A Public Transportation Mindset

Amanda Haight wrote an article about public transportation and the recent adoption of the 2014 Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP) by the Austin City Council. This is a $1 billion project and it would include creating a new urban rail. Haight’s intended audience seems to be Austinites since those would be the people to use this new form of transportation and she is a credible source because she is from Austin and giving her take on the issue at hand. She believes that it is not a good idea to build the new rail system until Austinites adopt the mentality of a public transportation based lifestyle. I agree with her and believe that just because a new urban rail is created, doesn’t necessarily mean people will give up driving their cars to use it. This would require them to change up their routine and there may be some people that don’t feel like doing that. There were even supporters of light rail who came to the meeting to oppose the ASMP proposition. Haight makes the point that if people who normally support a light rail are saying that it is a bad idea, then that probably means that some more thought should be put into this product before a billion dollars is invested into it.

Haight also mentions the public transportation in France, where she studied abroad, and says that everyone there has the mentality of a public transportation based lifestyle. People there don’t really use their cars because the cities were developed around the transportation systems. However in Austin, the transportation system would be built into a city that is already established. I agree with her point about the mentality they have in France because I just recently got back from studying abroad in Spain and they did the same thing. Everyone uses public transportation to get around because it has always been there. As Haight has stated, if we are going to spend a billion dollars on this new rail, then Austinites would need to be willing to adopt a public transportation lifestyle first.