Texas' major cities want more Millennials to live downtown but many of those Millennials want to be able to walk, bike and take public transportation. City planners are trying to plan for the future while dealing with the reality of today: we need to build more highways to the suburbs.
Rice's Kyle Shelton says public transportation supporters want us to have more options.
"Only a select few can choose to say 'today I'm not going to drive my car; I might walk or I might jump on the train or the bus or I might take my bike.'"
Shelton says it shouldn't be about either building highways or building bike paths -- it should be both.
"I think it's important for folks not to see it as a zero sum game, that either you're saying I only support auto infrastructure or I only support transit and bike and ped; it's everything and it needs to be everything."
Shelton wants an integrated system with cars, buses and trains -- and bikes.
"Some of what the Mayor's been pushing for with Complete Communities is about pedestrians and mobility; Metro's preparing, eventually, for its next big bond ask and it's next long range plan in the coming years so that'll be an important thing to see."
Shelton says the idea is to not put all of our eggs in one basket and create as many options as we can for drivers and pedestrians alike.