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Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
Ep. 44: Transit Forward - Expert Interview
Bill McCamley, Executive Director of Transit Forward joins Transit Tangents to shed light on the critical role of community engagement and the collaborative efforts needed to keep ambitious projects, like Project Connect, on track. In this episode, we focus heavily on Austin but the experiences and lessons learned will be all too familiar to your city as well.
Doors are closing. Public transit, that's my way to roll On the metro. I'm taking control. Bus stops, train tracks it's my daily grind. Public transit, it's the rhythm of my life. On this episode of Transit Tangents, we speak with Bill McCamelly, the Executive Director of Transit Forward. We discuss ways to frame the conversation about public transit to be more bipartisan current progress on Austin's Project Connect and a whole lot more coming up on Transit Tangents.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody and welcome back to Transit Tangents. My name is Chris and I'm Lewis, and today we are at Cosmic Saltillo in East Austin with a very special guest, bill McCamelly, who is the Executive Director of Transit Forward here in Austin. So thank you so much for joining us. You're very welcome. Thanks, boys, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:I guess, to start it off, let's do the elevator pitch. Essentially, what is Transit Forward?
Speaker 3:So Project Connect was passed here in Austin in 2020. And for those of your viewers and listeners that don't know what that is Light Rail in Austin. A proposal to get Light Rail failed in 2000 by a very small amount, failed in 2014 by a slightly bigger amount, and a bunch of the people that wanted Light Rail went back to the drawing board and said, okay, why did this not work? That wanted light rail went back to the drawing board and said, okay, why did this not work? And what they came up with as a response was project connect in 2020, which was a comprehensive, which is a comprehensive transportation system meant to bring people together here in austin. So a light rail system is a large part of it, but you also have new metro rapid bus systems. They wanted to fund new pickup services, which is like the publicly funded ride share program that Cat Metro runs. There was a effort to say we already have a commuter rail line, one line here in Austin the red line. How do we buff that up? Right? How do we make it more reliable, more regular? How do we expand, for instance, the station at Q2, where you're going to have a lot of people, right? So that, and there was going to be a housing piece to it, because there's an understanding that and this is a real concern when a rail system and increased bus systems go into places, people want to live near there, and so you have a lot of development that happens around stations. How do you make sure at least some of those homes either remain affordable or you can build affordable places to live so that the people that are most likely to take transit regularly can live near those stations? And so you've got a component of Project Connect. That's part of that. Can live near those stations, and so you've got a component of Project Connect. That's part of that.
Speaker 3:After that was passed and that proposal was passed by a 60-40 measure. That's not a close election in today's day and age in any. I was talking to you guys before we started. I'm an ex-politician so I speak in that kind of language and when you have a 60-40 election it's basically a landslide to that. But there was an understanding that some of these things were going to take a while to put in and there is value in having an organization that can both engage the population about what's going on, make sure that there is the ability to get feedback, to have information, go back and forth to educate them about the real facts, because you're always going to have people that oppose this stuff, and Austin is no different than any other place in the country, with some folks a very few anti-transit people that don't like this but feel very strongly about it, and they're putting out information that isn't exactly true, and so it's our job to put the truth out there right, and also to do a little bit of accountability. Make sure that the city Capital Metro, the Austin Transit Partnership, which we can talk about, that's, building the light rail. They try to keep things as on time and on budget in as reasonable way as possible, and so that's really the role of Transit Forward.
Speaker 3:There are non-profits like ours in other communities around the country, and they range from a group out in Phoenix which is totally consists of the engineering and construction companies, to a communist bus riders union I can't remember, it was in the Midwest somewhere with the general secretary Right.
