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October 21, 2009
TxDOT, city set to raise Bull Creek bridges
A long-discussed $5.7 million project to rebuild the RM 2222 bridge over Bull Creek is about to begin, the Texas Department of Transportation says.
The new bridge over the creek will be 19 feet higher than the current bridge, just above the 100-year flood plain, TxDOT area engineeer Terry McCoy said. McCoy says the current bridge floods about twice a year, causing what are sometimes brief shutdowns of RM 2222, a key commuting artery to the west and northwest suburbs.
The current RM 2222 creek bridge, which has no shoulders and substandard railings, is considered “functionally obsolete,” McCoy said.
More or less simultaneously, the city will build a new bridge upstream on Bull Creek where Lakewood Drive crosses the creek. That project is estimated to cost $716,000. The two projects have been timed to ease what will be something of a traffic nightmare over the next two years for people who live on and near Lakewood Drive.
Commuters on RM 2222 will have their own challenges as well.
The TxDOT project, expected to take about two years, centers on the bridge-raising but also includes lane additions at the RM 2222/Loop 360 interchange, construction of a 500-foot-long ramp on Lakewood Drive as it approaches RM 2222, and water and wastewater utility work. The city is contributing about $830,000 to the overall $5.7 million project cost.
The Lakewood ramp will be necessary because RM 2222 will be several feet higher at the two roads’ intersection once construction of the RM 2222 bridge is complete. People who live in the neighborhoods near Lakewood Drive had complained when word of this project first surfaced in 2005, concerned about the loss of trees and perhaps greater cut-through traffic.
The additional bridge project on Lakewood, which the City of Austin will commence later this fall and complete in about five months, will further complicate traffic patterns.
The RM 2222 project will begin with the lane improvements at Loop 360, allowing concurrent construction by the city of its Lakewood Drive bridge further north. That way, once the work on the RM 2222 bridge begins, Lakewood Drive can be closed there and people in the Lakewood neighborhood will have a clear alternative path north to Loop 360.
People can also exit the Lakewood neighborhood to the east using Far West Boulevard.
The Lakewood Drive bridge will raise what has been a low-water crossing, where cars actually drive through water even in periods of no rain, to a five-foot-high bridge.
Lynne Lightsey, a spokeswoman for the city’s Watershed Protection Department, said that low-water crossing is typically one of the first places to flood in Austin when there is heavy rain. With a five-foot bridge, the road will be out of the two-year flood plain but still might flood periodically.
Lightsey said Bull Creek Park just east of the low-water crossing — currently an off-leash dog park — will be closed for a renovation project at the same time as the bridge project, and for time after that will be an on-leash park.
Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
A project to rebuild the RM 2222 bridge over Bull Creek is about to begin.
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August 28, 2009
Handicap parking fine about to double
The minimum fine for parking in a handicap space without a permit placard, or with a placard “borrowed” from a qualifying person, will double Sept. 1 from $250 to $500.
Repeat offenders would see fines as high as $1,250, along with 50 hours community service, for the fourth violation, said Travis County Constable Bruce Elfant.
Elfant, who has represented Precinct 5 since 1993, has been part of lobbying efforts through the years that pushed the minimum fine to $50, then $100, then $250 and now $500. Still, Elfant said, people persist in parking in the spaces. His office will write about 1,500 such tickets this year, he said. At one point this spring, Elfant’s deputies in one day wrote 23 tickets in the area around the Capitol, many of them to people who when confronted admitted that the placard on their car was issued to someone else who was disabled.
“A couple of them said it’s just the cost of doing business,” Elfant said. “We’re hoping the $500 will change that dynamic.”
Elfant’s office, aside from having one of his deputies assigned full-time to enforcement of handicap parking, has 30 volunteers trained to give out tickets. But he said only deputies can confront someone to see if the placard belongs to them, leaving the volunteers to write tickets only for cars that park in a handicap slot with no placard.
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July 24, 2009
Capital Metro will have to install 'positive train controls'
The Federal Railroad Administration last week issued a proposed rule that would require most railroads in the country by 2015 to install “positive train controls,” remote-controlled devices that can stop a train and prevent collisions such as the California crash last year that killed more than two dozen people.
UPDATE: Capital Metro spokesman Adam Shaivitz said the agency’s interpretation of the 80-page proposed rule is that it would apply to Capital Metro and its combination freight and commuter rail line running from Llano to Giddings. However, Shaivitz said, it is too early to say what the cost would be to the agency.
Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the railroad administration, said the Railroad Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which requires the new train controls, has a provision contemplating federal grants to help railroad operators pay for the changes. But how much is available would depend on appropriations in the future.
“It is as we all know not inexpensive,” Flatau said. “That’s all in the hands of Congress.”
The rule should be finalized by October, Flatau said, and take effect early in 2010. But it gives railroad operators until the end of 2015 to get the job done.
The law would require positive train controls on commuter rail lines as well as many lines that run only freight. Capital Metro will “temporally separate” freight service and passenger service — running freight at night and passenger trains in the day — but still will need to install the controls.
The California crash between a freight train and passenger train occurred on a line where the two types of service are not segregated by time period.
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June 23, 2009
Daigh to be Williamson County infrastructure chief
Bob Daigh, who retired as TxDOT’s Austin district engineer on April 30, in September will become Williamson County’s infrastructure director.
In that newly created $130,000-a-year position, Daigh will be in charge of the county’s robust road construction efforts, fed by large transportation bond issues in 2000 and 2005 and agreements with TxDOT for “pass-through toll” projects that are now under construction. The county, in a release announcing Daigh’s appointment, said he will also help the county prepare for a 2011 bond election.
Daigh was district engineer for the 11-county Austin district, which includes Williamson County, from 2003 until April. Before that, he was a top official in TxDOT’s turnpike division and was instrumental in the several-year effort that resulted in the construction of the Texas 130, Texas 45 North and Loop 1 tollways. All or part of all three roads are in Williamson County.
The pass-through agreement between Williamson County and TxDOT was negotiated and signed during Daigh’s tenure. And he worked closely with the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. The toll road agency’s only active road thus far is 183-A in Williamson County.
Austin-based transportation consultant Mike Weaver has for many years been Williamson County’s de facto road chief. Connie Watson, spokeswoman for the county, said that county commissioners have said they hope Daigh’s hiring will allow them to reduce consultant fees associated with roads. County Judge Dan A. Gattis, she said, had predicted that Daigh’s position “would pay for itself” by reducing consultant costs.
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April 27, 2009
No swine flu adjustments thus far for Cap Metro, ABIA
Capital Metro, which carries up to 140,000 passengers on weekdays, many of them in close quarters, for now has not activited its plan for dealing with an infectious disease emergency in reaction to the emerging swine flu situation.
But under that emergency plan, should it be deemed necessary, spokesman Adam Shaivitz said that workers in key departments like maintenance and operations would be issued protective gear such as gloves and respirators to limit the possibility or spread of infection. Bus cleanup crews, Shaivitz said in an e-mail, would use a “more aggressive antiseptic cleaning agent” on agency buses and vans.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport spokesman Jim Halbrook said that the airport so far has not changed how it handles incoming flights from Mexico. Mexico flights, operated by VivaAerobus, go in and out of a small auxiliary terminal several hundred yards south of the main terminal. Halbrook said that that airline, which has flights to and from Cancun and Puerto Vallerta, is in off-season mode right now, with flights only on Thursdays and Sundays.
