This is a 7-part series on the CA High-Speed Rail. Im posting the last of the series instead of the first because it includes handy links to the other six. The series is a fantastic read because of the amount of ground that it covers. It illustrates that a big CA rail project ($68BB) draws nearly the same criticisms as a small Austin rail project ($1BB). For that matter, public works projects tend to be controversial--potential boondoggles become historical monuments to our vision, when we succeed. And then everyone takes the credit. Even the national interstate highway system was controversial because it bypassed some towns and cut others in half by serving them--like ours. It also dispels the myth that European cities were built around train stations. No, they were *re-built*. Londinium, the ancient Roman capital in England, was built centuries before the first steam train. In contrast, Phoenix and Denver were built around rail, then re-built for cars. LA and Houston fully embraced cars and were re-built and master-planned around the highway. The point is that European cities have adapted to change over their life-cycles--they re-built their cities to accommodate rail, cars, and pedestrians, whereas American cities, with notable exceptions, adapted by building and rebuilding around cars. And thats where we are today with the state of American transportation and Austin is a microcosm. We are at the end of nearly 50-year run of building highways and in a self-reflective mood. The federal highway fund is empty and even if it wasnt, our love affair with the highway is over. Whats next for American cities. Austin is a microcosm, but for a city so progressive in many ways, we are very conservative when it comes to transportation choices. Many other American cities began planning for whats next thirty years ago and today boast 50-mile rail systems to complement and relieve their road networks. Austin too began discussing whats next in the mid-80s, but kicked the can down the road. For that matter, Texas flirted with high-speed rail around that time, but let it get sabotaged by corporate greed (Southwest Airlines). Its not really fair to say that Austin hasnt been planning for whats next. It has. There have been lots of plans, but our governance and our politics--local, state, and national--allow for a lot of meddling and hijinks. Its much easier to delay and derail a project than it is to complete one. We have an opportunity in November to do something we should have done a long time ago and begin implementing our plan for adapting to change, like so many other cities, European and American, have had to do. Are we on a trajectory to become more like an Amsterdam (or the much younger and farther to go to SF) whose relevance and vibrancy has changed and adapted over centuries or will we choke from continued transportation denial and missteps and face the brutal consequences of economic disfavor like Atlantic City, Detroit, and Dodge City. Culture, prosperity, and transportation links. Thats what makes a city relevant, vibrant, and viable, I think. Its natural for many of us to live in an ahistorical, cultural vacuum--to think that our problems are unique, the costs too high, the challenge too great, our habits too entrenched. This is complicated by a leadership criticized simultaneously for cowardice and over-reach. Think beyond your own life and have the courage to reach for an Austin that is thriving 50-100 years from now.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:59:30 +0000
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