Speaker 3:So you run the gamut of different kinds of organizations, of different kinds of organizations. Transit Forward probably tries to thread that needle. So, on our board of directors, you've got some of those companies, you've got some of the engineering companies, the construction companies. You've got the chambers of commerce, the real estate council, the downtown Austin Alliance and you have Housing Works, which is a nonprofit affordable housing group that really wants more affordable housing right. You have the ADAPT Coalition, which is the wheelchair riders. You have a student, we have an environmental person, we have a preacher from a traditional Black Baptist church right. So all of these people want transit and that's the beautiful thing about my job is I can talk to the chamber folks, to the Downtown Austin Alliance business community and go have a talk with the wheelchair riders, with the Austin Justice Coalition coalition, with those kind of groups coming together because everybody wants this to work and it's really kind of cool right.
Speaker 1:Reach out to all the stakeholders. That's right.
Speaker 3:You're getting the full picture of what people want, what people are looking for, and make sure that that's actually being communicated out there, right but our, our, our main effort right now is to keep Project Connect as on time and on budget as possible through those engagement, education and accountability mechanisms. And we're also expanding a little bit. So I am on the advisory committee for Judge Andy Brown's regional rail system. There is an effort here in Texas to start that up again.
Speaker 1:You guys were there the other night. You can check out a past episode. We'll put a link for that episode if you're interested in that. But yeah, we ran into you at that event.
Speaker 3:I was there, yeah, so we're talking about how to get that off the ground again. That's kind of a resuscitation of the old Lone Star Rail system. Right, we're doing some work with Cap Metro right now on trying to get them better engagement with the business community. And also we've got some low income riders. We've got a focus group to do a bus availability and reliability group to make sure that there's some effort put in there, because if you're going to take a bus and it doesn't show up, you may say, well, I may have to go get a car Right, and so we want to make sure that there's an effort to make sure Cap Metro knows an effort, um, to make sure cat metro knows what what riders are going through. So we've got that.
Speaker 3:So we're starting to expand outside of just the project, connecting into more of those. And then we've got, uh, partnerships are very important to us. Yeah, you know, sometimes you hear that from non-profits and the intention is great, uh, but the end product can be more or less. It's very, very important to us, like I'm the only employee, right. So we work a lot with our friends in aura, the urbanist community. We work a lot with our friends in the adapt coalition. I was just at a press conference this morning for the week without driving that the congress for new urbanism, mov Moveability Safe.
Speaker 1:Streets those guys work on. It's nice being in Austin, because the great thing is there are so many groups actually with a fairly common theme of what they're all trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1:That's right, and I think this kind of leads into the next question. I think there are so many groups here in Austin because and I don't want this to necessarily be a downer and this can be relatable for folks in other states across the country, but being in a state like Texas which, when you think of Texas transit, is not the first thought that comes- to most people's mind, I would imagine it's like cowboy hats and big trucks.
Speaker 2:Horses, I want cowboys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, driving your Ford down on your ranch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I guess can you talk about the importance of organizations like Transit Forward and some of the others that you've mentioned, specifically when it comes to being in a state that isn't necessarily super focused on transit as a solution to affordability or transit as a solution to solving traffic or any of these sorts of things? Sure, I know that's a big question.
Speaker 3:No, no, it's a fair question. Look, once again, I'm an ex-politician, right, and you spend two decades in politics. You learn something, and that is building something. Doing something positive is hard. Opposing something is easy. It's if you've got a proposal to. When I was a state legislator, I sponsored cannabis legalization and there are 15 or 20 reasons that someone could come up with to oppose it right, and so to make it happen, you've got to work really hard to make sure you can answer all those questions, fill in those gaps and get people enough over the line that they're willing to support it.
Speaker 3:I think, with Project Connect, for instance, there are some hurdles that we have to get over right. We just talked about the history where rail proposals failed in 2000 and 2014, and people got over that hurdle of getting the funding mechanism put in right. Well, we've got some other issues we've got to deal with here in Austin, right? So there's three major threads. There are a couple of lawsuits by some folks of a certain generation who don't view the building of a rail system, and then they're only focusing on rail. That's frustrating for us because Project is so comprehensive. These folks are trying to take away funding because they view it as only rail. I'm like guys. You realize, if you win, there won't be funding for the extra bus services, there won't be funding for the pickup services, there won't be funding for these affordable housing.
