BIKE: Commuter Rail In General

[Bob Farr]

Mike Dahmus writes:
> That's a good point. While I've mentioned a few times what I thought could 
> have been done to the 2000 package to make it pass, I haven't done so in one 
> clear posting. I'll get on that this morning. Check out the blog in a few 
> hours (http://mdahmus.thebaba.com/blog/)

Ok, I've just read the alternative and, as usual, Mike does make some good 
points.

I too wish we were voting on a slightly tweaked 2000 plan. I think that this 
time around, with the air spilling out of the Bush gas bag and a wave of 
progressive energy (and more voters in general) in place at the moment, passage 
of something just like LRT would be a "slam dunk."

Unfortunately, we don't get to vote on Light Rail -- right now we get to vote on 
Commuter Rail. A distinction I suspect is largely beyond the attention span of 
most area voters.

And if as Mike proposes, Commuter Rail collects a NO consensus on November 2nd, 
what will we be left with then? I'll tell you what. The usual suspects will 
announce, with the results of two consecutive NO referendums to back it up that 
"Austin doesn't want rail, period. End of story!" It might not be true, but 
they'll make the argument and it will have legs.

It's a given that a Nov 2 defeat of Commuter Rail will foster four more years of 
attempts by the usual suspects to divert CAP METRO's significant assets away 
from future rail and toward more highways and high capacity roads. They will 
have some success in doing so. After all, Austin will have defeated two 
consecutive rail referendums.

In four more years, in eight more years, nobody knows which way the wind will be 
blowing. It may be years before another  rail referendum sees the light of day. 
And what will the rail option look like then? Monorail, perhaps, but let's not 
get into that. Let's instead, deal with the bird in the hand, right here and now 
because we're running out of gas, money and time.

I'm voting for mass transit because I believe mass transit is the future. The 
current Commuter Rail referendum may not be the perfect solution, but it's 
unreasonable to expect perfection. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be the 
well-funded, organized opposition to this iteration of Rail like we saw four 
years ago -- and this time around, there's a good opportunity of success. I say 
we grab it.