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April 9, 2009
We are all Soft Foam Jerome
What follows isn’t a transportation story per se, although it does involve cars and a street. And what I think was a man in a funny suit.
Last weekend while sitting at a Southwest Austin traffic light, I noticed the guy over on the sidewalk. He was in one of those mascot-type outfits, this one with a clown-like face, blue hair made of yarn, an over-sized butt with ill-fitting pants and big ol’ boots.
He was bouncing along in that universal mascot prance, waving at cars. He wasn’t carrying a sign, so it was unclear if he was promoting the custard shop right behind him, or perhaps the automotive repair shop alongside. The only clue was his character name stitched on the back of the outfit: “Soft Foam Jerome,” it said. Might have been referring to custard.
Momentarily, to my left, a muscle car came zooming up with the windows down and four young guys in the car. They had apparently spotted Jerome, and felt moved to comment.
“Blank you,” they yelled, to roughly translate. They also waved at him, after a fashion, withholding all but one finger from the gesture. You see these comedians all over town, driving by golf courses and yelling “Fore!” at duffers in the middle of their back swings. Absolutely hilarious.
The driver pulled to a stop about three cars up on the left, also caught at the light.
Jerome pondered the situation, the clown smile frozen on his face as he stared at his antagonists. Then he looked down at his heavily gloved hands, trying to figure out if he could manipulate the fingers. Satisfied this was so, he strolled forward until he was opposite the muscle car. I noticed that the pants on his outfit were riding dangerously low, but fortunately the backside of the costume was not anatomically correct.
Arriving at his destination, Jerome took a moment to perfect his right hand. Then, with a certain majesty, he raised the arm high in an answering salute. I couldn’t tell if the guys in the car noticed him. At any rate, fortunately the situation did not escalate.
At this point, I noticed that my face was splitting in a grin. “Is this a great country or what,” I thought, reaching way back to quote Michael Keaton in “Night Shift.”
The thing is, Jerome was clearly visible to his bosses inside the custard shop or auto shop. Conceivably, his reprisal could have cost him his position. But he had apparently decided the minimum wage (or close to) he was receiving to wear a silly suit was not worth the price of his dignity.
Yeah, he was saying to the guys, the circumstances of my life led me to decide I would spend my Saturday afternoon mincing around in his hot outfit. But just because I look like Bozo doesn’t give you the right to treat me like a bozo. I couldn’t help but admire him.
Later it hit me why the incident resonated. Right now, all of us are dealing with something of a driveby dissing from the credit crunch and this recession. We go to work in our various silly suits and day-after-day endure unemployment figures, layoff announcements and discouraging 401K reports.
The economy, in effect, is that car with those guys. And we are all Soft Foam Jerome, doing what we can.
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April 6, 2009
Big transportation day in the Senate
Remember all that fighting last session about private toll road leases? Well, two bills that would allow such agreements to continue for the next six years — but a new leash on the leases — are on the Senate’s calendar for the session beginning at 1:30 p.m.
But before that, state Sen. John Carona’s Transportation and Homeland Security Committee will hear a raft of significant transportation bills:
SB 1353, by Carona: in such private toll road leases, this bill would ban upfront concession payments from the private company to the state, instead stipulating that the state could only share in the toll revenues as they roll in.
SJR 9, by Carona: this proposed state constitutional amendment would allow gas tax money to be spent on more than just roads — rail, in other words — and end diversions of gas tasx money to the Department of Public Safety. SJR 52, by state Sen. Wendy Davis would also allow highway fund money raised by local option elections to be used for rail.
SB 216, by Carona: the companion to SJR 9, it would also outlaw using money in the state highway fund (fed by gas taxes and vehicle fees) for the DPS. This bill and the constitutional amendment would end a $1.2 billion-a-biennium “diversion” of transportation money to the DPS. This one might run into trouble the people running the budget this year — state Sen. Steve Ogden — who wanted to lower diversions from transportation but might not want to go this far.
“Fixing diversion realy needs to come as the first step,” Carona said. “I don’t think we can ask for more money and ignore the problem of diversion.”
SB 1510, by state Sen. Royce West and Carona, and SB 2371, by Carona: 1510 would name a section of I-20 in Dallas after President Barack Obama and 2371 would name a forensic center in Garland after former state Rep. Fred Hill, who just retired. Last session, the Senate seemed to agree that to get something named after you (particularly roads) the primary qualification is to be deceased. Obama and Hill don’t meet that standard.
SB 1351, by Carona: Would restrict members of the Texas Transportation Commission to two-year terms (they have six-year terms now) and not allow them to continue serving once their term expires. Many appointees of Gov. Rick Perry, including some on the transportation commission, have served well beyond the end of their terms.
And many more. In addition, the committee will vote on about 50 pending bills at 10 a.m. or so. This seemingly sleepy session for transportation appears to be waking up.
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March 26, 2009
More stimulus money for Central Texas
The Texas Transportation Commission this morning approved a list of “enhancement” projects, $74.1 million worth, that will be funded by the federal stimulus plan. That list includes two projects in Central Texas for a total of about $2.5 million.
The area already found out it will get more than $100 million for three highway projects, most of it to build flyover bridges at the confluence of U.S. 183 and U.S. 290 in Northeast Austin. The flyover bridges will be tolled.
The Northern Walnut Creek Trail project in Travis County, 3.2 miles of what planners hope will eventually be a 16-mile concrete trail from Northwest Austin to Govalle Park in East Austin, will get $2.0 million of stimulus money. Combined with local money, the project will be $3.3 million.
The other project is an extension of an existing city of Hutto trail identified as “Cottonwood Trail, phase 2” in Williamson County. Hutto will get just over $545,000 of stimulus money, with a total construction cost (including local money) of $830,000. The money will help add about a mile of 10-foot-wide concrete trail to a mile-long trail already in place. It connects Fritz Park and Creekside Park in Hutto and roughly follows Cottonwood Creek.
The Texas Department of Transportation’s share of road and bridge money under the stimulus plan is $2.25 billion, and the bill signed by President Barack Obama in February stipulated that 3 percent of that must be spent on enhancement projects. These typically are trails, highway beautification, rest stop and in some cases tourist-oriented projects.
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March 25, 2009
Local dough for transportion bill clears first hurdle
The Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee this morning passed SB 855, which would allow certain larger Texas counties to ask voters to permission to raise taxes or fees for transportation.
The bill, approved by the committee 7-2, and the concept behind it face a long road before anyone sees their gas tax or vehicle registration fee go up. The bill will have to clear the Senate and House and get Gov. Rick Perry’s signature, of course. But a companion joint resolution, which would proposes a state constitutional amendment allowing gas taxes to be spent on rail, would have to get through both houses of the Legislature with at least two-thirds majorities.
Texas voters would have to approve the constitutional amendment in November. A county commissioners court in either the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Travis, Hays, Bexar or El Paso County would have to call such an election. Then voters would have to say yes. The bill requires that the ballot spell out which of the six taxes or fees would be increased, by how much, for what projects at what cost, and for how long the tax or fee would exist.
