AURA and several City Council candidates are holding a press conference on Wednesday, October 15 at 9:30 am in front of City Hall to announce that the candidates have taken a pledge to push for real solutions to our transportation problem.
Austin’s streets are full. Moving more people is going to require a much better public transit system. Proposition 1’s urban rail plan—on which AURA urges Austinites to vote NO—is controversial. But the need to improve our transit system is not controversial.
For the first time in Austin’s history, candidates across the city have pledged to take concrete action toward improving Austin’s transit system within their first 100 days in office. This pledge was written by AURA, a grassroots organization that fights for abundant transit and abundant housing for all Austinites. We encourage Austinites to read the pledge at AustinNeedsTransit.com.
By taking the pledge, the candidates have committed to following a few principles to ensure that Austin’s next rail proposal isn’t controversial.
- The candidates will work to make sure that future rail plans reduce our costs, like good rail plans do around the country. It’s smart to make a large investment up front to reduce the annual costs to move each person via transit, but so far Austin’s rail plans haven’t had that goal.
- The candidates will spend at least as much effort improving our bus system as they do on rail. Even when we build more rail lines, the vast majority of transit riders will be on the buses that run through the whole city.
- The candidates will support the density required for great transit across the city. Capital Metro isn’t the biggest problem with our transit system. The problem is that Austin is too spread out for transit to be great—the last census says we’re 24% less dense than Houston!
Join us Wednesday morning as we show Austinites which candidates are dedicated to improving transit in this city.
AURA is a 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:
- Niran Babalola, AURA member: niran@niran.org, 775-576-4726
- Brad Absalom, AURA Urban Rail Working Group chair: bradabsalom@gmail.com, 214-236-3293