Tag: transportation

Life, Politics, transport, travel3 Comments

Decaying Texas

Mark Cathcart

It’s been an interesting month. I live in Austin Texas, boom town USA. Everything is happening in construction, although nothing much in transport. In many ways Austin reminds me of rapidly developing cities in China, India and other developing countries. I’ve travelled some inside Texas, but most on I10 and out East. I’ve tended to dismiss what I’ve seen in small towns, mostly because I figured they were unrepresentative. Earlier this month I did my first real US roadtrip. I had my Mum with me for a month and figured a week or so out of the heat of Texas … Continue reading Decaying Texas

Life, politics, transport2 Comments

Rail isn’t about Congestion

Mark Cathcart

Prop.1 on the Austin November ballot is an attempt to fund the largest single bond in Austin history, almost half the $1 billion going to the light rail proposal. Finally people seem to be getting the fact that the light rail, if funded, won’t help with the existing traffic. KUT had a good review of this yesterday, the comments also some useful links. You can listen to the segment here: Is a Light Rail Line Going to Solve Austin’s Traffic Problems? Jace Deloney, makes some good points, what no one is saying though, and what I believe is the real reason … Continue reading Rail isn’t about Congestion

Life, Politics, politics, travel5 Comments

Transportation leadership failure

Mark Cathcart

On Tuesday I wrote about “Austin and Alcohol tourism” and speculated on the lack of an alternative transport policy as a leadership failure. I said: Rather than rally behind what most transport conscious users and urbanization advocates believes would be hard, but right choice to put a rail line of some sort, straight down Lamar from North West Austin, [Mayor] Leffingwell used his last state of the city to rally behind the current rail proposal. And today Leffingwell lived up to that speculation. The outgoing Mayor is reported by the Austin Statesman as saying in relation to making space on … Continue reading Transportation leadership failure

Life1 Comment

Austin and Alcohol tourism

Mark Cathcart

I’m not trying to conflate two separate subjects with this post, but finally people are starting to get part of the real need for alternate transport options in Austin. Urban Rail and Drink Driving. NPR posted a link to this KUT segment/web page to it’s facebook page today. I listened to the story as I drove to work this morning on Morning Edition. Providing additional transport isn’t enough, it will need a generational change. However, generational change needs real leadership to solve this problem and that’s been distinctly lacking from the “Rail or Fail” Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, and departing Governor of … Continue reading Austin and Alcohol tourism

Life, politics, travel2 Comments

Mor on parking

Mark Cathcart

@DanKeshet @cathcam Warehoused cars get driven far less often. It’s not perfect but best we can hope for right now. — Mike Dahmus (@mdahmus) January 2, 2014 @cathcam Yup. I’m trying to understand if they’re “needed” because required by policy, required by investors, or desired by devs. — Dan Keshet (@DanKeshet) January 2, 2014 I got some interesting responses on twitter about my parking madness post. Yes, if was writing a critical analysis, I should have covered all those points, but then the blog entry wouldn’t have been as catchy and would have taken too long to read. Here are … Continue reading Mor on parking

Life, Politics, politics1 Comment

Parking Madness

Mark Cathcart

Nothing demonstrates the failure of the current City of Austins approach and transportation policy than these two pictures. We are constantly being told than density is key to Austins future, the central neighborhoods are ripped left right and center for opposing unrestricted growth, either through bogus PUD applications which for the most more about raising the lot property than actually doing something useful. This week, Michael King in his point Austin column makes some great points about affordability, but then takes the easy way out by blaming the central neighborhoods for opposing multi-family development. Finally, the City recently agreed to … Continue reading Parking Madness