BIKE: Council survey sent

[Roger Baker]

1. Describe your priorities in terms of city of Austin transportation 
planning and funding. Please summarize your long and short range 
transportation planning and funding philosophy. What is your vision of 
what evolving roles cars, and alternatives like bikes, pedestrians, and 
public transportation should play in Austin's future five and ten years 
from now?

2. What percent of the city's transportation budget should each 
alternative transportation modes get in terms of bond money and other 
city funding?

3. Do you intend to support, by your council votes, the CAMPO plan 
based on current growth trends (Envision Central Texas alternative A), 
or one of the other ECT alternatives like alternatives C or D?

4. Do you support or oppose future sprawl development outside the city 
limits? If you oppose sprawl trends will you actively oppose such 
development in terms of your political activity?

5. Do you think world oil production is likely to peak within this 
decade (or how soon?). If so, what effect do you think this would have 
on toll road travel and financing, and how might this affect growth  
trends in the austin area?

6. Are you concerned by the fact that the long range CAMPO 2030 
mobility plan is projected to make area road congestion nearly three 
times more severe (from the current 10% of seriously congested roads up 
to 29% in 2030)?

7. Are you willing to publicly oppose the current representation on the 
federally sanctioned CAMPO body, with its overwhelming share of 
officials representing areas and districts lying outside Austin, even 
though Austin has most of the area's population?

8. The CAMPO 2030 plan proposes to hold a series of $400 million bond 
elections to pay for expanding road capacity in accord with the growth 
trends in the plan. Would you support or oppose such bonds?

9. The secondary traffic impact associated with the toll roads in the 
2030 CAMPO plan is expected to require on the order of a billion 
dollars worth of new road widenings within Austin. How will you handle 
this problem without degrading the quality of life for Austin 
residents?




On Apr 16, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Michael Bluejay wrote:

> I sent the survey to all the City Council candidates.
>
> I can still add questions to the survey until the first candidate 
> actually sends a survey back, so if you hurry you can still suggest 
> questions for me to add.  Roger, you said I asked the wrong questions 
> but you never suggested any questions I should ask instead, even after 
> I requested such suggestions from you.  If you got 'em, send 'em.
>
> Send them directly to me at:    bicycle(at)michaelbluejay.com
>
> Don't send them to the list, because I get it in digest form, and I 
> won't see anything posted to this list until tomorrow or Monday.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -MBJ-
>
>


(Below is what I had posted previously, anticipating that it would 
logically inspire questions like those above. -- Roger)



The reality is that CAMPO, not the city, spends 15% of just one 
category of discretionary federal funds, the STP 4C funds, on bike and 
ped stuff. It might only represent 1 or 2% of total transpo spending in 
this area.

So this 15% is not really even a city issue because the policy is 
entirely up to CAMPO, although Austin does have a few votes on CAMPO, 
(which is heavily dominated by suburban sprawl interests friendly to 
the road lobby). The 15% policy was adopted a few years ago when the 
funds were easier to get and before the road lobby got so rapacious.

Arguably far more important than this is whether Austin city council 
candidates have the courage to support alternative D of Envision 
Central Texas, (which a large majority of Austin area people supported 
in a vote a year or so ago). This is a inexpensive, efficient, 
non-congestion encouraging compact city alternative that TxDOT and 
CAMPO and the road lobby hate.

Meanwhile CAMPO, with Mayor Wynn's key support, favored the sprawl 
alternative that gave us  the toll roads last summer. Essentially TxDOT 
and CAMPO pressured Austin into supporting Envision Central Texas 
alternative A, which is growth as usual served by toll roads, built 
using deficit funding.

As I have pointed out before on this list, the new CAMPO 2030 plan to 
go along with CAMPO's sprawl land use forecasts would cause Austin's 
current congestion level to nearly triple, even assuming we had the $22 
billion to implement it, which we don't.

Don't expect the Statesman or even the Chronicle to explain these 
issues to you plainly before the expected CAMPO vote or the council 
elections. The only good local transpo reporter is Ben Wear and he's on 
the Statesman's leash. These issues are complex and I spend a lot of 
time studying this stuff to try to inform you.

Whether city council candidates have the courage to stand up to the 
road lobby and promote alternative D of Envision Central Texas rather 
than CAMPO's congested sprawl vision is key, IMO.

Begging for a bike lane here or there while ignoring the big issue of 
whether TxDOT will get away with planning Austin's future to benefit 
the special interests is to focus in the wrong direction, IMO.

If you only beg for crumbs you will get crumbs. I encourage those who 
are politically active to focus on the big picture a lot more, using 
implementation of citizen-supported, bike-friendly Envision Central 
Texas alternative D as a key demand.

-- Roger