And of course, we are still the This is our city as it stands today. The state of our city is worth celebrating.
I have two grandchildren and two more on the way, a greater source of pride and joy than I could have ever imagined, greater even than being the mayor of the city I love. I am so proud and grateful that on one difficult problem after another, the buck has stopped with us. The 10:1 Council has stood resolute and taken action, supported by the community, including on some of the most difficult challenges our city faces - like mobility; social justice and equity; housing and homelessness.
Our city is finally moving forward with a comprehensive, public transit system. Project Connect, a very long term series of projects, is already underway, with the neighborhood circulators already in operation, the Pleasant Valley and Expo Center bus rapid transit lines and McKalla Station under construction, and the Blue and Orange light rail lines in active planning.
And we have, in the past, made big plans in mobility. In the forty years before the 10:1 Council was elected, there were five big mobility projects that stand out to me: Austin moved our airport; and we turned Research and Ben White Boulevards into Highways 71 and 183; and built SH130 to the east and MOPAC to the south.
In the same year that the 10-1 Council and were first running for office, the people of Austin were voting down a mass transit mobility project for the second time in fifteen years. And our city did. Over the last eight years, the people of Austin have approved not one but four separate mobility initiatives - in 2016, 2018, and two in 2020 – raising revenue in excess of $10 billion. This, in a city that did not pass more than $640 million, cumulatively, in the previous twenty years.
Our global city will connect to the world through a new airport that is as large as our dreams and ambitions. In the past years we have defended and preserved that spirit and, to an ever increasing degree, delivered that justice to those for whom it has too long been denied. Our city does not prosecute truancy or the personal use of marijuana, both of which have historically been used to disproportionately bring into the justice system and incarcerate communities of color. As a result, we’ve helped cut the number ofWe have done as much or more than any city in the country to actually reimagine the concept of public safety, not just to talk about it, and to begin to change the culture of our police force.
Good riddance.
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