In November 2020, Austin residents voted in favor of Proposition A. The $7 billion plan will expand bus service and build new light rail. Prop A also broke ground by pairing transit investments with housing funds to prevent displacement. João Paulo Connolly is the Director of Housing and Community Development at the Austin Justice Coalition. AJC is a racial justice group that educates and builds community power for people of color in Austin. In this episode, João Paulo discusses the anti-displacement fund and the equity dashboard written into Prop A. He also shares how transit advocacy can incorporate housing justice.
In November 2020, Austin residents voted in favor of Proposition A. The $7 billion plan will expand bus service and build new light rail. Prop A also broke ground by pairing transit investments with housing funds to prevent displacement.
João Paulo Connolly is the Director of Housing and Community Development at the Austin Justice Coalition. AJC is a racial justice group that educates and builds community power for people of color in Austin. In this episode, João Paulo discusses the anti-displacement fund and the equity dashboard written into Prop A. He also shares how transit advocacy can incorporate housing justice.
“Project Connect is a mass transit infrastructure project that includes anti-displacement funding right at the ballot. This is a unique chance that we have to try to get it right and build new transit infrastructure without displacing people from their neighborhoods."
To learn more about the Austin Justice Coalition, click here.
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Disclaimer: Political views raised by guests on the podcast do not reflect the views of TransitCenter.
Hosted and edited by Kapish Singla
Produced by TransitCenter
Music: “Comma” - Blue Dot Sessions
Please note that transcripts are generated by a combination of automated speech recognition software and human transcribers. There may be errors in the text.
Kapish Singla [00:00:01] From TransitCenter, I am Kapish Singla. This is High Frequency. In season two of High Frequency, we're having conversations on how cities and transportation agencies are learning from past mistakes and remedying inequities in transit. This past November, voters in Austin, Texas, made history by voting yes on Prop A, a public transit ballot measure that will build light rail and expand transit service. The win comes after two failed attempts in 2000 and 2014 to bring better transit to the county.
Kapish Singla [00:00:38] Since those previous ballot measures, Austin has been growing rapidly. The population of Austin has grown by over 22 percent in the past decade. In that time, the city's transportation issues have also gotten worse. I-35, which runs through downtown Austin, has been deemed to be the most congested roadway in Texas, according to Texas A&M Institute. This growth has also caused the displacement of many of Austin's Black and Brown residents. Some of the most rapidly gentrifying parts of the city, which includes the traditionally Black neighborhoods in East Austin have seen median home price is triple in the past decade.
[00:01:16] The recently passed 2020 measure, Prop A, attempts to address some of these issues. The seven billion dollar investment authorizes the city of Austin to build new light rail lines. It also expands bus rapid transit routes across the city. And it's the largest such ballot measure to pair new transit investments with the dedicated fund towards targeted anti-displacement strategies. To talk about the ballot measure and how it aims to promote equity, I spoke with Joao Paulo Connolly at the Austin Justice Coalition. AJC as a racial justice group that educates and builds community power for people of color. In Austin, AJC, along with a coalition of other advocacy groups, work to ensure that Prop A included a dedicated fund towards anti displacement.
Kapish Singla [00:02:06] Joao Paulo, how would you describe the promise of Project Connect? What does it mean for the city of Austin?
João Paulo Connolly [00:02:13] I think Project Connect really gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to prioritize a new kind of mobility, to move away from car-centric culture, to move away from the culture of highways and increasing highway pollution and neighborhood encroachment. And it moves us towards a vision of the city that's more connected. It helps us create a system that better serves lower income residents, working class people of color. And because Project Connect, may be the first project in the nation, that is a mass transit infrastructure project that includes anti-displacement funding and funding for affordable housing right at the ballot...this is kind of a unique chance that we have to try to get it right to try to build new transit infrastructure without displacing people from their neighborhoods and to really create a system that serves the needs of core transit riders.
Kapish Singla [00:03:13] I'm wondering if you can speak to some of the longstanding transportation issues in Austin. When I asked that I am thinking about the legacy of urban renewal and highway construction and how that's impacted mobility in Austin today.