Even with all of that, conservative organizations are opposing the bill generally and have some legislators spooked about making a vote to “raise taxes.” State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, in fact had a terse confrontation with one opponent in a committee hearing a week ago about that. Giving counties the right to ask voters to raise taxes, he said, is not the same thing as raising taxes.
The vote today in the committee was 7-2, with a diverse couplet of “no” votes: Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, one of the Senate’s most liberal members, and Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, a conservative. Ellis said afterward that he wished such local option taxation could be extended to more progressive areas, such as health care, rather than going only to transportation. The problem, he said, is that most of the options in the bill for raising money are inherently regressive, that is, they would take a much greater percentage of a poor person’s income than they would of a well-off person’s income.
“I don’t mind a regressive tax as much if it’s going to a progressive purpose,” Ellis said.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the committee and HB 855’s sponsors, noted that Huffman and Ellis have something in common: their hometown. And Harris County, at least for now, is not included among the counties in the bill that could hold such elections.
“There was simply nothing in the bill for them,” Carona said, saying that the Houston area might be brought into the fold later as the bill progresses. He acknowledged the difficulty of passing any bill through the Legislature that raises the prospect that taxes or fees would go up, no matter who makes the final decision.
“We’ll pass it, we’ll pass it,” Carona said. “It’s not an easy issue though. The vote may be close.”
The House sponsor is state Rep. Todd Smith, R-Tarrant County.
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March 18, 2009
Transportation part of session finally begins
Well, it only took about two months, but the Legislature is finally getting serious about tackling the state’s most serious transportation problems.
The Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee as you read this is taking testimony on SB 855, state Sen. John Carona’s bill to allow counties to ask voters for added fees or taxes for transportation. Carona, a Republican, is chairman of the committee.
The bill would provide a menu of possible revenue-raisers — a local gas tax, increased vehicle fees, even a fee on newcomers — that would only go into effect if a county commissioners court calls an election, and then voters say yes.
But there’s a long road to get there. First of all, the change would require not only passage of SB 855 (and a signature from Gov. Rick Perry, which is not assured), but also passage of a state constitutional amendment because it would allow spending of gas tax dollars on something other than highways. The commissioners and locals would have to act.
The bill’s time may or may not have come. What it has going in its favor is legislators’ continuing distaste for raising the state’s 20-cents-a-gallon gas tax and the nearly universal agreement that the state needs much more money for transportation. What it has going against it is that it could be construed in an election — particularly a Republican primary — as a vote by a legislator for raising taxes. Or a signature by a governor for raising taxes.
Also, the money could be used to build public transit, something that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is particularly anxious to do. Some folks in Central Texas have the same idea.
Four leading officials from North Texas, where the bill originated, are testifying right now. Carona, as they began and voiced their support for the bill, urged them to share their support with Perry’s office.
Glen Whitley, the Tarrant County judge, immediately laid out one of the main arguments. A dollar of the federal gas tax goes to Washington, he said, comes back as maybe 80 cents. And then he’s not sure how much of that will return to Tarrant County. Similarly, a dollar of the state gas tax goes to Austin, and as much as 50 percent of it could be gone before coming back to his county, Whitley said.
“Every dollar we raise this way will stay in our county,” he said. For a gas tax, that would be true only if there is a constitutional amendment passed providing some sort of exception to the current provision in the Texas Constitution that 25 percent of the revenue go to public schools.
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February 20, 2009
Somewhere Judd Gregg is chuckling
Being a Republican in the Obama administration is turning out to be complicated.
First, GOP Commerce Secretary nominee Judd Gregg developed quick second-thoughts over the stimulus bill (and maybe the U.S. Census) and backed out. Then today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, also a Republican, got his hand quickly slapped after leaving the door open to converting from a gas tax-based system to a mileage-based system.
Here’s in its entirety is a CNN.com item posted this afternoon:
“WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Obama administration will not support a policy of taxing drivers based on their mileage, the Transportation Department said Friday after a published interview in which Secretary Ray LaHood called it an idea “we should look at.”
In a written statement, the department said, “The policy of taxing motorists based on how many miles they have traveled is not and will not be Obama administration policy.”
The idea — which involves tracking drivers through global positioning system (GPS) units in their cars — is gaining support in some states as a way of making up for a shortfall in highway funding. Oregon carried out a pilot program and deemed it “successful.”
Speaking to The Associated Press, Transportation Secretary LaHood, an Illinois Republican, said, “We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled.” The remark was part of a discussion about various options to help make up for the highway funding shortfall on the federal level.”
Up to now, using mileage for taxation rather than fuel use hadn’t seemed like an inherently Republican idea. After all, Oregon has been a blue state recently, and a current test of the mileage system (including some participants in truly blue Austin) came out of suddenly blue Iowa.
Anyway, GOP Defense Secretary Robert Gates better watch what he says for the next few days. Maybe for the next four years.
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February 6, 2009
Take two on a too-steep lakeside sidewalk
Crews this morning began tearing up and redoing a curving sidewalk along the Town Lake Trail built steeper than federal disability law allows. The sloping concrete path leads from the South First Street Drake Bridge down to the trail.
The 70-foot-long sidewalk section on the north side of Lady Bird Lake should have had periodic sections with grades of 2 percent or below. That flattening helps those using wheelchairs to maintain control on a slope.
But a recent inspection showed that contractor Texas Sterling, which did the $9.5 million Cesar Chavez Street overhaul that includes this work, had built three such sections with grades up to 4 percent, said city project manager Rick Colbrunn. The contractor will cover the cost of redoing those 70 feet, this time building the “flat” sections at grades of 2 percent or less. Colbrunn said the cost would be a few thousand dollars.
The work should be done by Monday or Tuesday, he said.
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December 12, 2008
Austin native could be Obama's transportation chief
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram today is reporting that former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk is among two finalists to become secretary of transportation in the Obama administration.
Kirk, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002 (losing to Republican John Cornyn), is an Austin native. Kirk told the Star-Telegram that he is going through the vetting process.
Asked about this by the American-Statesman this afternoon, Kirk acknowledged the vetting, but would not say for what post in the administration.
“If the president of the United States comes to you and says, ‘I think you have a skill set that would be useful in helping us turn this ship around,’ that is something anyone would have to consider,” Kirk said.
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December 9, 2008
Econophobia: Fitch says freight, trucking taking hit
Put this down as not surprising, but still worth noting: Fitch Ratings says today that volumes are down for both the freight rail and trucking industries. And trucking is beginning to see that slowdown reflected in prices, Fitch says.
Freight volumes for the year through November were down 2.2 percent, Fitch says, citing the Association of American Railroads. It’s even worse for the fourth quarter of the year (or a portion of it), with a 5.6 percent drop between Sept. 28 and Nov. 29. That’s roughly the period since the credit crunch first hit and threw the country and the economy into a genuine funk.
For trucking, meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted volume for October was 3 percent lower than for September, Fitch reports, based on data from the American Trucking Association. That’s four months in a row of decline, Fitch says.
