AURA is pleased with the CapMetro’s announcement of a renewed focus on the user experience of the bus system. The staff presentation at the June 25, 2018 CapMetro board meeting mentioned an array of improvements, including stop upgrades, schedule optimization, and service reliability. We are especially excited for shelters that actually shelter: shade screens at bus stops are essential in a Texas summer. (Or a Texas Fall, or a Texas Spring, for that matter.) But, after years of a focus on suburban and “choice riders” it is refreshing to see commitment to the city’s humblest, most important transit mode.

Buses are the workhorses of public transit in America, where in every city except New York and Atlanta buses carry more passengers annually than rail. This is certainly true in Austin, where there are 31 trips by bus for every trip by rail. Even if Project Connect proposes and implements a region-wide light rail system, buses will continue to carry more passengers in Austin than rail for decades to come. Thus, investment in buses is investment in the future of transit.

Cap Remap is another aspect of that investment. While there are tradeoffs in service, AURA’s position is that frequent routes work substantially better than the system of infrequent, more indirect routes they replaced. CapMetro’s recent adjustment to Route 350 shows that they are taking seriously the need to fine tune the system to address problems.

The City of Austin must step up and also commit to investment in Austin’s principal mode of transit. AURA again calls on Austin transportation department to dedicate right of way to transit, starting with extending transit priority lanes from downtown past UT as envisioned in the Guadalupe corridor plan. Going forward, we would like to see the Strategic Mobility Plan contain a robust policy of transit priority across the city. In addition, because every transit trip starts and ends with walking, the city must invest in safer streets, safer crossings, and a full sidewalk network.

We also call on CTRMA and TXDOT to use their vast resources to meaningfully improve transit in the region. CTRMA has built shared use paths alongside their toll roads, and allows CapMetro buses on their express lanes on MoPAC and this is good, but small in the grand scheme of their capabilities. For the cost overrun on the MoPAC express lanes alone, CTRMA could have funded the entire city of Austin bike master plan. Similarly, for the cost of rebuilding one overpass over I-35, TXDOT could build 80 miles of sidewalk.

CapMetro’s announcement is important and encouraging, but it is just the start. It will require ongoing cooperation and dedication from the city and the regional mobility agencies to create a modern bus system and a truly multimodal city.

Austin began its pilot program allowing dockless bikes and scooters in May, 2018. Despite the limits placed on deployment during this period, the pilot has powerfully demonstrated the potential of tiny vehicles to give Austinites greater mobility, augment the reach of the Capital Metro transit system by solving “last mile” problems, and take a giant leap toward achieving Austin’s Big Jump goals. If Austin is to be as innovative, progressive, and forward-thinking as our reputation and own self-image, we must “go big” on this innovative new low-carbon, low-cost, zero-pollution mobility option. There are two major fixes to the pilot program necessary for it to achieve its full potential as a learning tool:

ELIMINATE AUGUST 1 “LOCK-TO” REQUIREMENT

One major self-imposed obstacle looms as a barrier to continued pilot success: the August 1 deadline for dockless vehicle companies to add locks capable of being tied to a bike rack. This rule would have severe negative consequences for the pilot program:

• Many companies would not be able to continue to operate because they lack vehicles with this particular locking technology.
• Due to Austin’s low number of fixed bike racks, if all dockless vehicles made use of these, there would not be enough room on racks for all of dockless vehicles, let alone room for private bicycles.
• Dockless users prompted to use a lock may lock vehicles to things other than bike racks.

Chicago, one of the only other cities to impose a “lock-to” requirement in its dockless pilot, has recently reversed its decision, allowing dockless vehicles to continue without lock-to requirements.

The small percentage of poorly parked dockless vehicles are a real issue but this is not the solution. The solution that two of the dockless companies have implemented — requiring users to take pictures of their parked vehicle at the end of the ride — has already impressively cut back on poorly parked vehicles. Similar efforts at user nudges may be possible while retaining the core notion of dockless vehicles.

