Public transit hot topic at conference

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Several city leaders attended a housing and transit conference on the University of Texas campus Friday afternoon.

Capital Metro CEO Linda Watson, Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Austin Councilman Chris Riley were among several listening to speakers from all over the country talk about how to better blend public transportation and connectivity with affordable housing.

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“We have a ways to go. Our public transit system is good by Texas standards, but not so good by U.S. Standards," Riley said. "There are an awful lot of peer cities that are out in front of us on that. And so we have a lot of work ahead of us. There will be a lot of work over the coming year as we get ready for an election next fall that may well include a rail item. Because rail is a critical part of transportation planning if we're going to be talking about transit-oriented development.”

“We've got a light rail system that's about 55 miles right now," said Alan Matheson, with Envision Utah.

Matheson was one of several speakers giving a presentation at Bass Lecture Hall in the LBJ Library on the UT campus. He said there was no interest in rail in Salt Lake City about 15 years ago -- that's until his city won the bid for the 2002 Olympics. By, 2002 there was a light rail system in place to serve the citizens.

“It's still not the majority of our travel mode, but it's enough that it's really taken the equivalent of one of the lanes of freeway traffic off our main corridor during rush hour,” he said.

Matheson said the big reason it also moved forward is because voters continually passed referendums that helped fund the project.

“Austin is making some strides there, but it seems like the transportation system, especially in terms of transit, can be accelerated a little bit. And I think you'll see that there will start being a catalyst for economic development and additional development in parts of the community,” Matheson said.

“I think the thing about Austin is the public policy environment is tough right now,” said Lisa Davis with the Ford Foundation. “There's not a lot of affordable housing resources in Texas. Tax policy makes it very difficult to fund transportation at the level it needs to be funded.”

“Our development regulations are still kind of stuck in that post-World War II era, when we really envisioned sprawling out at the edge and that's what we've got," Riley said. "So, we're going to need to do some adjustments to those regulations to foster the kind of urban developments that can accommodate significant population growth centered around transit so that people don't have to drive every single place they need to go and congestion can be relieved for the rest of us.”

Many city leaders are focusing on urban rail to curb the gridlock and public transportation issues. The proposed 16-mile project could connect UT, the downtown area, the Mueller development and the Austin airport.

A chunk of the $1.2 billion price tag could go up to voters in November 2012.