About the Coalition

We're a group of business-owners, taxpayers, home-owners, renters, parents, community activists, current and former elected officials, data nerds, and transportation policy wonks concerned for the future of transportation, mobility, safety, and affordability in our growing city.

We have nothing to gain, personally or otherwise, from rejecting Project Connect's rail plan. We simply believe Austin could be better served by smarter investments and New Mobility solutions. Nearly ten billion dollars is an unprecedented spend for our community, let's move forward - not backwards.

Our Founding Principles

One

Enhanced mobility improves quality-of-life, and our unique mobility needs are diverse.

Two

We believe increased density, traffic congestion, and an ever-rising cost-of-living has lowered Austin’s quality of life, especially for our most vulnerable and marginalized citizens.

Three

We must lean into emerging technology trends in mobility to reduce the number of cars on the road.

Four

Technology-driven New Mobility is the future, providing greater access to opportunity, less traffic, and a more equitable, affordable Austin for all.

Five

Fixed-route/fixed-schedule rail systems like Project Connect are ineffective and obsolete. A public investment of this size could better serve all of Austin.

Six

Austin is uniquely positioned as a tech-forward, innovative city that should embrace the future of transportation – not the past.

Read our full position paper

This document lays out our vision for alternative investment, and reveals how costly Project Connect will be for all Austinites.

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Our mission is to assist citizens in guiding the City of Austin and CapMetro to pursue a New Mobility plan that is both efficient and cost-effective, maximizing the mobility benefits of all Austinites – not just those in affluent central/downtown Austin. This New Mobility plan must recognize the current and fast-approaching innovations in mobility technology.

The first step is to defeat the proposed transit plan called “Project Connect.” This plan will raise every citizen’s taxes and significantly to fund the first segment of a massive, obsolete, ineffective transit system, with 90% of the initial $10 billion plan being allocated to develop three light rail lines with downtown Austin tunnels. This will result in 100% of Austin’s citizens highly subsidizing less than 1% of the projected regional riders who choose to ride the light rail for only an average of 2.5 miles per trip. In return, all citizens will suffer higher costs-of-living, increased congestion, worsened gentrification, and lower quality-of-life. The city has no responsible plan to fully pay for the development and operations of these light rails, without massive tax increases and little measurable benefit to the remaining 99% of citizens.

The cost of this light rail system will shackle and burden many future Austin generations from access to funds necessary to address general community and mobility needs based on the reality of the future. The proposed outdated transit plan must be defeated to allow Austin to serve the greater good of its citizens and remain a leading, innovative city in this great state and nation.

In light of COVID-19, it would be unconscionable to double-down on Project Connect’s rail plan that will only serve a minuscule portion of Austin at a time like this. Let’s move forward – not backwards.

Austin has an opportunity to be a leader in truly innovative transportation solutions unlike any other city. While we reject the expensive, ineffective rail plan proposed by Project Connect, here are a few future-focused solutions we can implement today that will bring real and lasting relief to our traffic woes:

"Connected and Automated vehicles will change the face of transportation and mobility in the 21st century and beyond."

— City of Austin, Smart Cities application