There was a key roadway meeting
last night when CAMPO met, with key decisions made. As I see it,
TxDOT and the land speculation/road lobby, with the help of Mayor
Kirk Watson, won big last night -- won big on both the CAMPO plan
and SH 130, despite strong resistance from many environmental and
transportation reform groups who signed up to speak in numbers
that dominated public input at the CAMPO meeting.
The CAMPO PAC passed the CAMPO
plan with a few revisions referred to in the Statesman
today, but the reporter (Kelly Daniels) left early and did not
catch the final close vote following long and impassioned debate
on SH 130 that led to the decision to let TxDOT do what it wants
on the alignment, with the argument on TxDOT's part that the
western alignment would be more profitable in toll
revenue.
To put the matter in
perspective, Round Rock and Travis County and Austin had all,
before last Feb., voted for SH 130 to go on the eastern alignment
opposed by TxDOT, but without binding effect. The vote to put SH
130 on the fast track by putting it in the three year TIP last
night was also effectively an any-alignment vote.
But Texas FHWA coordinator Dan
Reagan (the man in charge of the federal road pork in Texas, more
or less) has given interpretation of federal law that would
discourage the local MPO from pre-selecting a SH 130 right of way
based on such considerations as community values and effect on
community cohesion. Legal testimony presented by Travis county
last night is that it would be legal for CAMPO to do so but the
response was, more or less, that this would not make Reagan and
the feds happy. To fill out the picture a bit more, Sen. Phil
Gramm has very publicly endorsed SH 130. (I interpret this to mean
that the feds know enough to keep the Senator happy by putting his
spin on federal law. Reagan was quoted a few days ago as having
said that if SH 130 continues to be controversial, it might not
get funded, in what I interpret as an apparent top-down attempt to
quell controversy on a "needed" road).
The Turnpike Authority did a
study cited in its Nov 9, 1999 minutes that indicated that the
effect of putting the road on the western alignment would be to
increase long range economic development along the alignment
corridor by about $19 billion dollars. I brought this fact up in
my comments last night and then asked if anyone had heard of or
seen this study, accepted by the Turnpike Authority. Only Dawnna
Dukes said she had. (I suspect this study, by an outfit called
Insight Research Corporation, MAY have been contrived by the TTA
to convince bond investors that issuing bonds for a future SH 130
toll road is as economically solid as the rock of
Gibralter).
But surely this $19 billion
worth of new development affecting East Austin should be of more
than trivial concern to the mayor and the city council. Will any
of the current low-income residents of East Austin still be able
to live there when such a tidal wave of investment rolls in. Will
low income and minority folks be able to survive the skyrocketing
property taxes from a highway triggered stripmall bidding war and
will the nice proceeds still be enough to buy another modest place
inside Austin?
I think the SH 130 vote was 11
to 10 to defeat the resolution to specify an eastern alignment for
the road, with the mayor and Barrientos in the majority saying
that we should let TxDOT and the FHWA rather than CAMPO decide on
the alignment. Willie Lewis and Gus and Spellman were in the
minority in resupporting the earlier endorsement of the council
for the presumably less destructive eastern alignment (but this
road remains a monument to bad planning on either alignment,
IMHO).
When the TTA was asked why
putting SH 130 in the TIP immediately was such an emergency, TTA
director Phillip Russell said, incredibly that in order to be
eligible for some federal loan program in early July, it had to be
approved now; a fact never revealed before, so far as I know. But
this federal loan opportunity before all the environmental studies
are complete and the revenue studies either; all the studies done
so far have assumed that SH 130 would be free and not a toll road!
What a way to plan Austin's future; like the possibility of
federal road pork in an area with bad air should reign supreme
among planning considerations.
But why should the mayor flake
on SH 130 when he is the swing vote on this key road/sprawl
commuter toll road issue?
Certainly the rumor is
widespread that Watson wants to run for state office, either as
Ltd gov or as Attorney General. You certainly don't rise as a
Democrat in a state politics in a conservative state run by
Republicans by becoming known as a crusading environmentalist
visionary. You talk green and then make plans to get a few city
workers on buses, all the whiles cutting deals that favor land
development interests profiting off the Austin high tech boom,
like huge cash advance to the LCRA for future water for future
development.
Watson announced yesterday that
he is proposing a yet-fuzzy-in-details $150 million bond package
for regional transportation on the light rail ballot this
November. Presumably this huge bond package, seemingly being
shaped by the Mayor as his vision with great advance news fanfare,
could include a blank check for SH 130 ROW -- on EITHER alignment
of SH 130! (which will be built without sidewalks or bike lanes,
BTW).
But the way it looks to me is
that SH 130 is a sick chicken, doomed to be controversial forever,
despite Watson's help in getting it built on whatever alignment
TxDOT wants. But it will reportedly take at least seven years to
build, by which time I am personally convinced it will be seen as
a huge bond-debt ridden mistake, due to the approaching end of
cheap energy on which suburban sprawl depends.
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.
