With Austin's rapid growth, congestion becomes more and more of an issue. Roads are getting more crowded, traffic is getting worse and commutes are growing longer. Inevitably, the discussion focuses on cars, but I think people are missing the point. Roads are designed to move people, not necessarily cars. A sustainable, livable city realizes that automobiles are just a small part of a broad transportation solution. The "Car Culture" miring cities like Los Angeles and Houston is enabled by city councils employing short-sighted downtown development. 

We need to plan growth around moving people more efficiently. How can this be achieved? One way is to increase the number of people who walk, bike, ride public transportation, or share rides. Cycling is my passion, so naturally this is my focus.  Austin often makes the claim of being a bike friendly city, but in reality, this is hardly the case. Cycling is efficient, healthy, quiet, and emission-free. And in a temperate city with 300 sunny days a year, cycling is a very realistic alternative for the urban commute.  

How do we get more people to ride bikes?  Convenience and safety are the answer. Intelligent urban planning will make it easier to get around on bike while making it safer for inexperienced riders. If you need to travel across town, your instinct is to jump in a car and head for the highway. But cyclists don't have that luxury. Worse, bikers are relegated to back streets, circuititous routes, or dangerous, high-traffic thoroughfares. Bike lanes exist, but are disjointed and often hard to find. One of my strongest long-term visions for Austin is to lead the nation in per capita bike commuters. To do this, we must create a system of "bike highways" that travel along existing transportation corridors and reflect genuine commuting needs. 

Another important issue is safety. We need drivers to become more comfortable with bikers and cyclists to be comfortable sharing the roads with cars. This can be accomplished in part with numbers, but the only way to grow the cycling community is to increase the number of bike lanes accordingly. I am going to go against the grain and actually pilfer an idea from the French (though, yes, I realize that Texas is bigger then France). In Paris and many other European cites, hundreds of bike rental stations exist around the city. Citizens can rent a bike and ride it from one rental station to another. If the trip takes less than a half hour, then the rental is free. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14429468). Austin is an ideal test bed to bring a forward-thinking solution like this to the United States. 

Cycling is just a small part of the overall transportation solution. We also need to encourage the use of public transportation. I give mayor Will Wynn credit for getting the ball rolling on public transportation with the new light rail and some of the other solutions he has proposed. But with Mayor Wynn on his last term, if these proposals are to become reality we need a city council who shares his dreams for the future.  

The light rail is Austin's most significant recent development in public transport. I think light rail is a great idea and a number of American cities with rapidly growing populations have proven it as an effective transportation solution. However, there are still some major hurdles to overcome to make light rail a feasible solution. First, the light rail stations have to be located in places that are convenient, close to population and employment centers. Second, it must be easy for people to be able to get to and from these stations. To achieve this we need an integrated city-wide transportation solution. For example, if people choose to ride their bikes to the train station, then we must provide the proper facilities to secure their bikes or to take their bikes on the train. We also need bus routes which can take people to and from the stations conveniently and cheaply. One of the biggest challenges with light rail is going to be encouraging people to use it. If we make it as convenient as possible then people will see that it not only saves them money, hassle and time, but also helps everyone in the city by reducing congestion and pollution.

The final piece of the overall transportation solution is the busses. People who have access to a car tend to not choose to ride the bus because it may take longer, and they have to sit among strangers. Again, we need to give people incentives to ride the bus. Express busses that are timed with the stoplights is a great start. Also, I would install new faster system to speed passenger boarding, instead of waiting until every person swipes their card before the bus starts moving. The city of Austin is already in the process of implementing some of these solutions, but we need someone who is willing to make these issues a priority and get things done as quickly as possible, without losing sight of the long term goals.