Committee recommends $21.8 million mobility plan

After hearing staff’s recommendations on how the city could best spend the remaining $21.8 million in mobility dollars left in the quarter-cent fund collected from the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the City Council Mobility Committee recommended on Monday that Council move forward with splitting up most of the money by district. The committee passed a motion stating that Council should pass a resolution directing members to submit “a list of priority infrastructure improvement projects” for their districts, totaling up to $1.9 million per district, to the city manager and the Austin Transportation Department by Dec. 31. The mayor will then prioritize how to spend the remaining $2.8 million or so for “citywide priorities.” Several members of the public spoke in support of staff’s recommended projects, which include sidewalks, pedestrian-hybrid beacons, bicycle facilities and local traffic management efforts. One noted exception was Todd Hemingson, Capital Metro’s vice president of strategic planning and development, who asked the committee to recommend projects more directly related to transit.