The slump so far has not affected base freight rail prices, Fitch says. And that industry, which had seen five years of solid growth and comfortable profit margins, has a lot of money in the bank to weather the current troubles. Furthermore, Fitch says that freight rail relies to a great degree on carrying things like coal that are recession-resistant.
Not so with trucking, which carries a lot of retail goods. And prices are falling there, Fitch says.
Happy days, not here again yet.
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December 5, 2008
Ben has started tweating....
This is just to let anyone who stumbles onto this blog know that I have started using Twitter (user name: bwear) for some transportation news, that which can be crammed into 140 characters. Good place for quick, small pieces of news that might not be worth a blog, much less a story. But it’s also a place to quickly put information before it becomes a blog, then a story.
So, check it out.
Ben
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December 3, 2008
Red flag for red-light cameras
A Dallas judge’s ruling, along with two federal lawsuits it sparked, could lead to the invalidation of thousands of tickets issued using red-light camera images as the sole evidence for the citations.
However, the Department of Public Safety says the state law cited in the lawsuit and ruling, which seemingly would require the companies running the cameras to have a state license that they don’t currently have, are not applicable. Reyne Telles, a spokesman for the city of Austin, which has five of the cameras up and running, said “we are making no changes to our program at this time. But we are monitoring the lawsuits that have been filed.”
Lloyd Ward, a Dallas lawyer, had sued Affiliated Computer Services, which runs red-light cameras in North Texas, saying the company did not have a license required un the Texas Occupation Code. A Dallas County judge Nov. 19 issued a summary judgement agreeing with Ward.
Ward then filed federal class-action lawsuits against Affiliated Computer Services and Redflex Traffic Systems, which runs Austin’s cameras, because neither has the license. It is not clear if the class-action suit would include drivers who were cited for running the traffic signals that are cameras in Austin.
The Department of Public Safety, in a statement it issued to the Dallas Morning News, said what the companies do with red-light cameras “are not the functions of an investigation company as defined by the Private Security Act and do not require a license under the Act. The Private Security Act exempts photographs taken for criminal justice purposes on behalf of a governmental entity.”
Redflex spokeswoman Shoba Vaitheeswaran had not returned a call for comment by the time of this posting.
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December 1, 2008
IRS notices gas prices, lowers 2009 mileage rate
Well, with gasoline prices cut in half, it was probably inevitable. And could have been worse.
The Internal Revenue Service last week announced that its mileage rate for 2009 business expenses will be 55 cents a mile, down from the current 58.5 cents a mile rate. On the other hand, it’s higher than the 50.5 cents rate that was in place for the first half of this year. The IRS raised that mid-year when gas prices began spiking, and said in its announcement last week that this lower rate reflects the fall in fuel costs.
The IRS rate not only affects how much some people pay in taxes. Many companies and governmental entities use it as a standard — adopting it for reimbursement to workers for miles they drive on the job — or at least as a directional guide for adjusting company rates.
This is not the first time that the mileage rate has gone down. In fact, it went down just three years ago when the 2005 rate of 48.5 cents a mile fell to 44.5 cents in 2006.
As recently as 2003 the rate was just 36 cents a mile, back when gas was selling for $1.50 a gallon to $1.70 a gallon. That’s only slightly lower than what Austinites are paying right now. That makes a 55 cents a gallon IRS rate look pretty good.
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October 16, 2008
Road spending as anti-recession tool?
Very interesting article by my fellow transportation writer Michael A. Lindenberger in Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News.
Some national politicans, including Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, have suggested massive federal spending on transportation projects might be a relatively quick way to put a lot of people to work and thus staunch the looming economic downtown. And, oh by the way, it would address a real need for new and rehabilitated infrastructure.
There are arguments for and against this, of course, and the article explores them. One side note: Lindenberger talked to Gov. Rick Perry who said, among other things, that he would likely sign a bill to index the state gas tax to inflation were the Legislature to pass such legislation and put it before him.
Hey, gas is down to $2.70 a gallon or so, $1.30 a gallon lower than what it was just a couple of months ago. Indexing the gas tax would add less than a penny a gallon in any given year. Sounds kind of puny next to what we’ve all been going through at the gas pump, doesn’t it?
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October 13, 2008
Wanna make $900 studying an alternative to the gas tax?
The gas tax, it appears, is a dying animal. Central Texans now have a chance to be a part of deciding what creature arises in its place.
High gas prices have already cut driving in most parts of the country, driving gas tax receipts down. And the increasing efficiency of cars, a trend likely to accelerate as hybrids make up more and more of the cars on the roads, will also decrease government revenue from the 20 cents a gallon state gas tax and 18.4 cents a gallon federal gas tax.
So, what’s the alternative? Aside from tolling every road and street around, which is not likely to happen, taxing people based on the actual miles they drive is the best replacement that transportation experts have been able to devise.
The trick, however, is figuring out how to do that. Simply asking people at the end of the year for their odometer reading, and then taxing them on their self-reported numbers, might be an ethics test that many people would fail.
So scientists have been trying to come up with devices that, using global positioning systems, measure the miles a car drives and stores it securely in a computer. A test of such a system in Oregon a couple of years ago showed some promise, and has now spurred a broader experiment.
The federal government is about to initiate a study of such devices in six places, including the five-county Austin area. Central Texas volunteers, 200 this year and 200 more next year, would drive around for eight months with the computers installed. Complete the study and you would get $895.
Installation and removal of the computer on your car would be free. The identity of the people in the study will be kept confidential.
The University of Iowa researchers behind the study are taking applications starting today and running through Nov. 3. The “winners,” as it were, would be notified by Nov. 14 and have the devices installed in their cars by the end of the year. You must be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old and living in Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis or Williamson counties. To volunteer and be screened, go to www.RoadUserStudy.org or call toll free at 1-866-363-1975.
The other areas being studied are San Diego, Baltimore, Boise, Idaho, the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina and Eastern Iowa.
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October 10, 2008
Gas prices plunging. Now what?
Well, I paid $2.88 a gallon for gas last night, a price I never thought I’d see again.
On my way out to Johnson City for a football game (I officiate games part-time), I saw gas prices in Dripping Springs in the neighborhood of $3.07 and resolved that when I came back I would stop there and grab a quarter tank of this “cheap” gas. But, before I could get there a few hours later, I ran into a Shell station several miles west of Drippin’ with the $2.88 stuff. I almost had a wreck pulling in there.
If you look at crude prices, of course, this price makes sense. Back when we all paying about $4 a gallon for regular, oil was at its peak price of $147 a barrel. Now it’s at $85 a barrel or so. Put another way, the base product for gasoline this summer was selling for $3.50 a gallon (there are 42 gallons in a barrel), and now is selling for $2.02 a gallon. It only makes sense that at some point that $1.48 a gallon savings would trickle down to the gas pump.
The question for all of us, of course, is what do we do now that gas prices suddenly seem bearable again. Do we throw hypermiling out the window, and put the pedal to the metal? Do we stop trip chaining to save gas? Do we ditch plans to buy that hybrid down the road and start eying SUVs again?
The answer will probably be a little bit yes, a little bit no. The underlying situation of a relatively limited supply and ever-increasing demand really haven’t changed that much, although a global economic slump/recession/depression will certain dampen demand for a good while. But it’s a good bet that we’ll probably be buying more $3-something gas and $4-something gas over the next few years than $2-something gas.