REFORM AND EXPAND VEHICLE CAPS

The initial cap of five hundred permitted vehicles in the DAPCZ has allowed the city and its residents to get familiar with this mode of vehicles. This experience has shown that these vehicles are a major benefit to Austinites, but  five hundred vehicles is not nearly enough for dockless vehicles to be a reliable mode of transportation. At the present level, many pollution-free, low-carbon dockless trips go untaken because the nearest dockless vehicle is too far away to be useful. Individuals hoping to rely on this as a true mode of transportation have found that the pilot rules result in spotty and uneven dockless availability.

• Raise or eliminate the limit. 500 vehicles was an arbitrary starting point. Now that we have learned more as a city, it is time to update the rules.
• Change cap from permitted vehicles to simultaneously deployed vehicles. Originally, the rules were conceived for dockless bikes. A much greater percentage of a dockless bike fleet tend to be deployed at once than a dockless scooter fleet, which need to be recharged. As a result, electric vehicles become less and less available through the day, as vehicle batteries wear down. Allowing permits to be easily transferred to new vehicles would encourage dockless operators to remove non-functioning vehicles and replace them with functioning ones.
• Apply separate to each vehicle mode For those companies with multiple vehicle modes, this would allow experimenting with different modes, giving more information to Austin about the potential needs different vehicle types create.
• Rethink rules outside the DAPCZ Two months into the start of the dockless pilot, ATD has yet to issue incremental permits for vehicles outside the DAPCZ. This represents a great loss to all Austinites who live, work, or spend time outside the DAPCZ. When zero companies have received permits, it is time to evaluate whether part of the permitting process is too onerous. The point of the pilot is to learn about this exciting mobility option, not to restrict.

REORIENT AUSTIN TOWARD THE BIG JUMP

Transportation innovations are announced all the time but opportunities like dockless vehicles — adopted spontaneously by users, without need for cumbersome education campaigns, are few and far between. When an innovation perfectly aligns with our city’s vision for reducing our city’s expensive and polluting addiction to single-occupancy automobile transportation, we must take advantage.

In light of these new developments, it is time to redouble every step that the city was already taking toward making the city a more bicycle-friendly place — from bike racks to bike lanes to two-way streets to traffic calming. We have been presented with a golden opportunity and now is the time to seize it!

Contact: Dan Keshet 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 5, 2018

Austin, Texas — AURA released the following statement today about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recently-filed lawsuit against eight individual volunteer members of Austin’s Planning Commission:

AURA is appalled that Fred Lewis and Austin’s anti-housing groups have succeeded in enlisting Attorney General Ken Paxton to target Austin’s all-volunteer Planning Commission. The slap in the face to hundreds of hours of work by dedicated volunteers is intolerable.

Fred Lewis and Austin’s anti-housing groups will work with seemingly anyone to put shelter further out of reach for hardworking Austinites. His Faustian bargain with Tea-Party demagogue Ken Paxton is a new low. It comes on the heels of an anti-CodeNEXT petition campaign spearheaded by these same groups and financed by corporate billboard lobbyists intent on dismantling Austin regulations, aimed at subverting the political representation granted to working-class Austinites by the new 10-1 City Council system.

Austin City Council must stand up to Ken Paxton: it should defend the Planning Commission and the work they’ve done on CodeNEXT. AG Paxton is intent on dismantling local regulations that seek to uphold environmental protections and community health. Paxton’s suit against the Planning Commission is but the latest example among the litany of state-level attempts to erode local control. He has fought to overpower Austin for years, on issues such as paid sick leave, tree ordinances, and plastic bag bans. Austin’s anti-housing groups would make our city vulnerable to Paxton’s right-wing vendetta in order to stymie hundreds of hours of volunteer work to increase affordability and address displacement.

Local organizations fighting new housing and resisting a future for the next generation of Austinites have aligned with an Attorney General who openly despises our city and our shared principles of equality, sustainability, and inclusion. We hope and believe that the Paxton-Lewis alliance will open our city’s eyes to the moral bankruptcy underlying the relentless attempts to deny housing to current and future Austinites. 

AURA remains committed to the CodeNEXT process and the hard work completed by our Planning Commission. We will continue to work towards a land development code that is fair and equitable for all Austinites.

AURA is an all-volunteer grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.

Contacts:

• Josiah Stevenson, 832-466-2785, josiahstevenson@gmail.com