João Paulo Connolly [00:03:26] Both of the major highways that funnel all the traffic into downtown, I-35 and MoPac have very complicated histories where they played roles in structural racism and in the displacement of communities of color. MoPac helped displace communities of color in West Austin and I-35 also displaced what was once East Avenue and it removed a whole bunch of housing. There was a Black community in that area. The legacy of both of Austin's major highways is definitely a legacy of racial violence and segregation.
Kapish Singla [00:04:04] Joao Paulo, you're the director of housing and community development at the Austin Justice Coalition. How does AJC understand the connection between transit and housing justice?
João Paulo Connolly [00:04:15] It's so important to start thinking about the connection between housing and transit and schools and all these pieces that make up a complete community. It has such an impact on access to wealth, resources, education. The importance of good mass transit can't be overstated. The problem is that mass transit also creates these paradoxes where new transit infrastructure increases land values, increases property taxes, increases rents and you have a tendency for displacement, primarily the displacement of lower-income renters in the region who are the people who most need transit. So for us at the Austin Justice Coalition, unless we could talk about transit coupled with a proactive anti-displacement strategy and a strategy to keep core transit riders in the neighborhood, then we weren't going to be able to get behind new transit infrastructure. So fighting for three hundred million for anti displacement and for a series of other equity measures was an extreme priority for us.
Kapish Singla [00:05:23] And what are some of the details on the equity components that he advocated for in Prop A?
João Paulo Connolly [00:05:30] Some of the key equity measures that we were able to get included into the project are three hundred million towards anti-displacement. It will allow us to proactively think about what a strategy can be along transit lines around new transit stations to stabilize and to keep lower income tenants in the neighborhoods. Some of the other things we also advocated for was the creation of an equity tool that will be developed over the next six months. And it's supposed to evaluate what some of the equity impacts, not only of the transit lines are, but sort of secondary effects of transit infrastructure are.
Kapish Singla [00:06:09] And how can the three hundred million in the anti-displacement fund be used.
João Paulo Connolly [00:06:14] When we think about what has to be done with the three hundred million, we need to figure out how we could stabilize these neighborhoods, which are already facing tremendous market pressures. Right. I mean, they're facing market pressures. Before we talked about putting transit there. So it's crucial that the three hundred million be used towards a neighborhood stabilization.
João Paulo Connolly [00:06:34] And what we were able to get into the contract with the voters is language that says that how that three hundred million is spent will be implemented through a neighborhood based strategy, which means it's not a kind of a cookie cutter solution. But we look at each neighborhood where there will be this new mass transit infrastructure and we have a community engagement process to evaluate what some of the priorities should be for the spending in that neighborhood. So one neighborhood might have several large apartment complexes, and it would absolutely behoove us to use some of that three hundred million to do things like tenant organizing, rental assistance, but also longer-term projects like the acquisition of older properties through some kind of opportunity to purchase type program, which would allow renters and nonprofit organizations to take control of these properties so that we can take them away from the market pressures.
Kapish Singla [00:07:34] And in talking to voters before Election Day, what were some of the key messages that AJC was putting out when advocating for Prop A?
João Paulo Connolly [00:07:43] Our big thing was, will it be equitable only if we remain active, informed and engaged. Right. So that's the whole point. We told people to vote for Prop A and then roll your sleeves up and prepared to get to work because we're still going to have to advocate. We're going to have to show up and continue to sort of hold the elected people, the board members accountable if we're going to get this thing to be what it needs to be for us.
Kapish Singla [00:08:12] And what is some of that work that needs to happen now that Prop A has passed?
