
the citrus, it's got the mint, it
all kind of working together to
give you something that's just more
than your typical ginger
beer
Okay, well I gotta say,
I can feel my stomach rumbling.
The muddling of strawberries, just
those words together sounds very
good.
But I do have another question for
you, brought to
mind by the name of the first drink.
It has gin and tonic in the name,
even though it is a mocktail.
And getting ready to talk to you for
today's episode, we realize here
at the show that mocktail, there's a
kind of, it's a topic of debate.
What is the dispute there?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of
debate around the
word mocktail because for
a long time mocktail just
meant juice and soda.
And I think this idea
that that is an infantilizing
word to use.
Now I personally believe in
reclamation and reclaiming what
words mean and I believe that we can
make mocktail mean something
interesting and complex.
You know these these
recipes that I've given you today.
Some have the non-alcoholic spirit,
some don't.
But I do think that we can,
you know, kind of remix it and say
non-alkalic cocktail or in a
cocktail. Those are okay things.
But look, I'm okay with mocktail
because when I go to a bar and I
order a drink, I want to be very
clear that I want something that
doesn't alcohol.
All right, well I have one last
question before you get
out of here today.
You mentioned that you're no
prohibitionist by any stretch of
the imagination, you used to partake
in alcohol and now you run Sands
Bar, an alcohol free cocktail
bar.
What is a piece of advice you would
give to somebody who's trying to
abstain from alcohol, maybe just for
January, but who knows,
like I said, maybe it'll grow into
something bigger than that.
Yeah, I would just say, approach it
with curiosity.
See what this month means to you.
We have alcohol
part of every part
of our lives, right?
From sports to socializing
to philanthropy, right.
Alcohol is everywhere.
And just imagine what your life
looks like when you remove alcohol.
If you try to go
on a break and you realize it's
harder than you thought, that's just
information.
That's just your body and your brain
saying that hey, I may lean on
alcohol more than I realize.
And if that's the case, there's
always resources.
But I believe that everyone can
enjoy a great non-alcoholic drink
and I enjoy having
friends who do both, right?
I think that there's just no shame
or stigma in your
relationship with alcohol.
Excellent, we have been speaking
with Chris Marshall, the founder
and owner of Sands Bar, that's an
alcoholic-free cocktail bar in
downtown Austin.
Chris, thanks so much for the
recipes and for your time today.
Thank you.
This is Austin Signal.
Thank you for spending part of your
Wednesday right here with
us. Let's talk a little live music
now.
Music in general, actually.
Here to help us out is our friend,
Maile Carballo from our sister
station, KUTX.
Howdy Maile. Hey.
Hey Jerry, happy Love Austin Music
Month!
Happy Love Austin Music Month
to you. I think that's why live
music was on the brain, you know?
Oh yeah. But before we talk live
music, because I know we got a lot
of cool live music happening this
weekend here in Austin,
KUTX started off the new year with
some great news, lots of recognition
and some nominations.
Tell us about this poll.
Absolutely.
So what's happening right now?
A little love. It's Love Austin
Music Month, but the Austin
Chronicle also just put out their
44th annual Austin
Music Awards Poll Nominations,
nominated by just a
slew of industry professionals,
myself included, but-
Oh, wow, humble brag.
Yeah.
I'm over right there.
No, I'm kidding, but
Well that's why we bring you on,
because you are an industry expert,
you know?
That's precisely the reason
why.
But yeah, KUTX has gotten a lot of
love alongside just amazing,
amazing people in the industry.
KUTx is nominated for best
radio station.
I believe Taylor Wallace also has a
nomination for best Radio
Personality.
Mark Fort also, who is
also on co-op radio.
So just a city full of a lot radio
love right now.
Absolutely and also some
love for our audio engineer Jake
Perlman, you know, Jake, you don't
hear his work a lot But you hear him
as an underwriter.
You know his voice real smooth.
Yeah. Yeah, and there is a real a
Huge recognition a Susan Castle.
What is she up for?
Susan Castle, you know her, you love
her, she's up for the Austin
Music Industry Hall of Fame.
So yeah, personally, I would love to
see her in there because she
deserves it just to the moon
and back. I love that woman.
But yeah, there's over 53 categories
in the poll right now, anything from
best band of the year, radio station
to miscellaneous instrument
player. So all of the recognition
for all the great people out there.
Yeah, we would love to see that
recognition for Susan.
We are lucky at KUTX to
have had quite a few music
industry hall of famers, Jay
Trachtenberg and all these other
folks.
So how do people actually vote?
Absolutely, so you can actually open
up a physical copy of the Chronicle
and scan a QR code.
I know, I wish you could cast
a ballot.
Send in a ballot, yeah.
Right?
Right? But you can actually, at
Free Week this weekend, they are
having a show and you can cast your
ballot in person.
But if you are on the interwebs,
just as a normal person does on
their day-to-day, you can casting
your vote at vote.austincronicle.com
Excellent. Well, get out there and
vote. I believe you don't have to
vote in all of them, right?
I believe like 25 maybe to get
like a chance at winning a South by
something like that.
Yeah, so if you do vote in over
25 or more, you do get your
name entered, your email entered to
win a 2026 music
wristband for South By.
Okay, well we have about 20 seconds
left. Do you have your free week
plan ready for this weekend?
I do. I will be seeing Tear
Dungeon on Thursday, which is an
unofficial free week show, but
Mohawk, it's going to be great, and
of course the KUTX show on Friday.
Absolutely, we had the KUTX
Morning Drive Time host, Taylor
Wallace, in with us on Monday to
talk about the KU-TX Showcase
and a few more of her
recommendations.
You can listen to that over at
kut.org slash
signal. And we have been speaking
with Maile Carballo from KUTX.
Maile, thank you for your time.
Thank you, Jerry.
And thank you out there for spending
part of your day here with Austin
Signal.
That's it for today's show.
We'll be back tomorrow and we'll
talk to you then.
Kristen Cabrera is our managing
producer and Rayna Sevilla
is our technical director.
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
Talk to you then.