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Roger Baker
rcbaker(at)eden.com, 512-454-9060

Probably nobody knows more about the politics surrounding local transportation planning than Roger Baker and Dave Dobbs. They've been following these issues here for decades, and understand the context and sense of history that is so often missed by the media and the government.

Some of Roger's treatises are listed on our Politics of Transportation Planning page.

Roger is also active in the Travis County Green Party.

Here's a short bio of Roger Baker's work, written by Dave Dobbs on the local cycling email list, in response to someone who criticized Roger for sometimes driving a car:

Mr. Baker has been a tireless proponent of transportation alternatives for over 25 years. I have known Roger for 21 of these years, and can attest from personal experience that he has spent tens of thousands of dollars, and worked nearly full time trying to promote sustainable sensible transportation in this city. When I met Roger in 1979 he had no car and rode the UT shuttle bus. He did not have a driver's license, did not know how to drive and only became a car driver about 1984 when his mother gave him her used 1972 Buick. And as Mike Dahmus has already observed there are constraints on living a "pure" existence in a city designed for cars and little else. As a regular cyclist and bus rider, I often find my car my only real choice given what I must do each day.
Roger's in-depth research, numerous written tracts (published and unpublished), articles in local print media, and public testimony before various bodies politic have been at the very center of Austin's alternative transportation advocacy. Roger served as a citizen volunteer member on the City/County Mass Transit Authority task force in 1982-83 and helped write the report that recommended (successfully) that Capital Metro be formed. As the co-chair of a community group, Austinites for Public Transit, he single handedly published a monthly newsletter for over two years. Together Roger and I, through another group called the Austin Transportation Task Force led the fight in 1985 and 1986 against the outer loop and the Koenig Lane Freeway. Additionally, he served as a board member of Austin Crossroads which filed two lawsuits against the ATS in the late 80's one of which we won on the open meetings question. Mr. Baker was an Urban Transportation Commissioner for a number of years and led the UTC Taxi study subcommittee and served on the Capital Metro Citizen‚s Advisory Committee in the 1980s and 90s. The list of advocacy activities, including some acts of civil disobedience at great risk to himself, go on and on. (Dave Dobbs, 3-22-00)
 






Another site by Michael Bluejay...

Saving Electricity. Find out how much juice your stuff uses, and how to save money and energy. As seen in Newsweek.

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