In the meantime, with all the economic bad news washing over us, gas prices find themselves in the odd position of being the only financial good news to be had.
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September 19, 2008
Report: Austin parking pricey
The National Parking Association, doing its first ever comparison study of parking costs around the country, by certain measures shows Austin the most expensive place to park in Texas.
The survey looked at parking in a number of ways, including what it costs for the first hour in commercial parking lots and garages, what 12 hours costs and monthly rates. In those first two, Austin is worse than Houston or Dallas and uncomfortably close to the top nationwide.
The first hour downtown averages $8 in Austin, tying the city for 16th in the country. The worst is Century City in the Los Angeles area, at $16 an hour. Houston’s first-hour rate was $6.50. It’s $5.25 in Dallas.
For 12 hours, on average it will run you $19.50 in Austin, the study says. Houston was $17.75. Dallas wasn’t even in the Top 50, which means its 12-hour rate is below $11.50.
Stay away from downtown San Diego, where 12 hours on average will run you a mind-boggling $41.
Looking at monthly rates for unreserved parking spaces, Austin does better at $116 a month. That puts us 51st nationally. Houston is $169 a month, Dallas $136.
The study did not look at parking meter rates.
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August 12, 2008
Ott creates transportation director position, names occupant
Austin City Manager Marc Ott has added a position to his upper management team, creating a transportation director to “develop viable solutions that align with our sustainability values,” according to a city of Austin news release.
Ott has hired Robert Spillar, a vice president with engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc.., for the job. Spillar, according to the city, was formerly director of traffic management for the city of Seattle.
Spillar was a member of the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s “Take on Traffic” committee, which was active last year in support of a plan for five more toll roads in Austin. He goes to work Sept. 2, the release says.
Spillar’s position should not be confused with that of the director of Public Works, which is in charge of road construction and maintenance. Howard Lazarus was hired several weeks ago to succeed an interim director of Public Works and will start work Aug. 18.
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August 7, 2008
Gasoline falling with oil, but much slower
AAA Texas shares with us today the happy news that regular gas in Texas (and, more specifically, in Austin) is down 7 cents a gallon from a week ago. The average price in Texas today is $3.74 cents a gallon; in Austin, it’s $3.77, down from $3.84 a week ago.
But here’s the deal: crude oil closed Wednesday at about $117 a barrel, down about 20 percent from it’s high of around $147 a barrel a few weeks ago. But gasoline in Texas, if you take out the 38.4 cents a gallon gas tax (which of course is static), has fallen from about $3.61 a gallon ($3.99 with the tax) to $3.36 a gallon ($3.74 with the tax). That’s just 7 percent.
These things can have something of a lag. So, in theory, gas should fall soon to about $3.20 a gallon based on the current oil price. Something to look forward to …
For perspective, however, you should know that a year ago the average price of regular gas in Texas was $2.74 a gallon.
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July 23, 2008
U.S. House votes to fill $8 billion transportation hole
The U.S. House voted 387 to 37 Wednesday — a veto-proof majority — to transfer $8 billion from the government’s general revenue kitty to the Highway Trust Fund, which without an infusion from somewhere would go into deficit in the 2008-09 fiscal year.
If the Senate were to go along — and President Bush either pulled back from a veto threat or Congress were to override a veto — then the move would increase federal highway funds in Texas by $859 million. TxDOT in recent years has been spending $3 billion to $4 billion a year on new construction, but had been expecting to slow that pace considerably given the federal and state funding situation.
The federal Highway Trust Fund is fed by an 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax, a levy which Congress hasn ‘t increased since 1993. The fund had developed a surplus of several billion dollars, but with needs increasing and revenue from the gas tax flattening, that surplus has fallen to near zero. The money raised by the gas tax in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 would be at least $3 billion short of what Congress in 2005 had voted to spend on transportation.
Congress has already voted several times in the past two years for “rescissions” — reductions in money previously promised to states — votes that have cost Texas $924 million in transportation money to date.
Moving money from general revenue is, at least for now, Congress’ preferred solution. Given that the federal general fund is running a deficit of several hundred million dollars a year, the $8 billion voted on today would essentially be borrowed money. But Congress, and the president, have shown no taste for increasing the gas tax.
The Bush administration had suggested transferring to highway spending about $3 billion intended for public transit, but that idea has gathered no support in Congress. Bush and his Department of Transportation support public-private partnership deals like the toll road concessions that have caused so much controversy in Texas. Taking money from the general fund or raising the gas tax would have the effect of lessening momentum for such deals.
The bill that passed the House, at least for now, has no Senate companion measure. Similar language exists in a bill to continue operations of the Federal Aviation Administration, according to U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s office. But that bill, for unrelated reasons, has been shelved and may or may not be revived during the current congressional session.
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June 24, 2008
IRS feels your pain on gas prices, raises mileage rate mid-year
The Internal Revenue Service, in an unusual move growing from increasing gas prices, Monday raised the allowable mileage deduction rate from 50.5 cents a mile to 58.5 cents a mile for business travel. For miles racked up moving or for medical travel, the IRS moved the rate from 19 cents a mile to 27 cents a mile.
The increases will apply on 2008 tax returns for miles travelled between July 1 and Dec. 31. Miles from Jan. 1 to June 30 would be under the previous rate. The IRS normally adjusts the rate just once a year. At the beginning of this year, the IRS had increased it from the 2007 rate of 48.5 cents a mile.
Taxpayers use the mileage rate to deduct from their taxable income the expense of using their personal vehicle for business travel. Many employers likewise use the IRS mileage rate as a basis for the reimbursement they pay employees for work-related travel in their own cars.
“Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said in a release from the agency. “Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile. We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers.”
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June 9, 2008
Robert Bryce on gas prices
For a provocative, against-the-grain take on $4-a-gallon gasoline, see what Austin writer Robert Bryce has to say in this piece from the Dallas Morning News.
Yes, Bryce says, gas prices are hard on those with limited means (blogger’s note: which is becoming more and more of us). But gasoline remains a smaller portion of the overall cost of car ownership than it was in 1975, he says, and remains less than half of what people in many Western European nations pay.
Bryce has written for many publications, including the Austin Chronicle, and has written several books. His most recent: “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence.’ “
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May 22, 2008
Bragging time
Your transportation reporter is officially a good driver.
OK, maybe not officially. But I did make a 90 just now on GMAC Insurance’s national driver’s test. And that puts me well above the national average, as well as the Texas average. I’m sure this will impress the cop the next time I get pulled over for a moving violation.
GMAC has been publishing state-by-state and national results from this 20-question test for four years. Want to take it? Go here.
The national average for 2008, GMAC reports, was 78.1 percent, and 16.4 percent failed the test. Texans on average scored 79.7 percent, and 13.9 percent of us failed the test. The top state? Kansas, with an average score of 84 percent and just 5.7 percent failing.
New Jersey brought up the rear with an average of 69.9 percent, and 36.7 percent failing. Something to think about the next time you’re up that way and thinking of renting a car. Go ahead and pay for the insurance from the rental agency.
