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What is your vision for the future of high capacity transit in Austin?

Mariana Salazar

City Council, District 1

  • I believe long-term investments in public transit are vital for our growing community: we can’t build our way out of congestion with roads alone. Growing in a compact way and decreasing sprawling developments will allow our transit to reach the critical ridership needed to expand service. We must work towards more public transit investments e.g. by supporting a 2020 transportation bond and lobbying Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRM) to fund multimodal transportation options.
  • Throughout the city, and in particular in District 1, we should be investing in high-capacity transit options, like bus-rapid transit (BRT) lines.
  • As a Council Member I will look at all the work already underway – from the City’s Sidewalk and Bicycle Master Plans, to Vision Zero and CapMetro’s Project Connect to help bring these projects to fruition.
  • In general, we should be encouraging CapMetro to increase their ridership by increasing quality of transit service and ensuring an effective network of routes. Currently we have frequent north-south city routes but not enough east-west routes for District 1 residents. We need a better network overall so that riders can access all parts of the city throughout the day. We need to continue to leverage technology to improve rider’s transit experience.
  • We should also be encouraging CapMetro to use its limited transit dollars more efficiently. CapMetro should be developing better and more efficient routes, tied directly to ridership data, instead of creating inefficient routes like the Red line – a route estimated to have less than 2,000 weekday riders, with an estimated annual taxpayer subsidy at $15K per rider.