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Advocate Now!
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Catholic Charities Virtual Webinar
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A Call to Action! And An OpportunityTo Learn More about the Orange Line
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Action Alert: Ask City Council to Consider Traffic & Pedestrian Safety Around St. Austin!
St. Austin’s has been following the discussions on the new Capital Metro Orange Line, which is proposed to run a north/south route through Austin, including along Guadalupe Street. We recognize the benefits of mass transit and the need to serve an ever-growing population around the UT Campus. We also have concerns about traffic flow, access to the sanctuary, and pedestrian safety that we’d like to parishioners and school parents to bring to the attention of their City Council member.
Fr. Chuck and the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) invite all parishioners and school families to send your own letter on the issue to your respective City Council members, Kathy Tovo and. Read the PPC's letter.Write Your City Council Member
About Cap Metro's Orange Line Proposed Traffic Changes-
Council Member Kathie Tovo (and/or your City Councilmember) City Hall, 301 West 2nd Street, Austin, Texas 78701
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Austin Transit Partnership (atp.info@atptx.org)
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Capital Metro/Project Connect (feedback@capmetro.org)
A video overview of Project Connect, Austin's Transit Plan is posted to this page below. At less than 6:30 minutes in length it describes the project essentials.
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June 14, 2022, 5:30 p.m.Project Connect Drag Design Update Meeting Online
Save the Date!
Plan to Attend, on Zoom!
Project Connect invites you to attend a virtual Orange Line Drag Design Update on Tuesday, June 14, 5:30 p.m. Register HERE. The proposed Orange Line will offer new ways for people to travel just west of UT and will create a new signature public space for Austin. Join us for updates to the proposed Orange Line design concepts and corresponding traffic planning strategies around the Drag.
Interested in other areas of the Orange and Blue Lines? Project Connect is hosting a series of community conversations. Each meeting will take a deeper dive into different areas of the project. You will also have the opportunity to provide feedback on the transit projects to the Project Connect team. More information and Zoom meeting links for upcoming community conversations are on our Get Involved page. You can visit past meeting materials and recordings at our Project Connect Engagement Library.
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Summary of St. Austin's Concerns
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Traffic Flow
The current proposal is to redirect traffic from Guadalupe Street to Nueces and San Antonio streets, making the traffic two-way on these streets from 29th Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd (MLK). This would affect the St. Austin community in a number of ways, including school pick up/drop off and access to the parking garage. Other streets may be more suited to convert to two-way traffic. There are intersections along MLK that already have traffic lights to assist with flow, such as Rio Grande. This street easily goes all the way from 29th Street to downtown, San Antonio and Nueces do not.
Access to the Sanctuary
Access to our church sanctuary is primarily on Guadalupe Street. More consideration needs to be given to how traffic will flow along Guadalupe to allow for people to be dropped off and picked up in front of our church. This is especially important for people with mobility issues and for vehicles necessary for weddings, funerals, and other special church services. We are planning to improve access from the alley at the back of our buildings, but this cannot be our only access point.
Pedestrian Safety
In the Project Connect community meeting, project leaders mentioned the need for pedestrian safety on Guadalupe. However, student pedestrians don’t just cross Guadalupe. They cross Guadalupe from campus and continue west into the West University neighborhood. Drivers and electric scooter users in the area don’t always come to a complete stop at intersections. Pedestrian safety on San Antonio and other streets west of campus should be considered along with pedestrian safety on Guadalupe.
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Ready to Write your Letter?
Click HERE for a template to help you get started. Don't forget to use your own words and include a personal experience, frustration, or concern, especially if you are a school parent. Personal stories make the biggest difference. Remember that the more personalized our letters are, the more likely City Council members will read them.
Find my City Council Member
Please send your letter via mail or email to BOTH your City Council Member AND St. Austin's City Council Member, Kathie Tovo.
After you send your letter, please fill out the form below to let us know how many parishioners and school parents took action!
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Read the Parish Pastoral Council's Letter
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St. Austin's is on the Orange Line
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What is Project Connect?
Project Connect is the City’s high-capacity transit system expansion, which includes light rail lines, a downtown subway, an expanded bus system, park and rides, and an all-electric fleet. It is a component of the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan.
In November of 2020, voters approved a property tax rate dedicating 8.75 cents of the operations and maintenance portion of the tax rate for Project Connect, and the City’s Project Connect Office is funded through these tax dollars.
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Our Weekly Invitation to Participate in Advocacy
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At the end of every Mass, we’re dismissed with the invitation to “Go out and announce the Gospel with your lives.” There are a few different ways we’re sent forth, but that’s the gist. We are to go out and LIVE the Gospel call of Love and Service. Live out your Love through advocacy.
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Find my Representative
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US House of Representatives
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US Senate
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Advocacy begins with knowing who to contact. Use the button below to find your representatives' contact information. It's as easy as typing your address. The next step is simple: pick up your phone, keyboard, or pen to deliver your message! Your voice makes an important difference to those in dire need.
Find my
Elected Officials
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The Texas Capitol
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Travis County Courthouse
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Austin City Hall
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Action Alert: Ask Congress to Support poor families & protect our common home!
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According to Catholic teaching, the family is "the most basic form of human community," and therefore is "intimately linked" to the long-term future of our nation. Therefore, "economic and social policies as well as the organization of the work world should be continually evaluated in light of their impact on the strength and stability of family life," (Economic Justice For All no. 93). The Child Tax Credit is an economic and social policy that supports the strenth and stability of family life. Last year, more than 36 million families received a monthly payment through the expanded Child Tax Credit program to help make ends meet. December marked the last monthly payment until Congress acts to extend the expanded Child Tax Credit. The expanded credit has been an extremely effective anti-poverty program, lifting 3.8 million children above the poverty line.
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Interesting Facts
If the expanded credit is not renewed, the amount of help families receive will shrink, monthly payments will end, roughly one-third of households will no longer be eligible to receive the full credit because their incomes are too low, and the lowest-income families will be cut off from the credit all together.
On the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, Pope Francis called for "a culture of care, which places human dignity and the common good at the center." The environment and human beings everywhere, especially the poor and vulnerable, stand to benefit from the care of our common home. For this reason, USCCB encourages Congress to advance climate investment policies that will help protect our common home, including tax incentives to support existing and emerging technologies in clean energy, resilience investments focused on protecting low-income and minority communities, and incentives to decarbonize the economy. Such investments are necessary if the US is to reach its current Paris Agreement goals to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.
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Climate Change
Policies are needed to address "the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." Ask Congress to invest in care for creation and to extend the expanded Child Tax Credit, ensuring it remain fully refundable so that it is available to the lowest income families and that it continues to include mixed-status families.
We encourage you to add your own personal story about why climate investments matter to you, and/or how 2021’s expanded Child Tax Credit has helped your family or your community.
Thank you for taking action. You can read a recent USCCB letter that includes advocacy for care for creation and an expanded Child Tax Credit here.
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