Which two questions did I get wrong? Here they are (spoiler alert: don’t read this if you haven’t taken the test yet and want to do so. I’ll be telling the right answer for these two questions):
- A pedestrian is crossing your lane but there is no crosswalk. You should: a. Make sure the pedestrian sees you, but continue driving. b. Stop and let the pedestrian cross the street. c. Carefully drive around the pedestrian.
I answered “c.” The correct answer is “b.” As you can see, the real answer — make a scolding gesture and gun it past the jerk to teach them a good lesson — was not offered as an option.
Then there was the 10th question, which I got wrong because I momentarily pictured a diamond as a triangle:
- A diamond shaped sign means: a. Yield b. Stop c. Warning
The answer, obviously, is “c.” I picked “a.” It’s been a long time since geometry in 10th grade …
So, how did you do on the test?
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Slugging it out in the fast lane
Fascinating report today on NPR’s Morning Edition about a transportation phenomenon that I’d never heard of: slugging.
Slugging, as NPR reported, involves anonymous commuters attaching themselves to other commuters, lining up in suburban parking lots or street corners to catch a ride to work with a stranger. The reporting was from the Washington, D.C., suburbs, but slugging occurs in various other large American cities, NPR said.
The way it works, apparently, is that a driver will come up and announce a destination (“20th and K,” one might say in the D.C. area) and the slug closest to the front of the line who wants to go there gets the ride.
The advantage to the driver is that he or she gets a second (or if necessary, a third) occupant in the car and thus qualifies for the high-occupancy vehicle lanes. That way, the driver (and of course the slugs as well) gets to work much faster because the HOV lanes are less congested than the regular lanes.
According to the report, at least some slugs are starting to engage in this to save money on gas as well. It doesn’t mention if any sort of underground economy has broken out in which the slug might pay for all or part of the gas for the driver, or for tolls in other cases, but one imagines this can’t be any farther away than $4 a gallon gas appears to be.
The NPR reports says that an elaborate etiquette has grown up around slugging. Slugs and their drivers tend to stay away from all controversial or personal topics on the long drive in. And they rarely even tell each other their names. One 17-year veteran of slugging told NPR he’d shared his name perhaps a half dozen times in that entire span. Weird.
Anyway, we don’t have HOV lanes here, not yet anyway. But we do have toll roads and $3.80 a gallon gas. I’m interested to know if any sort of slugging is going on in Central Texas. E-mail me at if you have any information to offer along this line.
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May 6, 2008
The state of the states' gas taxes
With $3.50 gas and two of the three presidential candidates talking about putting the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gas tax on hiatus for the summer, this is probably a funny time to talk about RAISING the gas tax.
So we won’t.
But The New York Times this morning published a chart showing the current state gas tax rate in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. Which offers a handy chance to see where Texas stands. The Legislature hasn’t raised the state’s 20-cents-a-gallon gas tax since 1991, and doesn’t appear likely to do so anytime soon.
Anyway, according to the Times, here are some fun facts about how our 20 cents a gallon tax compares:
- 35 states have a higher gas tax than Texas.
- The average gas tax is 25.3 cents a gallon.
- The median gas tax (25 states or D.C. above, 25 below) is Nebraska’s 23.9 cents a gallon.
- California’s 45.5 cents a gallon is the highest rate, followed by Connecticut at 44.1 cents and New York at 41.2 cents.
- Alaska’s 8 cents a gallon is the lowest rate, well below Wyoming at 14 cents a gallon and New Jersey at 14.5 cents.
- Sixteen states are clustered within 2 cents a gallon above or below Texas.
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March 21, 2008
Red light cameras obey Law of Unintended Consequences
From cable channel MSNBC comes this story.
The gist is that some cities that installed red light cameras, including Dallas, are finding to their dismay that the darn things are working too well. Yeah, they’re saving lives. But people memorize where they are and — omiGod! — stop running lights there. So, yes, there are fewer accidents. But there’s also not enough revenue to keep the cameras in the, eh, black.
Of course, city services aren’t SUPPOSED to turn a profit anyway. So city officials could choose to keep them working, preventing accidents, and operating at a loss. After all, this was all about safety, right? Right?
By the way, here are the nine locations for the red light cameras set to begin operating in Austin in April. You’ll no doubt want to memorize them.
Southbound MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) at Howard Lane/Wells Branch Parkway
Northbound MoPac Boulevard at Howard Lane/Wells Branch Parkway
Southbound Interstate 35 frontage road at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Southbound I-35 frontage road at 15th Street
Northbound I-35 frontage road at 11th Street
Southbound MoPac Boulevard frontage road at eastbound U.S. 290 West.
Northbound frontage of Lamar Boulevard at the eastbound frontage of Ben White Boulevard
Southbound frontage of Lamar Boulevard at westbound Ben White Boulevard/northbound Capital of Texas Highway (Loop 360)
East Riverside Drive at South Pleasant Valley Road
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March 17, 2008
CAMPO talking to director candidates
Six semi-finalists to lead the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization are spending the afternoon in closed-door interviews with the CAMPO board’s executive committee.
The nine-member executive committee reportedly will winnow that field of six, which we’re told includes one in-town candidate and five from out of town, to a lesser number of finalists. The CAMPO board as a whole would then interview the finalists (or finalist) on March 31.
The winner of this process would become executive director of CAMPO, which is the federally chartered agency that creates the Greater Austin area’s long-range transportation plan. All roads that use federal funding must be in that plan, which in turn must be updated every five years and approved by the CAMPO board.
The CAMPO board has 19 members, all but two of them elected officials from Hays, Travis and Williamson counties. The board has been under a spotlight for most of the past four years because of its approval — twice — of a five-road tollway plan.
The previous permanent executive director was Michael Aulick, who held the job for 15 years before leaving in January. Maureen McCoy, the interim director, is not a candidate for the permanent job.
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March 13, 2008
If the Onion prints it, you know it must be almost true
In a world where the governor of a large state can talk seriously about building a 4,000-mile system of 1,200-foot-wide corridors of tollways, railroads and utility lines for something close to $200 billion (and rising), can we really argue that any idea is out of bounds? The Onion this week “reported” another interesting transportation program announced by Gov. Rick Perry’s good friend and philosophical fellow traveler Mary Peters, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.
You can read it here.
ALERT: For any of you not familiar with the Onion, be advised that it is a humor publication and makes up everything it prints. Mary Peters DID NOT, in fact, announce a new, $270 billion program of special lanes for reckless drivers. Yet.
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February 27, 2008
One down, 99 to go for bike bridge
OK, it’s not much, just under 1 percent of the cost.
But three companies (we’ll be told who they are Friday) have donated $10,000 apiece toward the estimated $3.5 million cost of attaching a bicycle bridge to the existing MoPac Boulevard bridge over Barton Creek. The money, we’re told, will go to a newly created entity called Friends of the Barton Creek Bike Bridge.
That fund will be housed within the Austin Parks Foundation, and the money (and any other private donations that join it) will sit there until the City of Austin scrounges up enough of its own money and federal transportation grants to get it done. That might be a while.
Annick Beaudet, the city’s bicycle program manager, said the bridge addition is anticipated to be built in late 2011.
