a. Eliminate Cost of Living, Maximize Quality of Life – Our entire platform is determined
by the focus on elevating our species into a higher state of consciousness and peaceful cooperative behaviors. To accomplish this, we must divorce ourselves from the unholy union of money as a method of accessing resources of planet Earth. Once we transcend this commodification of Earth, our subsequent behaviors will be defined by building a cooperative system of transitioning our social structure to exceed everyone’s basic needs. Once we are successful, every member of our tribe will have Water, Food, Shelter, Energy, Transportation, Education, and Telecommunications as basic rights. To be a member of our tribe, we all contribute in ways that benefit the entire community. We will accomplish this objective through addressing each of these sectors one by one, and employing maximum incentives for volunteering, resource investment, and cooperative business. Thus, the realm of Currency, Meritocracy, and Capital will shift into Innovation, Creativity, and the economy of Attention. Money will be a tool that can no longer control anyone’s dignity or freedom, but rather fuels the entrepreneurial spirit in our nature. The People of the City called Austin will become a city of 1-4 million FREE people, who earned that freedom through our sweat equity, our efforts, our cooperative sophistication. The People of the City called Austin will become solutions-creators for the entire planet, no longer mired by the futile meanderings of paying to live on Earth.
b. Freedom of Transportation, an Ancient Ritual – The way we’ve designed cities in general goes against our primal instincts, and ancient behavior of freely roaming. All sorts of barriers, walls, and blockades divide us into fragmented pieces, coercing our movement into predetermined and rigid channels. So, we must do our best to restore a healthy sense of freedom in how we get around. It’s crucial everyone feels at home in every neighborhood of Austin. Any iteration of a public transportation system we develop should always seek to eliminate the costs of maintenance and operation, while increasing the accessibility to a growing population, and increase the efficiency of traffic flow.
c. 2020 Bond, or Budget? – Transportation is such an important priority for Austin, we
need to find ways of including this in our budget asap and creative ways of financing with incentives and cooperative resource sharing. I generally support bonds when building foundational infrastructure to seed/catalyze new and crucial systems; however, I don’t want to get us in the situation where we need to continually put bonds on the ballot and worsen our affordability problems. We need to build the right systems that will last the longest and serve us the most effectively. A 2020 transportation bond should be very clearly defined in terms of protections for the people’s money, so we don’t repeat the transportation infrastructure mistakes of the past. We need to transcend planned obsolescence.
d. Massive Infrastructure Acceleration Through Contributionism – When it comes to
building roads, bridges, or other transportation infrastructure, we need a massive acceleration method, so these projects don’t bleed public funds and hinder our ability to travel during long construction timelines. When an overpass or intersection is under construction for long periods of time, it causes a direct inequity to those who must commute through these areas. This is time spend stuck in traffic they could have spent with their families, being an entrepreneur, or spending quality time on their health and wellness. So, as such, it is crucial we implement a mass labor force with the mission of accelerating the construction of transportation infrastructure. Once an infrastructure project is decided, engineered, and ready for implementation, a group of volunteers, around 5,000-10,000, will be recruited and assembled. These volunteers will participate in the construction of the project. Their time commitments will be simple, one 5 hour day, once per week. For as many weeks as it takes, these volunteers will be grouped into highly organized and specialized teams, each team trained to carry out one very simple and specific task. Over the course of these training weekends, perhaps it is 12 or so, they will learn safety, protocol, fundamentals, and become fully prepared to execute their task as a team upon the day(s) of construction. The actual construction, once started, will last as short of time possible, possibly even 24-36 hours, because each small team will be so prepared to execute hyper-local, micro-tasks. This volunteer force will receive great incentives for contributing their labor to this crucial and beneficial community project. We can offer them free utilities for a number of years perhaps, and/or property tax exemptions, and/or their names engraved in the project as valued and cherished timeless members of Austin’s history, or frankly whatever it takes to create mutual and shared benefit to the community and the workers and the experts leading the teams. Whatever costs we incur by deducting their utilities or taxes can be absorbed through abundance-driven systems, and the benefit of completing much needed infrastructure far outweighs the short term absorption of resource consumption.
e. (Density Zone) Transit Web – We need a Rail/Subway/Urban Train system that
connects all the density zones, runs along major streets, highways and corridors, and extends its reach regionally. We should include all ranges of travel, with (a) local network of quick and frequent stops, such as along Lamar, (b) commuter lines, such Buda to Round Rock, with very little stops, very high speeds, (c) Regional high speed connections to San Antonio, Waco, and perhaps even west on 290, 71, & east on 290 to Bastrop. As we expand in population and increase economic freedom, it’s important we have high speed access in and out of the city from all directions, so we can minimize vehicle congestion and increase innovative opportunity. All directions pointing to Austin can be a great thing, as long as the people are free.
