(Credit: KLBJ staff)
A nonprofit coalition of 50 groups and businesses banded together on Monday to call on the City of Austin to make some major investments into public transportation. Known as ‘Transit for Austin,’ its members include Austin Community College, AARP Texas, and Dell Technologies, among many others. Their end goal is a sweeping overhaul to Austin’s system of public transportation, and a significant reduction in the number of single-occupant vehicles on the major roadways.
Speaking alongside the coalition, State Senator Kirk Watson — long an advocate of public transportation — said Austin cannot take a wait-and-see approach because the population growth is showing no signs of slowing down.
“If we don’t go big, and do it soon, we are lost,” Watson said. “In 1980, 585,000 people lived in the Austin-area. 585,000. Now, there are two million people in the region, and most of them are stuck on I-35, Mopac, 360.”
Transit for Austin is advocating for huge investments into a fully electric system of public transportation, complete with buses and rail. The coalition also want to see changes to infrastructure that would add more bus-only lanes while limiting the number of lanes accesible to general traffic.
Paying for a system of that size would certainly not come easy, which is why Mayor Steve Adler has suggested he may already be looking at putting a bond package in front of voters at the ballots in November 2020. While nothing has been officially announced, some transit experts say nothing short of a $1-billion bond would suffice.
In 2016, voters approved a $720-million mobility bond. In 2014, voters were given a chance to decide on a $1-billion bond package that would’ve led to a new light rail system for Austin, but that measure was defeated at the ballots. It’s not clear how much more support a bond of that size might find in 2020.