Speaker 3:things to like to add on to this, like pretend that they care about bus routes serving East Austin, and bus routes serving East Austin that are literally going to come online next year are only happening because of Project Connect, that's right, and it puts into question whether or not those routes can continue, because the great thing about the Project Connect tax that was passed is you can use it for capital projects, which, in lay speak, is building stuff, is you can use it for capital projects, which, in lay speak, is building stuff, and you can use it for operations, which is layman's speak, is we can fund the drivers, we can fund the maintenance of the buses, etc. And so on. Right, so that's that is groundbreaking and awesome. You don't see that in a lot of other places. But, yeah, if that happens, then cap metro is going to have to figure out okay, can we continue with this? And I don't know if they're going to be able to do so or not, but we, because we know that those dollars that are coming in from that tax are funding those operations. Right, and that's frustrating.
Speaker 3:I would say, though, that I was at the the lawsuit discussion in the courtroom in June, and we feel pretty confident that the folks on the pro-transit side that everything's legal, and the chief lawyer for the opposition was quoted in Bond Buyer Magazine in April basically saying we want to delay this because we want to get to the state legislature.
Speaker 3:Right, there was an effort, not least to the second threat, which is two years ago, there was an effort to try to kill Project Connect at the state level. Luckily, it failed at the last minute for a whole host of reasons. But it's our job to say okay. And it's interesting when you're talking about audiences, who you're talking to. If you're speaking to an audience here in Austin specifically, people are concerned about affordability, they're concerned about climate change, they're concerned about traffic reduction. Well, everybody's concerned about traffic reduction, but if you go to the statehouse folks, there are much more concerned about economic development, business recruitment, getting workers where they've got to go, and so these are all good for transit, but we've got to make and help folks make the case that this is good for the economy.
Speaker 1:And so, as an example, we're going to jump right back into this episode in just a second, but first, if you have not liked this video or subscribed, please consider doing so. It helps us out quite a bit. Also, leave a comment. We love reading them Absolutely.
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Speaker 3:Our organization partnered with a sister group of ours called the Transit Coalition of North Texas to get a lot of the transit agencies in the big cities around the state to put some money in and get Texas A&M and get the Texas Transportation Institute to do an economic impact study for all the transit agencies in these big towns. We just got initial results from them in September and the report should be out in December and we're going to take that to state legislators and say look, this is good for the economy. The dollars that we bring in from the federal government, the dollars that are put in through transit, get recycled through the community. It's good for the development of station areas right. It's not only good for workers and businesses that can be there, but it's good for developers right. It's good for everybody right. It's also good for business recruitment.
Speaker 3:As an example, there was the guy that just retired, as the transit agency head in Houston was mentioning to us last year. He went to Atlanta one time and they were trying to recruit Mercedes Benz, a car company, to come to Atlanta and Mercedes-Benz actually sponsors the football stadium out there where the Falcons and the Atlanta United play and all that kind of stuff, right, and they were blown away when Mercedes-Benz came and said we want to be near a MARTA line and for those of you guys that don't know, marta is the light rail line in Atlanta and they were like, excuse me, I'm like, yeah, it's a much better way for workers to get across the city to our plant without having to drive. We don't have to spend a bunch of parking right. And they were like, okay, and so it's really important for us to talk about those things at that level.
Speaker 2:Also, I think of the people who are gonna buy a Mercedes. They're gonna want a road that's less congested, to be able to drive that Mercedes. It's good for their customer base too.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about that in a second, because TxDOT Texas Department of Transportation has traditionally been the state highway department. Yes, but even these folks who have constantly been focusing on cars and highways are now doing a multimodal plan for the first time, and Dottie Watkins from CapMetro is very eloquent in saying this is both not a huge deal because it's a piece of paper and a plan. On the other hand, it's a massive deal because the fact that these folks are even talking about it means that it's important for the development of the area. And their argument is this In the last four decades, last 40 years, in the Texas Triangle for those folks listening outside of Texas, that's the Dallas Metroplex area. So Dallas, fort Worth, denton, austin, san Antonio and Houston forms basically a right triangle. Right, there has been a 172% increase in car registrations and a 19% increase in highway miles bill.
