BIKE: Austin congestion is now decreasing!

[Roger Baker]

On Nov 3, 2004, at 11:49 AM, Lane S. Wimberley wrote:

> Dave,
>
> I think there's probably some truth to what you (and Mike) say.  But,
> in my mind, the mindset that leads to sprawl and the far-flung
> suburban lifestyle, is likely an outgrowth of rampant materialism.
> The "supersize me!" attitude that bigger (and more) is better leads to
> the desire for a bigger house and more stuff to put in it -- possibly
> also to bigger families.  Cheap gasoline enabled land speculators and
> developers to figure out that they could get rich by betting that
> folks would trade an hour-per-day (or more) commute for a slightly
> bigger piece of land, more rooms and more space inside their house.
> I think folks are quick to weigh the value of money, but not the value
> of time.  That's probably because, at least in their mind, with money
> you can get (more) stuff.


Humans are largely programmed by their culture; which for most is the 
sum of all the TV ads they have watched. If hundreds of billions of 
dollars worth of TV commercials and car ads all tell them in unison 
that success amounts to buying a big fancy house on top of a hill in 
the suburbs like Mike Dell, they will behave accordingly.  This fits in 
with the timeless human instinct to impress girl friends by having a 
bigger pile of fancier stuff than everyone else around.

And the road lobby and the real estate lobby have harnessed and 
cultivated these inclinations to give Austin the status of the most 
auto-addictive city of its size in the whole world (trailing Houston 
Atlanta and Indianapolis with 32 miles per day per capita) together 
with somewhat average congestion delays.

All this would all be fine for the winners -- except that the energy 
crisis is about to change all that in the ways and for the reasons 
described in the video "The End of Suburbia".

To this add the fact that the road lobby is attempting to make Austin 
the world leader in deficit spending for toll roads to keep the 
paving/land speculation game going a little bit longer.

Besides the energy crisis, which is what really dooms the toll road 
bonds,  we should note that the Austin area has seen the creation of 
only 5000 jobs in the last year, whereas CAMPO is planning as if about 
25,000 people were being added to our regional population each year. 
CAMPO uses these unrealistically high numbers in order to pump up their 
travel demand numbers that can be used to justify the need for more 
roads. Plus there is a serious shortage compared to the anticipated 
crop of high tech millionaires; the jobs being created around here 
lately don't buy many fancy houses in the suburbs anymore. The jobs 
being created these days are more suited to captive riders.

Incidently, the rail start that passed overwhelmingly yesterday was put 
on the ballot with the full approval and endorsement of the political 
establishment like Michael Dell and Kirk Watson.

I do expect this dab of rail to do very well from the day it opens in 
two or three years, because by then energy costs will be much higher 
than now (at least in terms of our regional earning power, even if oil 
prices cause a world recession).

-- Roger