Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobotomizer
My only contribution is while I find much to love with our progressive city government, I'm very thankful we have a conservative state government to moderate certain aspects.
Austin is not an urban, walkable transit rich city. TXDOT isn't destroying Austin with expressway construction. There's much hyperbole in regards to this topic.
I can't wait to drive on the new and improved I35. Ditto for Oak Hill Parkway, 183N, and upcoming South Mopac.
I can have these views while simultaneously supporting Austin's updating of it's land development code, Project Connect Plan, and continued move towards a more urban future.
It's called being reasonable, and accepting reality. Let's not jump the shark
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There's no "reality". This is not the natural order of things. You can choose what to build. And yeah, you'll be able to have a nice drive when it opens but you're just spurring more extremely low density sprawl so you'll be back in bumper to bumper traffic in 5-10 years except now you have more cars on city streets too.
You're right, you can support both paths but only because you are free to support anything you want. It doesn't mean it's not an inherent contradiction between supporting both sustainability and unsustainable widening/sprawl. What are we going to tear down 30 years from now when we have to widen the highway again? Just get rid of DKR? Let's lose the convention center. And about 40 years after that? That's what we mean when we say sustainable development. You can't keep widening and increasing capacity for single rider vehicles. It does not scale.
Austin is becoming more walkable. We've committed a lot of bond money to the effort and every week a new project is being finished. These efforts will compound and build out to a more walking city but that's going to be a lot harder if we're paying 1 billion for buildout and 50 million a year in cap maintenance for the fucking highway. Especially when that federal and state funding for the highway could have gone to regional transit or even building out light rail / commuter rail even further.
TLDR: Car brain is a choice. It's not an undeniable reality.
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