An Aug. 26 urban rail town hall meeting brought out debate about where to put rail in Austin and what populations to serve.

More than 150 people attended the event at the Greater Austin Merchants Association building located at 8801 Research Blvd. in North Austin to listen to panelists discuss the pros and cons of the proposal. Love North Austin community newsletter and the Gray Panthers—an intergenerational group that supports social and economic justice—hosted the discussion.

On the one side is the $1.4 billion urban rail proposal outlined in the Project Connect regional transportation plan and touted by elected officials, including Mayor Lee Leffingwell, and community and business leaders. The 9.5-mile route would run from East Riverside Drive to Austin Community College's Highland campus and connect the downtown core, The University of Texas and the Capitol Complex.

Voters will consider a Nov. 4 bond to authorize the city to sell up to $600 million in general obligation bonds, which would increase property taxes by 6.25 cents per $100 of valuation. A condition of the bond would require the Federal Transit Administration to provide a matching $600 million for the project. A second condition would require the city to identify $400 million for road projects, and Leffingwell has indicated that funding could come from selling certificates of obligation, which does not require voter approval.

On the other side of the issue is a group of rail advocates who oppose the proposed urban rail route in favor of a line that would potentially address existing ridership by serving more people and taking more cars off the road. This group supports a rail investment along the North Lamar Boulevard and Guadalupe Street corridor.

"We don't think [the urban rail proposal] is a smart first rail investment. We think it might hinder the next necessary rail investment if it's not successful," said Andrew Clements from the Our Rail political action committee. "We're not against the Riverside portion of what's proposed. We're strongly opposed to the portion of the route of where it crosses Lady Bird Lake and goes north. We're against the prioritization of roads over rail in bond Proposition 1 because the $400 million has to be committed before the $600 million for rail is committed. Those should have been separated."

Clements said if voters turn down the proposal, a plan for Lamar/Guadalupe could be turned around in about three years for voter approval.

Supporters of the proposed plan say it is necessary to combat the city's congestion issues and is an important first step in building a network of rail.

"We're talking about building a viable urban rail system that is essential to keeping Austin affordable," said Martha Smiley of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. " For most of us transportation and having a good system is about affordability."

Panelists disagreed on how successful the planning process was. Smiley said a group of volunteers spent 18 months going through data.

"A lot of us came to this without a preconceived notion of what we should do," she said. " It didn't matter to me what the answer was, but we had to do something."

Transportation planner Lyndon Henry said he believes leaders have been pushing for the East Riverside-Highland route for years. The route would be the third most expensive light rail system in the U.S. in terms of cost per mile, he said.

"One of the problems is that it misses the third most dense population neighborhood in Texas, and that's West Campus," Henry said. "This is one of the reasons we think it's a very unfortunate and not very cost effective project."

Henry also questioned why UT is not offering any money for the project because the rail route would run on San Jacinto Boulevard through the campus.

"You're putting this on San Jacinto because the university wants to expand to the east. Basically it looks like they're coming to Austin taxpayers to subsidize something that would be very nice to them," he said.

Councilman Bill Spelman said the city has not yet figured out how funding will play out. He added that there could be other funding sources that could reduce the amount of bonds the city ultimately sells.

"I would prefer that property taxes get raised for folks who own property along the route. That is still on table and is likely to be part of the total cost," Spelman said.

Other panelists included Jim Skaggs from the Coalition on Sustainable Transportation, Thomas Butler from the Let's Go Austin PAC that supports the rail proposal and Bill Oakey from austinaffordability.com.