Austin Council OKs $460M bond election for sidewalks, trails, bike lanes and more

Not one but two transportation election items will be on the November ballot for Austin voters.

Late Thursday, the Austin City Council ordered a referendum on a $460 million bond proposition intended to fund alternative transportation methods — mainly sidewalks, bike lanes and improvements to Longhorn Dam.

Despite nearing half a billion dollars, the bond election’s approval was overshadowed by the City Council's sweeping and controversial cuts to the Austin Police Department as well as the approval of a tax rate election to fund a $7.1 billion mass transit system.

The active transportation bond proposal only emerged publicly around City Hall a little more than two weeks ago. The speed at which it went from an idea to approval irked some council members, especially when compared with the two-year process preceding Thursday’s vote on Project Connect, the light rail proposition.

“I don’t mean to disparage the hard work, but this specific package is one that the details have only recently emerged,” Council Member Alison Alter said.

In the end, the vote was 9-1, with Council Member Jimmy Flannigan voting against and Alter abstaining.

Here’s what is in the proposal, which will be on the ballot as Proposition B in November:

• $80 million for sidewalks.
• $80 million for urban trails.
• $40 million for bike lanes.
• $65 million for the Vision Zero traffic safety plan.
• $20 million for Safe Routes to School infrastructure.
• $53 million for improvements to substandard streets, including Ross Road, Johnny Morris Road, Cooper Lane, Circle S Road and Nuckols Crossing Road.

Council Member Paige Ellis emerged as the chief proponent of this bond proposition. She said Thursday that the push late last year from the advocacy group Wheel Deal regarding developing active transportation infrastructure such as sidewalks and bike lanes in tandem with a light rail was an “aha moment,” for her.

“We can dream big, and we can go big,” Ellis said. “This will create a better environment, fight climate change and bring us closer to the city we want to be in.”

The final vote came after Council Member Ann Kitchen unsuccessfully attempted to reduce the bond amount to $300 million. In the end, the council voted to increase the proposed amount from $450 million to $460 million after a push from Council Member Delia Garza to add more funding to improve substandard streets. She named Ross Road in her Southeast Austin district, a street often brought up by Del Valle residents as one much in need of improvements.

Some council members questioned the timing of the bond election, since Austin voters will also be asked to approve a substantial increase to property taxes to fund Project Connect.

But with everyone on the dais largely in favor of spending on environmentally palatable projects such as sidewalks, bike lanes and other non-automobile modes of transportation besides street improvements, dissent was hard to come by.

The $460 million bond plan would increase the average Austin homeowner’s tax bill by a little more than $77 a year, said Greg Canally, the city’s deputy chief financial officer.

Mayor Steve Adler said Friday that his focus will be on passing the light rail tax but that he supports both projects.

“Hopefully voters will vote for them both,” Adler said. “But they can make up their own minds, and I'm fine with giving voters the ability to do that.”

Political analyst Mark Littlefield said he believes Austin voters will have the appetite to approve both the $460 million active transportation bond proposition and Project Connect.

“In order to pass these propositions, a simple cocktail of only two things are needed: a belief that these projects will help make living in Austin easier and the absolute largest youth turnout in the history of the city of Austin,” Littlefield said. “The campaigns being built to pass these projects will help with the education needed on the first ingredient. Donald J. Trump will help with the latter.”