Speaker 3:Math doesn't jive, it just doesn't jive right. This is not a political issue, this is a math issue. And when you have that problem, continue. Look, I drove up to Dallas last week to go to a transit coalition of North Texas meeting. I left Dallas at 2.30, trying to be back here to beat rush hour. It took me four hours and 27 minutes because I got stuck in Dallas. I got stuck in a couple towns in between. I got stuck in the north places of Austin. It was so frustrating, and that problem is only going to get worse as population increases. So you've got to have options both in cities and in the region, and that's what we're really going for.
Speaker 3:And well, let me just the third issue, and this is more of a national issue, but we've got to contribute to that as well and I think your, you know your viewers need to know this. I'm not sure how well this is known, but project 2025 the Heritage Foundation thing, is getting some pretty widespread press because of some issues with women's rights and stuff like that. But if you look in the page 600s I think it's page 636 and 38, they actually call for the elimination of the capital investment grant, which is the federal program that is used to help cities and communities build new transit programs. Here in Austin, we need $4 billion out of that CIG capital investment grant to be able to complete the light rail. It's like half of the funding to build the light rail and if that is eliminated or a Department of Transportation secretary is put into place that just refuses to fund it, it makes it so much more difficult for cities and communities to build these projects. Those are some of the threats that we see that we've really got to work to help overcome.
Speaker 2:You sold me. I wasn't against transit, but you already sold me no on the TxDOT side of them doing the multimodal plan for the first time. It makes me think of the saying you know the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. Sounds like they've admitted they have a problem and here's sort of an acknowledgement that there's something else needs to happen.
Speaker 3:It is, but I think, fellas, it's really critical. The way we talk about this, and the way we have found is most effective, is to talk about options. No one here is having a war on cars. No one's trying to take away anybody's cars. What we are saying is we were talking earlier, lewis. You and your partner used to be a two car household. Now you're a one car household and you chose to do that through the use of e-bikes, through the use of transit, because it makes things more efficient and you can then save money and yet still have good options to get around, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And to hammer that point home too. I mean, I've done the math In the last two years. It's been like bottom estimate of this is $7,000 a year. I have saved by not having a car payment, not paying for insurance Forget about gas, forget about if I had an issue with my car or anything like that I've saved in the last two years $14,000 by us having a one-car household versus two, and we can use that money for all sorts of things. We can save it. We can use it to go on a vacation, we can use it to live in a nicer part of town or get a better apartment. There's so many things that having better transit in your area available to you can do with that extra money. It's been a huge game changer for us. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I like what you're saying about presenting the argument as it's about options, because I have heard the argument on the other side. I've had firsthand experience. I work in transportation. I attended years ago. I attended a grand opening of a toll road outside of Tyler, texas, and one of our state legislators stood in front of the crowd and made a whole speech about how people in Tyler and rural Texas knew how to get things right. And it was all about building roads and building lanes.
Speaker 2:And people in Austin just don't understand. They're trying to take away and this is a direct quote trying to take away your God-given right to a car by removing streets and putting in bus lanes and bike lanes and not allowing you to park anywhere. And maybe there's a kernel of truth there. Right, like we add in a couple of bike lanes here and there, we reduce some roads to make sure there's room for buses and we reduce some parking allowances for buildings. But that is the argument on the other side that it is a God-given right to a car and that transit is taking away from that. So, yes, you can present options, but how do you take a step further and really combat that narrative?