João Paulo Connolly [00:08:17] The project implementation will be overseen by an organization called the Austin Transit Partnership, and it will be overseen by a board of five people. And so on this board, there will be a member of the city council, a member of the local transit agency, Cap Metro, and then there will be three positions that will be filled by experts in different areas. So there will be an engineering position, finance position and a community planning position. The very first thing that we need to do to hold our elected officials accountable is make sure that we have people on this board who reflect the community's values and priorities. And that's one step. The next step is that there will be a separate organization called the CAC, the Community Advisory Commission, and that will be an organization that can help provide input and they can critique decisions made by the Austin Transit Partnership and they can make suggestions to Austin Transit Partnership. And it's crucial that when thinking about who's on the CAC that we really get people who first and foremost are transit riders, people who are dependent on transit, we also want them to be a diverse body. We want it to be a body that that works well with the community and that reflects the community's priorities.
Kapish Singla [00:09:34] Once these members have been selected, how can advocates hold the ATP and CAC accountable?
João Paulo Connolly [00:09:41] Baked into the process, we have these key performance indicators which haven't been determined yet. They will be determined by the community in partnership with City Council and the Austin Transit Partnership. So the idea is that the dashboard will help people in the community keep track of these performance indicators so that if we are not meeting them, that will trigger a public city council hearing. You know, I kind of hinted at some of the things that are priorities. We want to track the number of affordable units around transit lines. We'd also like to find ways to measure displacement, which is incredibly tricky. But we think that possibly through a partnership between tenant organizers and local nonprofits, there might be a way to come up with some metrics that can help us track displacement in these neighborhoods. There are several other things that the dashboard could also keep track of. For instance, you can keep track of where the spending is going in terms of bus stop and train station infrastructure, right? So if we're prioritizing all the spending in the more affluent neighborhoods, in the fancier parts of downtown, then we have an equity challenge. And so we want to make sure that the spending is being prioritized for new bus stops in neighborhoods where most of the core transit riders live.
Kapish Singla [00:11:00] From your experience on the campaign, do you have advice for advocates in other cities who are trying to address this connection between large scale investment and anti-displacement effort?
João Paulo Connolly [00:11:13] Yeah, I have some advice. I'm sure I will have lots more advice over the coming years. But it's crucial to bring the community in, to take the community's concerns very seriously. You know, where the community is talking about their fears or apprehensions around something like this. It is crucial to listen to that and to come up with not only a messaging strategy, but a plan for action that says, "Look, this is a priority for us." I think that transit advocates would do well to really think about the connections between transit and housing and neighborhood affordability and as much as possible to sort of paint a picture about mobility that is bigger than just the exciting or sexy parts that people really get get interested in. Like people love trains. Right. Thinking about mobility is bigger than just that. And let's think about it as the freedom to move about the city to access goods and resources and also the freedom not to move and not to be forced to move out of your neighborhood.
Kapish Singla [00:12:14] And finally Joao Paulo, maybe that's a good note to end on. Can you talk more about your understanding of mobility justice and the right to move around the city?
João Paulo Connolly [00:12:24] Yeah, I mean, I think that really broadening the conversation of mobility, justice and this is not unique to Austin. This is something that mobility justice activists throughout the country are calling for. Right? Thinking about mobility justices as more than just transit access, but thinking about it as access to space, how our bodies move about in space, which bodies are more free to move about in space. The Austin Justice Coalition before we got involved with transit, our primary area of focus was police oversight, the need to address police brutality and really to move towards a whole new paradigm for public safety. And I think that that is such a crucial piece to this puzzle. Right? I mean, if you're a Black or Brown person, can you move freely about the city without fear of having a police officer stop you in your tracks or arrest you for some false charge? You know, if you're a woman, can you move about without fear of sexual harassment? If you're a person dealing with any kind of disability, what kind of mobility and access do you have to the space to the community's goods and resources? I know this is broad and kind of gets a little bit abstract, but I think that we need to move the conversation to that bigger picture about mobility, justice, while also, of course, investing in more buses and trains, which we desperately need, especially here in Texas.
Kapish Singla [00:13:48] Thank you so much for your time, Joao Paulo.
João Paulo Connolly [00:13:51] I appreciate you reaching out, Kapish.
Kapish Singla [00:13:56] That's all for today's episode. I'm your host, Kapish Singla. High Frequency is part of the events program at TransitCenter. For more information, please visit us at TransitCenter.Org