We interview Carmen Llanes, an Austin mayoral candidate, GAVA community organizer, and activist. We ask her about all things transit in Austin including I-35 expansion and Project Connect.

#1 Additional (For the non-Austinites): We PROMISE episodes are coming that are NOT focused on Austin. Stay Tuned!

#2 Additional (For the Austinites): Due to time constraints, we did not go as in-depth on Project Connect. You can see Carmen's full position here:

Carmen: "As I mentioned in our conversation, I think Project Connect in its original planned form is much closer to the vision of transit that Austin deserves than what we have been given the ability to fund and build in the taxation mechanism and reduced plan for implementation as most recently presented. The entire city is paying for Project Connect but the benefits are all slated for the central city, where we don't see a majority of our pressure to commute, and that's an unfortunate pattern in Austin's inequitable approach to financing its infrastructure. Now, without a direct route to the airport or a downtown plan that doesn't make crosstown traffic compete with the rail line, I think there is growing discontent from voters who supported something different from what we are now getting. There are a lot of questions now arising, and with the legal challenges, I fear that the whole plan's funding mechanism is at risk. 

As far as the impacts, I know too many people who were displaced by the sharp increase in taxes over the last five years, to places with even fewer transit options. Those increases coincided with a massive inflation in Austin's land values and a pandemic that disproportionately devastated communities also impacted by gentrification and economic displacement. Furthermore, most of these areas were already going to have to wait 10-20 years for any rail to come near them, and now those plans seem completely economically unfeasible. 

That said, all hope is not lost! We still deserve rapid transit and we still have a tax base and a population that widely supports that investment! We'll have to see what happens to the ATP. For now, they are required to invest a lot of this money into light rail which does place some limitations on what we might do with bus-rapid transit or other new infrastructure (autonomous vehicles, etc), but it also allows us, in the near future, to alleviate the need for buses along those specific areas and re-route those buses to crosstown and circulation routes that improve our ridership. If the funding mechanism is stopped in the courts, then we need to refashion this as quickly as possible to re-route the investment in true transit solutions. This cannot and will not be the end of Project Connect.

I also believe it's critical that we plan for more equitable prices and rates. Currently, riding the rail costs triple what riding the bus does and we can't go in with inequitable rates. We need to make this transit truly accessible so that it gets used. I think we could already start some free bus fares and routes and marketing of these things to get ridership up. I hear so many long-time Austinites say, "Bring back the Dillos!" which is debated by some, but it's a conversation we need to have! Our future of transit requires more participation and more conversation with those who know our transit system best. I know I'm still on a learning curve. "

You can learn more about Carmen's campaign here: www.carmen4mayor.com

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