Coalition calling for mass transit fix in Austin

Traffic can affect the environment, but can it affect your well-being?

Angie de Hoyos-Hart says it is certainly affecting her family in many ways, especially her infant son.

“Some babies love car rides but Joaquin has a reflux and a nearly hour-long commute twice a day is causing him to scream at the top of his lungs most of the way. It's torture for him and for us,” said Hart.

She would much rather be able to get to her destination more quickly. Hart is a member of the Transit for Austin Coalition.

“At the end of every insufferable car ride we think we are ready to give up and find new jobs closer to our home, or even try to move out of the community we love to avoid the torture of traffic,” said Hart.

The coalition is calling on a bold and broad investment in transit options in Austin.

“If we don't go big and do it soon, we're lost,” said Senator Kirk Watson.

Watson said the Capital City needs big-city transit because Austin is no longer the quiet college town it once was.

“In 1980...585,000 people lived in the Austin area. Now there are 2 million people in the region, and many of them are stuck on I-35, 183, Mopac and 360,” said Watson.

“The problem we have with transit today it doesn't go enough places, it gets stuck in traffic with all the cars on our roads, it's not frequent enough, it's not convenient enough,” said Mayor Steve Adler.

Adler hopes to come to voters in November 2020 with a proposal.

“To do the kind of big and bold generational change that we need to do in this city will not happen overnight. But we have to decide to move forward,” he said.