BIKE: Road Warriors want your NO vote

[Patrick Goetz]

David Dobbs wrote:
> 
> Now, if you think my "failure" scenario above is idle speculation, here 
> is what Gerald Daugherty, Travis County Commissioner Precinct Three has 
> to say about it.
> 

For whatever it's worth, here is my response to Daugherty's message:


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Information about Congestion Relief (Alternative Funding)
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 16:10:20 -0600
From: Patrick Goetz <pgoetz>
To: Gerald.Daugherty

Gerald Daugherty wrote:
 > So, here's my pitch - instead of allowing Cap Metro to
 > go forward with spending tens of millions of dollars on a Commuter
 > Rail System (that by the way, if you live anywhere other than on or
 > very near this Leander to the Convention Center downtown rail line you
 > will probably never get to use it) this community should demand that we
 > use those millions to help fund not just the Loop 1 South exchange but
 > any other toll road that has a great amount of pubic controversy.

Although I agree with you that the Commuter Rail proposal is a really
dumb plan and that the toll road proposal is extremely undesirable, I
think you're missing the point about why the Loop 1/Wm. Canon bridge was
included in the toll plan in the first place.  The point is not figuring
out how to pay for this particular segment (hasn't it mostly been funded
already?) but rather coming up with a toll revenue scenario that will
make the CTRMA toll bonds attractive to the bond underwriters.  Without
this revenue stream, the CTRMA might not be able to obtain the bonds
they need to build the roads they want, particularly given a TxDOT
consultant's analysis (see the TxDOT Texas Metropolitan Mobility Plan)
that these bonds are only a good investment if the price of gas stays
below $2.50 per gallon (adjusted for inflation) over the life of the
bond.  As anyone who studies petroleum geology knows (see, for example,
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/IPAA-IPAMS-DESK%20&%20DERRICK.pdf),
there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that gas will stay below
$2.50/gal in the next 48 months, let alone the next 30 years.

I also think you're missing an important point about the benefits a true
Metro rail system would afford the Austin area.  Forget about
environmental concerns or any nonsense like that; we need a Metro in
order to continue to be economically viable in the future; in order to
compete with other Metropolitan areas that have a time guaranteed, no
nonsense, no congestion way to get to and from work which isn't going to
cost 14.1 billion dollars over the next 25 years.  We need a Metro
system in order to open up the 70% of Austin's CBD which isn't developed
yet; otherwise there simply is no way of getting more people in and out
of downtown (certainly the roads downtown are not going to be getting
wider).  I agree that Cap Metro has never once offered to build such a
system for us, but should nevertheless be encouraged to do so.

Rising energy costs are just one reason that we need transportation
alternatives.  Tight supply combined with rising demand means that any
disruption in the supply of oil can be economically disasterous for us,
particularly given our relatively inelastic demand.  This is not a hippy
tree-hugger observation.  Fortune Magazine had a front page article
about this a few months ago, and a commission headed by Jesse Helms
determined that our dependence on foreign oil is our single biggest
national security risk.  This is a strictly business decision:  I can
prove mathematically that a 2-4 billion dollar Metro rail system
(subway, monorail, or elevated rail) can stand in place of 14.1 billion
dollars worth of new roads because of the way it redirects and shapes
land use.