f. Autonomous Shuttles – Aside from the network of trains getting us across the city at
high speeds, we will need a more advanced system of ride-sharing and autonomous vehicle cooperation on the roads. We will likely arrive at using some sort of a bus- shuttle-hybrid, that can adapt it’s exact route based on the more specific needs of the riders on board, who can interact in smart ways to improve traffic flow. This can scale and swap with various sizes of vehicles in real time to meet the rider needs of the area. For example, during high traffic events, large shuttles could automatically adjust their routes to accommodate for the high number of riders, and then later re-adjust back to their usual routes. Entire patterns can shift over time or seasonally, in an organic and instant adjustment based on rider behaviors.
g. Multi-Level Transportation – It’s very dangerous to have pedestrians, bikers, scooter-
riders, buses, tourist vans, ride-sharing company and taxis, and urban car commuters sharing the same space, all trying to squeeze their way into movement on the same light cycle. This is the most basic explanation for why we have congestion on the streets: we have a bunch of differing frequencies on the same channel, causing dissonance. Especially downtown and other density areas, it’s likely we will need to thoroughly explore multi-level transportation. This means having subway/train/busses on one level, cars and parking on one level, and pedestrians/bikers on their own, likely the top open air level. This may seem extreme once hearing it at first, but we can accomplish such a system, and it may accommodate us much better for how transportation is likely to evolve over the next 150+ years. We will need innovative technologies and engineering to accomplish this, and this will be a proud and fun challenge for the geniuses of Austin.
h. Constant Flow Traffic – Why do we not have intersections that enable constant flow?
Meaning, why do we not have over-under setups at every intersection, so whether you’re turning right, left, u-turn, or going straight, you never have to stop? It’s quite simple, and again would require engineering creativity and infrastructure investment, but wouldn’t the end result be marvelous? Imagine never dealing with a red light again. Combine this with human-autonomous-hybrid operation and smart vehicles, and we would eliminate our reputation for being a congested city, and become a model for the world in efficiency of movement flow.
i. Open-Source Modeling for Traffic Solutions – All of these aforementioned are ideas
likely to improve our transportation system and provide the most equitable access to the entire city for everyone to enjoy and create abundance in. While conceiving of these solutions, we must provide a platform for every idea to shine. This is why we will create a game, accessible by mobile app and desktop to everyone. This game is a sort of VR- GoogleMaps-Sims reality, wherein Austin becomes a playground for anyone to build their own infrastructure solutions, upload them to an opensource and public network, and using traffic and city data from the last 20+ years, plus projections on future growth, model out how their solutions may look when actually implemented. Instead of placing our burden narrowly on a small team of innovators, why not open source the process to everyone so we can truly find the best ideas, and then filter them through the practical engineering protocols. This also increases our probabilities of finding the optimal model, since we will have the most unpredictable outcomes for solutions, and miss fewer probable blind spots.
j. Austin People’s Car Company – The People’s Cooperative Trust model is valuable for
many things, including innovative business ideas. Imagine what we would come up with if the smartest inventors came together in their free time, being incentivized by the community and profit sharing potential of the venture, and instead of competing viciously, form a hive mind of creative potential. What kind of vehicles could be conceptualized and built by the People’s cooperative company? How many billions of dollars in revenue could we generate by licensing and selling our creations to other major cities across the planet? How could we use this revenue for the betterment of life on Earth? (this theme is important: are we limiting our potential by relying on taxes and extraction for our budget? How much larger could we grow our budget by earning together through sweat-equity creation? by how much value in solutions we bring to the world? Imagine the cooperative potential of i.e. app development, hemp products, non- toxic home products, superfoods, entertainment, etc…)
k. Incentivized Zero-Emissions & Conversions – We need to get serious about air
quality. In order to become the healthiest place on Earth, we need radical incentives to either purchase a new zero-emissions vehicle, or to convert an old vehicle to zero- emissions. This is again an opportunity for innovation, because if the Austin People’s Car Company comes up with a way to produce a safe, powerful, and long-lasting zero- emissions vehicle under $10,000, then we can literally sell billions of them and use that revenue for investing in our community. Charging station infrastructure is also crucial, and a cooperative model empowers and motivates us to be the innovators, since again this is a crucial need for all major cities and transportation routes worldwide. (Again, the peoples cooperative trust is a business that is formed, owned by the people, profit sharing, and designed to maximize human potential and accelerate us to a better life for all.)