(Austin NN) AUSTIN, TX- "Traffic is bad, and it's getting worse, and it has been ignored for several decades," said Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. The he and “Project Connect” continued to ignore local traffic as they huddled over plans for a pet rail project. A rail project that could (definitely will) cost local taxpayers more than $300 million while doing next to nothing to alleviate traffic in Austin. They also promise that the other half of this project (another $300 million or so) will come from federal taxpayers (because Austinites don't pay federal taxes?)
"The car is going to continue to be the dominate means of transportation here in the area, but there are going to be options available through the various options Project Connect instills," said Project Connect Urban Rail Project Leader Kyle Keahey. Instead of addressing the dominate, and most logical, means to address the traffic congestion their idea is to spend a massive amount of tax dollars to benefit very few local travelers.
Friday Project Connect members met to start developing a specific route for the first phase of the project -- the central corridor in downtown Austin. Leaders describe it as "the final mile" that will tie the entire regional system together.
"The only criteria that I have right now is that we tie together the three dense population nodes of downtown, and that's the University of Texas, the Capitol complex and downtown Austin," Leffingwell said. So the question is, do a large number of people routinely travel from the Capitol building to UT and from downtown to UT? What do they do with their vehicles, which they rode to get there, while they travel in this triangle?
I guess that is not their problem. These few people riding the trains the rest of us pay for will eventually have to get back in their vehicles and get back on the highway and regular roads. So while the traffic in the triangle might be a few cars less, there is no actual benefit to the rest of us. Well, besides the honor of subsidizing their comfy ride.
By the time this proposed “final mile” system is up and running it will be sometime in 2020 and will likely cost much more than the local voters will be asked to pay. The long con begins in earnest as “Project Connect” kicks off seminars and webinars, pretending to invite public input – while actually being used to push propaganda to get a bond issue passed in 2014.
If Austin really wants to do something about the traffic they should concentrate on what it is that is congested, the roads. Forcing everyone to pay higher taxes so one percent can ride in style downtown while not fixing the real problem is not the answer.
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