At their April 14 meeting, Austin City Council approved an initiative to identify public transit priorities and passed a measure to
shorten public testimony speaker times during city meetings.
Transit priorities
The transit policy resolution passed April 7 directs staff to collaborate with Capital Metro, city boards and other stakeholders to develop goals for public transportation with a focus on the following:
- improved safety
- improved person-carrying capacity of existing streets
- reliability of transit service
- identification of corridors for which transit priority should be considered
- potential service agreements with Capital Metro
Public comment
City Council gave initial approval April 7 of a measure that limits public comment time at City Council and committee meetings to 90 minutes per agenda item. On April 14 council gave final approval of the policy with the addition of a rule that reduces speaker time after the 20th speaker from three minutes to one minute.
The new structure will allow more individuals to speak during a 90-minute public testimony time period, District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool said.
“It allows a larger number of people to speak," she said. "I wanted to err on the side of allowing more people to come and address us.”
The new time limits were created as a standard but City Council may vote to change the public testimony structure for any given item, according to the approved resolution.
