It passed unanimously, but the real struggle on this may come next week when the Council votes on ballot language and a few procedural matters. Proposed projects, many of which owe their origin to the Mayor's "Year of Mobility" initiative and the additional heat put on by greater constituent input following the implementation of the 10-1 plan, include mostly roadway improvements. But also in the plan are bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, a generous sidewalk allotment, and some public transit tweaks.
According to transportation reporter extraordinaire Ben Wear, "Approval of the proposition would increase the city’s property tax rate by 2.25 cents per $100 of valuation once all the debt has been issued by 2020, city financial officials have said. That increase — about $56 a year on a $250,000 home — would remain in place for about 20 years and grow with increased valuation of property over time." [more]
But that figure is assuming voters approve the entire amount. District 6 City Councilman Don Zimmerman said via Facebook he would prefer voters have choices on the ballot, rather than be faced with one, gargantuan transportation bond in November:
My effort to separate the transportation modes (i.e., separate Bond item for road congestion relief, separate item for bike plan, separate item for urban trail construction, etc.) has support from [Council members] Troxclair and Houston, but we need 6 votes to separate out the issues.
Austin watchdog blogger Adam Cahn had this to say about a lack of clarity he noticed:
The problem is that the city's transportation department can't implement this proposal in anything resembling a competent or timely manner. That's why we testified (twice) back in June that we wanted to see the city present a "credible plan for execution" when they came back in August. In other words, we wanted to see how they would get from point A to point B.
Six weeks later...they won't even commit to a firm location for point B. There literally isn't even a specific list of project[s] to which they're committing. There's a phase for that: BLANK CHECK (and a $720 million one at that). [more]
Increasing capacity of Austin's roadways is a priority for The Tracker and we'll have more on this as things develop. Meanwhile, we dedicate this song to Councilman Zimmerman:
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Image credit: City of Austin website
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