Speaker 3:It's about people's day-to-day lives. So let me give you an example. We were just talking yesterday about what's going to happen in downtown Austin over the next 10 years For those folks outside of our community, because everyone here pretty much knows what's going to happen. You're going to have three massive construction projects in the downtown-ish area. You're going to have a widening and a modernization of Interstate 35, which is the main thoroughfare that cuts through town. You're going to have a completely demolished convention center and a brand new one is going to go up in the same spot, and that's going to be about the convention center.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's going to be a three or four year construction job, right, and that's right downtown. And if we can get through the legislature and get the money from the feds, you're going to have a brand new light rail line that's going to be going through downtown, a little bit north, a little bit south and out towards the airport. All these things are going to happen at the same time. In order for us to be able to move a very, very still growing community around, we're going to have to find new options, or else everyone's just going to have to give themselves two or three hours of driving every day Because, again, this is not a political issue, this is a physics issue. You can only have so much space, go through so much space at any given time, or else you get parking lots, and you're seeing that right now. Without that going on, you're seeing it on 35. You're seeing it on Mopac, and this is actually an issue on highways and roads across the country. You know you get 35. You're seeing it on Mopac, and this is actually an issue on highways and roads across the country. You know you get on Houston. The Katy freeway has what? Six or seven lanes on each side. It's one of the biggest freeways in the world and during rush hour that is still a parking lot right. So this is all about giving people options of getting around. And yes, if I come from a rural area, look, I come from Las Cruces, new Mexico. That is my hometown. Population 100,000. My hometown could fit in the Texas, the University of Texas football stadium, right, and you don't have as much traffic. But when you hit an urban area, there are more people that live closer together and that's a really good thing.
Speaker 3:We can talk about housing policy, if you want. For a whole host of reasons. It's good for climate change, it's good for affordability. More transit means it's a safer way of getting around that sort of thing. But that means you have to have other options for people to travel around, and that's really what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3:As we pointed out, it's good for economic development. Businesses want to be near transit in bigger cities and want to have transit available because it's easier for their workers to come in. You know, we did a couple of years ago an interview with the president of a local chain called Juice Land which makes smoothies here in town, but this guy used to be the regional manager of Starbucks in Denver and he was saying we loved at Starbucks being near where the new light rail was going in, why we could get more people in without worrying about parking and it was much easier for our workers to affordably be able to get there. It's good for business. So it's unfortunate that this whole rural-urban conflict that is showing up all around is kind of manifesting in people worried about things like bus-only lanes and bike lanes and transit lines and things like that. But it shouldn't be a political discussion. It should be a physics discussion.
Speaker 1:No, and I think you're framing it exactly the right way, like it doesn't have to be a right-left issue, an urban-rural issue. If you want to drive around in the city, no one is trying to stop you from being able to do so. We're just trying to offer up options of if you want to drive into the city, that option will still be there. It'll probably be busy, as it is today, even now, but that option option will be there. If you want to take a train, you can take a train. If you want to take a bus, you can take a bus. If you want to ride your bike, you can ride your bike, the point being that if you ride your bike, you take your car and I ride a bus. We're all gonna have a better experience because there will be one less car on the road, one less bike. You you know what I mean and the synergies of having, and very perfectly. I don't know if it'll be in the shop, but a train just went by right here. So having all of those options is what is going to be the solution. There's no one size. You do this and the problem is solved.
Speaker 1:No, it's multimodal, working on multiple things, working on housing, working on transit. All of these things together is so important and I transit all of these things together is so important and I I find it so interesting to be able to live in a city like austin at this time and we've talked a lot about austin in this episode, obviously, but, like this, is happening a lot of other cities right now too, so you can kind of insert your own case study wherever you live across the country, if you're watching from growing cities across the us or or in the around the world right now, I guess. But uh, there's, it's so interesting to be able to live here right now at this moment. I feel like it's an inflection point of you know, can Austin grow into the great city? I mean, it's already a great city, but can it cross the next threshold and be even greater with better transit, better bikeability and all of these things all together? So I'm excited to be here at this point.
Speaker 2:I've been here 12 years and I've seen a lot of changes as far as the, the expansion of transit options, the bike trails especially. The biggest like visual change has been the bike trails. Um, so, yeah, it's a great time to be in the city.
