Its almost 2 years we moved to Austin. I have no real complaint about the traffic here. Kept hearing from my local Austin people about how busy Austin gets, traffic is bad everywhere we go, mobility is one of the issues discussing at election and on the table for everyone to discuss how should we solve mobility issue for Austin.
They talked about expanding the main freeway, adding more bus routes by Cap Metro, encouraging car pooling/ride sharing. This young and hip city tailors to bikers, moped, motorcycles anything you named it. Still Mobility is still the main concern and top complaint on the list of what makes Austin bad for you.
Interesting things relating to mobility I heard during July and August, Personal Rapid Transit, Google selfless driving car, Ridescout… and of course Uber! Yes everyone is on the same wagon and hoping to solve this major problem asap and these came with many community meetings between big/medium/small companies Google, to local agencies like TXDot, Capital Metro …bonds, moving residents (160 people/day)….all I heard opportunities, opportunities, opportunities for entrepreneurs and business owners who can take advance of these movements in Austin.
Usually to see more Go2Car around town, not as many anymore. Saw more Lyft ads on Facebook than ever, and less Yellow Cap running around town.
Do you know how many transportation choices Capital Metro offers? MetroRail, MetroRapid, MetroBus, UT Shuttle, vanpool and carpool, MetroAccess…. Last time I sat in a “Doing Business with Cap Metro” and learn so much about how much they invest in their apps to make Austin moving quicker and their transportation options you can choose from!
Guess what i want to do in Spring? Try one of those bikes rental for touring downtown! Its a bit hot right now for doing that, but Fall should be great weather for doing that. If you happen to be in Austin in the fall don’t forget to try that out.
As the time being, mobility in Austin is a continuous action or discussion. I don’t think it will improve much in 2016 and will be worse with more and more people moving to town. At least 4-5 couples of my friends are planning to come here in 2016 and they all have cars. Life in Austin is great, and you got nothing to complain about traffic if you are coming from California or back from Saigon like me!
Question: when will we have space mobile in US or this town? Okay I will settle for bullet train like Tokyo and I can’t wait to try Personal Rapid Transit for downtown!~
Sources:
- https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/austin-personal-rapid-transit-idea
- http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2013/04/24/ridescout-app-changes-austin-transportation
- http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2015/08/13/how-a-space-faring-entrepreneur-intends-to-fix.html
- http://www.capmetro.org/
- https://mobilityatx.com/ = share your ideas about solving mobility in Austin with this site!
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