Smart City Challenge is New Beginning for Austin

First of all, congratulations to Columbus for winning the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge. Out of 78 cities that entered the contest, Austin made it into the finals and nearly crossed the finish line first. Unfortunately, we did not win the Smart City Challenge, but when you consider all that we have gained it’s easy to see that we’re coming out of this process smarter and better able to see — and achieve — a better future for Austin’s mobility.

Even though we didn’t win, the benefits of having gone through the process will pay dividends to Austin for years. The last six months that we’ve been competing in the Smart City Challenge have been incredible. The process got us to pull together a team of research universities, government experts, and private companies that has dreamed together and set priorities for the future of Austin’s mobility. We have found new avenues to resources and assistance that we lacked before, and we’ve come to expect more of ourselves. Because of the Smart City Challenge, we have seen and touched our future.

We have found new avenues to resources and assistance that we lacked before, and we’ve come to expect more of ourselves. Because of the Smart City Challenge, we have seen and touched our future.

Credit for these gains belongs for the most part to the Smart City team members, but I want to also thank the professional staff of Austin’s Transportation Department and Council Members Delia Garza and Ann Kitchen.

We all agree that we have come out of this process much better off than when we began. Look what we’ve gained: There is now a statewide coalition of government and private industry partners working on mobility solutions in Austin. We created a new research triangle working on urban mobility with Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute, the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Transportation Research, and San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute. The Smart City team has almost 200 members.

Thanks to the Smart City Challenge, we’re taking new approaches to old problems. We now see transportation as a way to tackle social challenges such as access to health care. And while this might sound strange coming from a tech center like Austin, but we now have a common awareness for the first time that technology can be a powerful new way to address our mobility challenges.

Throughout this process, I’ve said consistently that we’re moving forward with the projects we proposed in our Smart City Challenge application even if we don’t win. That’s truer than ever because the process has reaffirmed that we control our own destiny. We are not taking our ball and going home. We’re going to take the field and reinvent the game. We have the team in place. We have ambitious goals. So we’re going to move forward, because that is the Austin Way.

We’re going to take the field and reinvent the game. We have the team in place. We have ambitious goals. So we’re going to move forward, because that is the Austin Way.

The Austin Way is innovative. Look at the Smart City Challenge projects we’re already doing. We have a strategic partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute. We’re working with UT’s Center for Transportation Research to coordinate data streams so we can better manage traffic. And we’re planning to install traffic sensors on East Riverside Drive as a first step to deploying electric rapid buses from the airport to downtown Austin, which if we accomplish this will turn an artery in a formerly segregated area of our city into the smartest road in America.

The Austin Way is ambitious. Our Smart Corridor plan is a solution at the scale of our transportation challenge that intertwines traffic with economic segregation and rising housing costs. We would be improving traffic congestion on our busiest roads in a way that helps transit, pedestrians, and cyclists and directing new housing along the transit corridors, transforming now-overcrowded roads into thriving Smart Corridors. This is another example of how inherent in our problems is the opportunity for transformational change.

The Austin Way is also resilient. When the Austin Dam broke in 1900, Austin adapted and thrived. When the dot-com bubble burst at the end of that century, Austin adapted and thrived. Recently, Austin adapted when Uber and Lyft left town and now has a growing and evolving (dare I say thriving?) ridesharing industry.

So how will we respond to not winning the Smart City Challenge? If the past is any guide, by adapting and thriving. The conclusion of the Smart City Challenge is a new beginning for Austin, and I’m excited to see where this journey will take us.

Who’s with me? ����