Speaker 3:Well, gentlemen, I really want to make the climate change argument? Yeah, because you do see, it's fascinating to me how we look at what is environmentally responsible by generation. I think people in previous generations even you know, I'm 46 years old, I'm no spring chicken but people in the older generations kind of tended to look at environmentalism in a certain way, whereas I think, starting in my generation up, climate change has been one of, if not the top, environmental issue. And we're seeing it. We did a poll last year of Austinites asking why you support Project Connect, and affordability was the number one issue. I thought traffic reduction was going to be the number two issue. It was environmental issues, with climate change being one of them.
Speaker 3:I think people are starting to touch and taste and feel what this means. As an example here in Austin any city out there you're going to be able to find your own example. But Lake Travis, which is one of the main water reservoirs for the town, even after we had a fairly wet year this year in the spring and early summer, it's still not even at half full. It's at historic lows, because what you see with climate change is wet areas are going to get wetter and more intense, as we literally saw last night with hurricane helene, you know, just destroying so much of the of the southeast united states, and that thing started like four days ago, five days ago, and became out of nowhere a tropical storm to a category four hurricane within the span of hours.
Speaker 3:even right, because the Gulf is so hot, so you're going to have these more extreme weather events. That also means that we're going to probably be drier. Cities around the country is to have more dense housing, because it's more efficient both in the housing itself, but also because you can then have a better transit system, so you don't have to live 40 miles out of town and drive in every we've done some good content surrounding that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, link here on that well and I'll be honest with you, like when I got this job more than two years ago, I thought I'd be the cheerleader for buses and trains and such, and I've done more housing work, because those topics are so damn interrelated and that's something all of us around the United States are really going to have to do a better job of understanding, because that's how we grow more responsibly and that's how we truly fight climate change Totally.
Speaker 1:We've covered a lot of ground here and I think that we could probably talk for another two hours if we wanted to, but I think we'll save some of it and if you're, open to it.
Speaker 3:Can I say one more thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1:absolutely, and I also want to give you the opportunity like definitely let folks know how they can find more about Transit Forward, as well as yourself, online.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so transitforwardorg nice and easy. We're on Instagram, we're on X Twitter, we're on Facebook, even TikTok, even.
Speaker 2:I've had to be brought into the TikTok thing. Are you doing the dances for transit? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:I used to be a swing dancing instructor. That's a different kind of thing. But as a final message, I would really ask your viewers. We have an election coming up. We have a national election where this is now becoming an issue. More housing and more transit is now becoming an issue in the national elections. It's also a big issue at local levels. As an example, here in Austin, we actually did a questionnaire to all the mayoral candidates, the city council candidates, and you can find that on our social media.
Speaker 1:We'll drop a link here.
Speaker 3:And we would really ask people to look at those pieces of information, see where candidates are at and vote accordingly. And we're a nonprofit. We can't endorse any candidates or not, but we really ask people to say do your research according Taylor Swift, Do your research, but get your ass to the polls and vote. It is so important and I say this as an ex-public official I know when you get people into office, that support moving forward with transit, that support moving forward with better housing policy. That's the way to make change. If you don't do that, you can make all the arguments and use all the data and look at all the logistics. All that stuff does not matter. You've got to have people in there.
Speaker 1:They're at least willing to listen to you and I would say I'll take it a step forward and say if you find those people, go out and like, help their campaign for example. I'm going to take it as a moment to plug a friend of mine I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm knocking doors tomorrow for a candidate in my city council race, adam powell in district 7. Uh, there are a lot of folks in District 7 running. Adam would be fantastic on transit, housing, so many things. So I'll be knocking. I'm not putting words in anyone else's mouth, but I know what I'm doing with my Saturday tomorrow. But you can find your council candidates, mayoral candidates, here in Austin or across the country, and I do think that that's so important right now. With all that being said, thank you all so much for watching. I'm probably realizing that I looked like a ghost the whole time in the sun here, but I took one for the team and sat in the sun a little bit, and that's okay, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah uh, if you haven't left a comment. If you have thoughts or questions, uh, feel free to throw them in the comments. If there are any specifically about transit forward, we'll make sure they get passed along here. Uh, if you haven't liked the video or subscribed, please consider doing so or rating on your favorite podcast platform. With all that being said, thank you so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.