I wrote about this last summer. A fair number of people (actual numbers aren’t available) use the frontage roads of South MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) to commute or otherwise get around. The problem is that there is a gap in South MoPac’s frontage roads, which are pretty much continuous between William Cannon Drive and Lady Bird Lake.
That gap is the highway bridge over Barton Creek. Southbound cyclists have a shoulder several feet wide to make the crossing, albeit one strewn most of the time with litter. Not ideal, but passable. On the northbound side, however, the shoulder is only a couple of feet wide and has indentations here and there for drainage grates. Cyclists have no choice but to ride in high-speed vehicle traffic. Not good.
The idea here, Beaudet said, is to attach a bike bridge to the west side of the bridge, the southbound side, something akin to the pedestrian bridges alongside the Drake Bridge downtown. Southbound cyclists could go right onto it, of course. Northbounders, she said, would be able to cross over the main lanes of MoPac on the overpass up the hill south of the highway bridge and then make their way to the bike bridge.
Then they could pass under the highway bridge on a turnaround lane that’s already there at the bridge’s north end, and then continue northbound.
Starting in 2012.
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January 9, 2008
This just in: Transportation reporter hits toll booth
Well, not a toll booth exactly. More like a parking garage booth. In Austin City Hall.
I hoped no one I knew was looking when this happened Monday. But then the phone rang today, and it was Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty on the line. “What the hell happened to you the other day at City Hall?” he asked. Ouch.
I had gone to the weekly meeting of Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s rail committee in City Hall. They have a little machine there at the meeting that you can use to validate your parking ticket and thus park free. But I was already back down below, waiting in the line of cars to get out when I realized I’d forgotten to do that. No problem, I thought. It is probably just a couple of dollars.
Then I got up there to the booth, and the woman working there gave me the price: $6. You have to be kidding; $6 for less than two hours of parking? In a government-owned garage????!!!
She said I could pull over and go back up and validate my ticket. But it was a very tight squeeze, a 90-degree right with about 3 feet in front of my bumper. I tried, then realized there was no way. Meanwhile, cars were stacked up behind me.
Feeling a little torqued about now, I scared up $6 in my wallet and jumped out of the car to go pay the woman. However, my car was cattywampus and in reverse. It backed itself into the rear end of the booth, then, mercifully, came to a stop as I scrambled to get back in. Now paid up, and really torqued, I managed to make my way out of the situation as the gate opened.
As I said above, I hoped no one I knew had witnessed the TRANSPORTATION REPORTER looking like an idiot behind the wheel. No such luck.
There are a couple of white paint streaks on my rear left bumper, marks that will remain there. I have a Taurus, after all, so the streaks probably constitute an aesthetic improvement.
Bottom line: $6 seems like an awful lot to park under a building we all helped pay for….
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January 2, 2008
No comments?
Some of you have been wondering — based on e-mails you sent me — why your comments can languish for hours without being published in ShortCuts. Or in the case of this long weekend just finished, for several days.
The answer is that someone has to “‘approve” your comments, that is, make sure you stay within the bounds I set out in the first ShortCuts blog of keeping the comments profanity-free (at the least) and on a relatively high plane. And I’m only now becoming fully aware that I CAN APPROVE COMMENTS FROM HOME.
Which I will do from now on. Not saying there won’t be some delays from time to time (you 2 a.m. bloggers will just have to wait patiently). But the lapse time between posting your comments and my getting them up there should be shorter now.
You may have noticed that I’ve had nothing on the blog about Ric Williamson since his death Sunday. I did write his obituary that day for the Web site and the print edition of the paper, and I intend to write about the late chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission in my column for Monday.
You are of course free to comment for this blog about Williamson. But I’ve been following some of the comments on Paul Burka’s blog, which got pretty rough. Not gonna happen here. Remember, this was a relatively young man (55) whose passing was just that much more painful for those close to him because of that. He had a wife, three daughters who are young adults, two grandchildren and a lot of friends who miss him. Please take that into account, no matter what you may have thought about his actions as a policymaker.
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December 14, 2007
Calling all commuters!
It really is getting bad out there on Central Texas highways and streets, isn’t it? What in the past has seemed to be an almost imperceptible increase in congestion now seems, at least to me, to have accelerated into the perceptible category.
Those days when MoPac was going 25 steady at rush hour are now 15 mph days instead, and they’re fewer. Those days when northbound MoPac was stacked up back to Austin High at 5:15 p.m., rare before, now seem to come more often.
Now, this is all anecdotal, and just my personal perception. I could be wrong.
So what I’d like to ask of you (and I request that you cut and paste this and send it to your friends) is stories about what has happened to your commute in the past few months and the past few years. How long did it used to take you to get to work? How long now? Are jams and wrecks more common? Less? How have the four new toll roads affected your commute?
You can tell me these tales by registering comments on this blog. But I’d rather you e-mail me at bwear@statesman.com.
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who commute on these major arteries:
1) I-35 south to South Austin, Kyle, Buda and San Marcos. 2) U.S. 290/Texas 71 to Dripping Springs and beyond the Village of Bee Cave 3) Bee Cave Road out to Barton Creek, Bee Cave and points beyond. 4) Loop 360 5) U.S. 183 and 183-A 6) North MoPac 7) I-35 north to Pflugerville, Round Rock, Hutto and Georgetown 8) U.S. 290 East to Manor and Elgin 9) Texas 71 to Bastrop
Have we reached some sort of tipping point on traffic? Your responses will be a big help as I explore this.
Ben
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December 10, 2007
Aulick hands in resignation at CAMPO
Michael Aulick, who as executive director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization managed to navigate quietly through 15 years of often stormy transportation politics, will leave the agency in January.
Aulick submitted his resignation Friday in a letter to state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who took over the chairmanship of CAMPO in January. In the letter, Aulick said his last day would be Jan. 15.
No details were available today on what efforts, if any, are already in the works to find a replacement. Aulick’s departure had been rumored for several weeks.
CAMPO is a federally required planning organization — eight Texas metropolitan areas have them — and its main charge is to create and amend a transportation plan for the next 25 years. The plan is revised from scratch every five years, but can be changed at any time in between. It was just such changes to this plan — federal funds cannot be used for roads unless they are listed in the CAMPO long-range document — that led to the fights in 2004 and this year over toll roads.
Aulick, who just last month received a raise from the CAMPO board, did not say specifically in his letter why he is leaving.
“It is time for me to take on new opportunities in Central Texas that use my education and my 30 years of experience at the local and regional level in land use and environmental planning,” wrote Aulick, who could not be reached for comment this morning. “Thank you all for your friendship and the good times — there were a lot of good times, right? (and certainly some tough problems)”
CAMPO already has undergone a number of significant changes since Watson took over. What had been a 23-member board with 10 legislators was trimmed to 19 members, with just three lawmakers. Watson also has overseen creation of new committees and revisions of various policies.
For most of his tenure, Aulick served under former state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos. Unlike some other planning organization directors who enter the political fray as active players, Aulick tended to remain studiously neutral and act more as a resource for the politicians on his board.
“A 15-year tenure in such a contentious position is extraordinary,” said Bob Daigh, the Austin district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation and a CAMPO board member. “My hat is off to him for job he has done.”
