The traffic in Austin is terrible. The roads are unsafe. High transportation costs (e.g., vehicle, gas, insurance property taxes to pay for roadway maintenance, crash costs) are a burden on households. Though I am an avid cyclist, riding my bike everywhere I can, not everyone will walk or bike in hot, cold, or rainy weather, and transit does not cover every area of town and can take a long time. We need to think differently about transportation to reduce costs, improve options, and create a safer, more sustainable system. 

 

Our roadways should be made safe for low speed modes such as neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), golf carts, and
e-trikes/quadbikes.  A grassroots movement has been happening around the US of people choosing low speed modes for grocery shopping, school drop-offs, commuting to work, going out, shopping, and meeting neighbors. NEVs  are a fun, practical, and affordable mode that improves mobility and safety – and and they increase the capacity of existing roadways. I have successfully advocated for infrastructure for low speed modes in Central Texas transportation plans and will continue to do so for Austin.

We need safer, more efficient roads that follow the “safe systems approach,” which focuses on designing roadways to prevent crashes and not relying on driving behavior alone for safety. Traffic signals are dangerous and inefficient (how much time in your life have you wasted sitting at a red light?). Austin’s  traffic signals should be replaced with roundabouts, just as the City of Carmel, Indiana, did with great success. As a civil engineer, Lower cost “quickbuild” roundabouts can be deployed without having to rebuild the intersection. I’ll bring that level of expertise to city council

 

I support efforts to reduce the amount of land used for parking; however, since cars continue to be the primary transportation mode for most Austinites, we have to couple parking policies with proactive plans to prevent or mitigate the negative impacts of spillover parking in neighborhoods, such as reduced neighborhood walkability and residents unable to find parking for their own vehicles. Installation of sidewalks and residential permit parking and/or parking management districts prior to parking restrictions, for example, helps mitigate/eliminate spillover parking. When I was a planner at the City of Austin in the early 2000s, I started the parking benefit district program (now called parking & transportation management) and encouraged car-sharing policies because I saw a problem that needed win-win solutions neighborhoods could request. 

 

I’ve lived long enough and studied transportation engineering (PhD) to know that highway and roadway expansions do not work; the traffic congestion, and frustration, returns within a few years. Instead, we can increase capacity and efficiency without expansions through a variety of ways (e.g., roundabouts, improved connectivity, low speed modes, enhanced commuter transit). I will be a vocal advocate on Council and with CAMPO and TxDOT, for shifting away from “roadway expansion as usual” to a new, more effective, multi-modal, and lower cost transportation future.

 

I want excellent transit with high ridership that prioritizes being of benefit to the residents of Austin and their everyday travel needs. I have been recognized twice by the American Public Transportation Foundation for my research and thought leadership on transit. I am pro-transit, but I do not support the Project Connect light rail project. The Project Connect light rail is the wrong transit technology and route. Austin’s future demands we make thoughtful decisions now, so I oppose light rail for the following reasons:

* Now shortened to 9.8 miles for a cost of $8.2B, the light rail technology and route was not selected to maximize serving the populations that need frequent and effective transit for their everyday travel needs.  

* Street level light rail consumes limited street right-of-way (ROW) that could be used for wider sidewalks, street trees, and lanes for low speed vehicles, bikes, and trikes. Businesses are being displaced as a result; this is avoidable.

* Street level light rail is inherently unsafe for pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, and car occupants. The vehicles are heavy, operate up to the speed limit of the roadway, and can not avert a collision because they are on a fixed rail. The safety statistics are troubling, especially since street level light rail is proposed along the busiest pedestrian corridor: Guadalupe Street next to the UT-Austin campus. According to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) report 0234, light rail has the:

• highest rates of injury to occupants in other vehicles and to pedestrians not in crosswalks compared with any  other transit mode;

• second highest number of fatalities of pedestrians in and not in a crosswalk, following transit bus.

• second highest number of fatalities to pedestrians/cyclists;

• highest rate of injuries occurring at pedestrian or street crossings; accounting for 83.2% of total light rail injuries.

 

Those concerns warrant stopping the project and re-opening a community discussion about creating the best transit system that is safe and works for Austin’s transportation needs. 

 

Austin should consider increasing responsiveness and service areas with on-demand transit, improving transit travel times and safety with elevated transit (e.g., monorail, and sky gondolas (all used successfully in other cities)), and aim for higher ridership with routes that reach more people, especially in areas with households dependent on transit or in most need of reducing transportation time and costs.

 

From my graduate studies in transportation and for the year I spent as a single mother with two kids without a car (2013-14), I know how difficult life in Austin can be without access to a car or reliable transit. Let’s Keep Austin Moving.