City of Austin voters turned down a $1 billion rail and road bond proposal Nov. 4 with 57.2 percent, or 108,396 votes, against the bond.



Mayor Lee Leffingwell said Election Night he was disappointed in the defeat and that the city does not have a Plan B for improving mobility in Austin.



"Obviously we don't have a plan in place, and I don't anticipate there will be one," said Leffingwell, whose term as mayor expires early next year. "I'm sure there will be an effort at some point to try to build more roads, but I have a hard time seeing how that's going to help very much in the central city."



Some of the burden could be put on transit agency Capital Metro to implement new service, Leffingwell said.



Scott Morris from the Our Rail political action committee, which opposed the bond, said he was encouraged by the results. Morris said the bond's failure gives the community a chance to work with the newly elected City Council and mayor to bring back a new plan.



"We will get to work with putting together a community-based approach to transit planning," Morris said. "We move forward with the new council to explore options, including Guadalupe [Street]/Lamar [Boulevard]. We're very hopeful that we have engaged the community enough to where there's sufficient political support for a successful referendum in 2016."



Leffingwell said that timeline is not feasible given the effort it took to organize the failed bond proposal. However, Morris points out that Project Connect took only 19 months to bring forth its rail plan.