A crisis in local leadership? (Austin: sales, houses, transfer)

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

Our leaders just approved a plan to spend $35 billion on roads, busses and rail over the next 25 years. As a result, our traffic congestion will get MUCH WORSE. With average speeds on I-35 going from 40 MPH to 23 MPH and toll road speeds going from 77 MPH to 41 MPH.

Oh, and 13.5 billion of that spend will go to rail and busses. One way or another our leaders will waste billions on rail and ignore the needs of the people. This is what we get when politicians have billions of other people's money to spend with NO accountability.

Nice plan????? Is everyone happy????

Seems to me that means they're wasting 22 Billion on roads that just get more congested.

[Eastcoasting]

So what is the answer to move humans around as quickly and cheaply as possible with as little disruption to the environment that allows the flexibility of scale to grow with an ever increasing population?

Honestly wondering what the answer is here.

It would seem that adding more lanes to roadways is only a stop-gap and trains are the devil.

[pop251808]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

...because our leaders (???) refuse to fund roads...

With what money? Is their ANY significant portion of the cost of these roads you want sitting around growing moss? No, it has to be fought for in the scramble to get federal, state and local tax dollars that haven't even been collected yet.
So, a more correct statement might be: "our leaders refuse to see roads as the only way to support the transit growth projected, especially in light of the demonstrated failure of roads to speed up travel times since before any of us were born."

As for the Speedo analogy: if you're a fat bastard driving a Tahoe, sure, it won't look good. But if you're going for a new paradigm of a city that attracts growth due to it's innovative approach to many aspects of life, you'd better be looking at solutions that work in other places and adopting some of the better ones. And make no mistake, once Austin quits growing, it's dead meat. Austin's growth is what it has going for it, economically and culturally.

Stupidity is sitting in traffic for two hours everyday and saying "if only they'd build another road, everything would get better," when that has never worked for long, up until now. Time to do something different, both on a personal and on a community level.

[DCtoTejas]

Originally Posted by pop251808

But if you're going for a new paradigm of a city that attracts growth due to it's innovative approach to many aspects of life, you'd better be looking at solutions that work in other places and adopting some of the better ones.

Yes and one of the things that new paradigm needs to address with transit is fixing the government management and ongoing spending models that come along with large mass transit projects. It can't be allowed to become a slush fund for maintenance contracts, overtime abuse, mismanagement and ever increasing rolls of transit authority workers with unsustainable in-the-long-run employment benefits who can't ever be fired or held accountable. For an example of all of the above, see the epic failure of the washington dc metro yesterday morning.

[Roadking2003]

Originally Posted by unihills

I read about the Leander rail line being standing room only. That seems to belie the argument that mass transit doesn't appeal in Austin metro area.

No, it does not. Ridership is not an indicator of success. Standing room only just indicates that the price of a ticket is lower than the demand for that ticket.

Nobody said it has NO appeal in Austin.

[Roadking2003]

Originally Posted by pop251808

Stupidity is sitting in traffic for two hours everyday and saying "if only they'd build another road, everything would get better," when that has never worked for long, up until now. Time to do something different, both on a personal and on a community level.

I agree. I would move to another location before sitting in traffic for two hours every day.

But yes, building roads at the same pace as we are adding people is the solution. That would certainly be "doing something different".

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

But yes, building roads at the same pace as we are adding people is the solution. That would certainly be "doing something different".

That requires paving over half of downtown and adding 10 more lanes to I35.

Some solution.

[iamwayne]

North American Union/NASCO/super highway/Ports/etc..., the leadership is implementing a plan that was already in place a while back... I guess you guys didn't pay attention...

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by Roadking2003

Transportation in Austin and Paris have nothing in common and never will, nor should they. It's really funny when people try to apply solutions to one area the work in an entirely different environment. Of course, it's alway funded by "other people's money" so it's pretty easy to spend a few billion on a boondoggle.

Well most roadway funding does not come from user fees anymore (gas taxes, tolls, etc.):

New Report Finds Drivers Pay Less Than Half the Cost of Roads | Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Development Network

[oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots]

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