Solving Georgian Acres’ Mobility Problem With Buses, Bikes, and Scooters: Solar-powered mobility hub planned for “transit desert” – News
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Junfeng Jiao (l) of the UT-Austin School of Architecture and Jason JonMichael, deputy director of Austin Transportation, stand in a field in the Georgian Acres neighborhood, where UT and the city will build a mobility center (Photo by Thomas Meredith for UT-Austin)
The Smart Mobility Office of the Austin Transportation Department, UT-Austin, and the local nonprofit Jail to Jobs are joining forces to create a transportation hub in the Georgian Acres neighborhood of North Austin with the aim of delivering more transportation services to one of the transit deserts of the City to bring.
Currently, Georgian Acres residents’ commute times are 67% longer than the city average. Although the roughly 2 square mile area has a major transportation hub nearby – the North Lamar Transit Center – it is surrounded by US 183 and I-35, making these transit services difficult for residents to easily access. This lack of connectivity between modes is an example of the “first mile, the last mile” problem, explains project leader Junfeng Jiao, associate professor of community and regional planning at the UT School of Architecture, and can be seen in many cities in the US “Some neighborhoods have sacrificed access to state highways and residents are struggling to access the nearby transportation system.”
An interdisciplinary research team at UT is working with the Smart Mobility Office to design a hub for Georgian Acres to offer a bike rental system, e-scooters, and circulating buses. A shelter with a solar-clad roof will power the station, which offers free WiFi, charging stations for electric vehicles, a pantry and a mobile health clinic. The first phase of the project, funded with $ 50,000 from the National Science Foundation’s Civic Innovation Challenge, included efforts to contact the community to determine their transportation habits and needs.
From these conversations, Hannah Barron, who led the community’s engagement, learned that many residents of Georgian Acres lack consistent transportation. Residents may not always have access to a vehicle, and if they do, it may be shared with family or friends or it may be unreliable. “It’s really getting to a point of desperation,” Barron said, explaining how road safety could affect residents’ ability to get to their jobs. There are also safety concerns for the first or last mile to the bus stop, Barron added. “One woman said to me, ‘Look, the nearest bus stop is four blocks from here, but there’s no way I’m going to let my grandson use that.'”
Two disused Capital Metro buses, donated to the project by the transport authority, are used as circulators that drive from the junction to nearby destinations such as the transit center or the nearest grocery store. Local residents also wanted a bikeshare system, so the team plans to incorporate micromobility solutions for the hub, including bicycles and e-scooters. Residents said they also need a communal meeting room, Jiao said, and the project team decided to equip the hub with Wi-Fi. You can also add a pantry or small coffee shop on site – facilities that Jiao thinks of as a very small European train station where passengers can get something to eat while they wait.
“It offers us a new opportunity to send our youth into new industries, to connect them with scooter companies and, above all, with the city itself.” – Chris Haskins, Jail for Jobs
The project’s nonprofit partner, Jail to Jobs, is helping recently incarcerated youth find employment and is based in Georgian Acres. Jail to Jobs founder Chris Haskins described the hub as a natural fit: “[We] already had connections with the community and our teams can be hired to carry out the project. “” It gives us a new opportunity to send our youth into new industries, to connect them with scooter companies and most importantly with the city itself. It obviously offers a large number of jobs that are fairly well paid and beneficial. To have this experience and perhaps incorporate it into the work for the city is a great asset for our youth. “
Starting October 1, the second phase of the project will be fueled with $ 1 million from the NSF grant to complete the design – a process Jiao expects to be completed by December – and the hub itself build. But Barron insists, “The last thing we want to do is bring something into the community that is unsustainable.” As the project is largely funded by grants, it is unclear whether this circulation bus service can continue well into the future. “Of course I want this to be a neighborhood job,” Jiao said, “but we only get that much money, so we can start small.” Jiao hopes it will serve as some sort of pilot project for a network of transportation hubs across Austin and could potentially be dovetailed with Project Connect.
“We are holding additional discussions with community partners such as Capital Metro[‘s] Transit Empowerment Fund, “said Barron,” looking at how this is sustainable in the future. Infrastructure, mobility hub itself, and micro-mobility provider – they’ll be in the room through the year too, but the challenge is to find funding for how long the neighborhood circulator can stay on the route. … It’s part of this pilot project. “
A printed version of this article appeared on October 1, 2021 with the headline: Mobility Problem with Buses, Bicycles and Scooters
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