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November 27, 2007
Dallas says cameras cutting red-light accidents
The City of Dallas says its 60 red-light cameras are preventing accidents, according to an article last week in the Dallas Morning News.
According to the article, the city’s first cameras became active in mid-January. For the first six months, the Morning News reports, “T-bone crashes dropped 75 percent and rear-end accidents dipped 57 percent at those intersections.”
The city also reported that the number of citations has dropped by almost 50 percent at the 36 intersections where the cameras have been up and issuing $75 tickets for a full six months. The inference is that people, at those intersections at least, have changed their driving habits for the good.
And the related hope would be that they would be running fewer lights at other places where there aren’t cameras.
This is relevant to Austin, of course, because the city recently signed a multi-year contract to put up cameras, starting with about 15 intersections and then growing. The cameras should be active in Austin sometime early next year. The city has not yet announced which intersections will get them.
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November 19, 2007
TSA: Leave those hand grenades at home
For the annual Thanksgiving travel story, I found myself on the Transportation Security Administration Web site this morning looking at the list of prohibited items for air travel. Give those federal guys and gals credit for thoroughness.
Turns out that among the many items that you CANNOT take in your carry-on are, yes, hand grenades. Also: dynamite, blasting caps, plastic explosives, gasoline, night sticks, stun guns, billy clubs, kubatons (whatever those are) and black jacks. Most of these are also prohibited, for some reason, in your checked luggage.
So, if you and Uncle Phil get into a dispute over who controls the remote control this Thursday afternoon, you’ll just have to settle it with fists.
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November 12, 2007
Doubts about my gubernatorial commute
Sometimes you get an e-mail from someone and all you can do is scratch your head.
I wrote a (light-hearted) column for Getting There today where I acted as a stand-in for Gov. Rick Perry on his new commute. While the Governor’s Mansion is being renovated, Perry and his wife are living in a large rent house in the Barton Creek neighborhood west of Loop 360. Perry’s office declined my request to ride with the governor to work, so I just went out there and made the drive myself.
I left from his street last Tuesday at 7:30 a.m., encountered light traffic most of the way, and got to the Capital at 8:01. Then this morning, comes this caustic e-mail from “devtran1,” whose e-mail address seems to identify the writer as Paul R. Devine:
“If you made it from the entrance at Hickory Creek Dr and Lost Creek Blvd to the Capitol in 31 minutes at 7:30 on a weekday morning then you did it in a helicopter. I am a professional driver and that is at least a 50-minute trip at that time of day. Barton Creek to Loop 360 is totally solid and 1 mile an hour. The governor goes thru Escalla to Southwest Parkway and then down to MoPac.”
I am not a professional driver, and I made it in 31 minutes during morning rush hour. Apparently I need training.
I had to wonder how devtran1 was so familiar with the governor’s exact route, given that his office wouldn’t tell me … And Perry did say on the radio just a couple of weeks ago that he was Red Bud Trail on his way to work, so apparently he doesn’t take MoPac every day.
It was election day when I did the Perry drive. But considering that voter turnout was less than 10 percent, and that people can vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., I can’t imagine that affected the morning drive in a meaningful way. School was in session that day, and the weather was clear.
Frankly, I had heard a lot from people about how horrible the situation at Bee Cave Road and Loop 360 has become, with the extra stoplight just west of the intersection for a side road only making the situation worse. But the day I drove, I got through Loop 360 with no trouble at all.
Traffic can be funny. Maybe I just hit an extremely good day.
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November 9, 2007
Seattle rejects rail & roads proposal
Seattle-area voters Tuesday rejected a $47 billion “roads and transit” initiative that, by raising sales taxes and fees would have built 186 lane-miles of highways, a bridge and about 50 miles of light rail over the next half century.
Puget Sound commentators in the wake of the 55 percent to 45 percent rejection said that the measure’s base political strategy — give road warriors and transit crusaders both something to vote for — instead worked the other way. Both sides had something to oppose. Or maybe people just didn’t want to pay more taxes.
At any rate, the vote leaves rail plans dangling. The Seattle-Tacoma area already has lightly used commuter trains running to and from Seattle north and south. And a light rail line from downtown Seattle to the Seattle-Tacoma airport is under construction and should open in 2009. That looks to be it for quite a while, however.
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November 2, 2007
‘Take on Traffic' takes on traffic
Take on Traffic, that creature of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce that organized support for the toll plan that passed a few weeks ago, called a news conference this week to … what? Well, to say that they’re not going away. That they’re going to keep taking on traffic.
The group enlisted Jim Marston, executive director of this region of the Environmental Defense Fund, to participate in the event, which was held out at the Combined Transportation, Emergency and Communications Center on Thursday morning. Marston made the surrounding suited folks a bit uncomfortable, saying that he didn’t much like some of the toll roads that were approved or think some of them even need to be built, but that nonetheless he was glad they enlisted him for the coming effort. That involves finding other ways to fight congestion, Take on Traffic honcho Gary Farmer said, including mass transit.
Farmer and Take on Traffic had come in for specific mention last week from Austin Mayor Will Wynn when he called for expansion of passenger rail, including connections to the airport, to the development at the old Mueller airport site and to the Triangle development in near North Austin. Wynn didn’t specify routes or give a cost, instead saying that a task force should sort all that out in the next six months. He called for a November 2008 election, and then called on Farmer and his group to back up their rhetoric during the toll road slog and back what he’s doing.
Well, what about Mr. Farmer?
“Have you seen any plan?” Farmer asked. “Me neither.”
He said he and others would wait on seeing details and whether it is “efficacious” for taking on traffic before committing to anything.
Wynn’s aide Matt Watson later called from the West Coast, where the mayor is attending a conference, to clarify that Wynn had not claimed to have a plan. The mayor had instead issued a “call to action” to create a plan.
Traffic was still bad this week on MoPac, however. Plan away.
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October 18, 2007
Get Smart?
You know things are getting strange when they hold a car show at a book store. What’s next? Annie Proulx signing copies of “Brokeback Mountain” at Maxwell Ford in Round Rock?
Anyway, Book People on Oct. 25 will be hosting a showing of the “Smart” car, the super compact popular in Europe. The event lasts from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you haven’t seen one of these tiny things, picture wheels and a windshield and not much else. Or click here, and you won’t just have to picture it.
The Smart car, when they are introduced in the United States next year, will come in three oddly named versions: “pure,” “passion,” and “passion cabriolet,” which is the convertible version. Sounds more like a perfume.
In this time of inconvenient truth, the first and foremost question of course is what kind of mileage you’ll be getting in exchange for traveling in, essentially, a pod. On its Web site, Smart USA indicates that 40 miles per gallon is about it, but there’s no official number yet.
The car is 8.8 feet long — the company says you can fit two of them in a normal parking place — 5.1 feet tall and 5.1 feet wide. The car, the company claims, can go 90 mph. Which sounds harrowing, once you’ve looked at one of them.
The official name of the car, by the way, is the smart fortwo (yes, with no caps). When I first saw that in the press release, I read it as fort-wo, which struck me as poor marketing. Isn’t that a small burrowing animal or something?
But, no, it would be for-two. Yes, for two very small, very brave and very environmentally conscious people. With small suitcases. And no dog.
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