Postmarks

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See the Big Picture

Editor:

Alternative transportation venues are needed now -- 10 years from now, existing highways and a double-decked MoPac monstrosity will be woefully inadequate for our needs, assuming Austin continues to attract as many people in the future as she does presently. The status quo is suffocating us -- affecting our air quality, our "quality of life," and, drive any highway in this city, our peace of mind.

The light rail campaign is not an either/or proposition: It is one element of an aggregate of integrated opportunities designed to relieve congestion. The key issue at present and in the future is choice. Light rail operates on a dedicated right-of-way -- it will not be adding to our congested freeways or competing with bus and automotive traffic. Supporting light rail will not remove funding from the highways (God forbid!). If you've lived in Austin for a long time, you have first-hand knowledge that the build-more-highways-only prescription is not working -- it's a stopgap measure, at best. As long as the city brings in 100 new residents a day, expanding our transportation choices is imperative. Only building more and only expanding existing highways will not retain Austin's revered "quality of life."

The argument that no one will use it is particularly egregious. If it's not available, of course no one will use it. Cities across the nation that have built light rail have seen continued increases in ridership, thus removing thousands of cars off the roadways.

Opponents are also not telling you that we could permanently lose funding from Washington if the proposal doesn't pass this November. Voting for light rail ensures that funds already set aside for this infrastructure improvement are retained. Remaining funds are available through Capital Metro -- no new taxes, no tax increases, and no new bonds. The one way this proposal becomes a potential "boondoggle" is if we vote against it. The irony is that if light rail is not approved, then it may indeed cost too much when, in the future, we decide we need it.

Voting for light rail does not mean highways will lose funding, however, voting against it does ensure that highways remain our only "choice." Visit austinatrain.org on the Web and/or call 462-9999 for more information. This November, vote to keep Austin intrinsically special -- vote for transportation choices.

Sincerely,

Marianne Reichert

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Cap Met Untrustworthy

Dear Louis:

Just got through reading your "Page Two" for the Oct. 6 issue, and had to write to you before I go on with the rest of the issue. You ask: What? Well, Louis, this is what. For me personally it has to do with trust. I wish I could trust Capital Metro to deliver what they are promising. I wish I could trust the city of Austin to deliver what they are promising too, but quite frankly I just don't trust either entity. They are asking for a billion dollars just to get started. That's a billion dollars Louis, and they don't even know where they're going to put the damn thing yet except that it's going up somewhere between Austin, Leander, and possibly Bergstrom. You may ask what indeed.

It's not that I'm against light rail. It's not that I'm for paving over the rest of Austin either. I'm one of the people who voted against the South Texas Nuclear Project way back when, and guess what, Louis, we're still paying for that jewel that was going to make Austin such a better place for the future.

I agree with you, something has to be done, and done soon. It seems to me that Capital Metro has had ample time to state their case and convince us that they are up to the task. I for one am not convinced they are up to it, Louis. Now, having said all this, I will also venture to say that come November and the voters turn them down, they will find a way to skirt the voters' wishes and do it anyway no matter what the hell Amy Babich has to say about it. Is this a great place to live in, or what?

Samuel E. Sims

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Rail Reasonings

Dear Editors,

Louis Black could easily have become a stereotypical dogmatic editor after 20 years on the job. Instead he retains a refreshing honesty and an open mind.

He acknowledges that light rail will do little or nothing for traffic congestion or air pollution, yet he supports it because he feels we have to do something, even if it only benefits our grandchildren. Reserving judgement, however, he asks, "If not light rail, then what?" (Louis rejects, with some justification, building more roads.)

For 30 years, China suppressed any free markets in food production, and for 30 years they knew hunger. After Mao died, they experimented by allowing very limited markets to emerge, and the famine ended. Our traffic problems are suffering from the same restrictions. We have made free markets in mass transit a crime, and we suffer from congestion as a result. Imagine if Southwest Airlines ran our transit system instead of Cap Metro. (Their passenger-mile cost is a fraction of what Cap Metro wastes.)

To put it another way, imagine that in 1980 we passed a law that all PCs would be made by one tax subsidized government company. Do you think they would have built a 386 by now? Do you think it would cost less than $5,000? (Not including massive tax subsidies.)

Of course there are other pieces to the puzzle. Our roads represent another tragedy of the commons for which technological solutions are rapidly coming into grasp.

If you only talk to liberals and conservatives all you ever hear is light rail or more roads. Libertarians have other ideas.

Sincerely,

Elayne Hunt

Libertarian Candidate for Travis County Constable, Place 2

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Go Into the Light

Dear Austin,

Embrace the insight of Mike Clark-Madison and his light rail observations. You need light rail; you've needed light rail. Austin's booming success is treated far too casually, not to mention hypocritically. Many major American cities are literally dying to have a fraction of the dot-com action and would instantly tailor their city to enhance the success light rail naysayers take for granted (see New Orleans: Its last major industry just left with no replacement in sight).

The growing pains you are now experiencing and will continue to experience are a rare and fantastic opportunity. If you fail light rail again, you've sealed your fate to sucking a tailpipe and damned your city's 21st-century global position. By world standards, Austin is very young. But truly it has the potential to be the next lasting global American city. Passing light rail would easily ensure a 22nd-century seat at the big kids' table with New York City, Barcelona, Boston, Paris, or insert here your favorite 200-plus-year-old town that has some form of rail, light or otherwise.

Voting against light rail is more or less wishing your city's success elsewhere; be careful what you wish for, Austin, you just might get it.

Jean-Paul Villere

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Third-World Bus Rules!

Dear Mike Clark-Madison,

In your light rail article you mentioned that if the rail proposal fails, then the Lege might take away half of Cap Metro's income, thereby leaving Austin with a third-world bus system. Well it so happens that I am currently living in the third world, Cuernavaca, Mexico, to be exact, and the bus service here is fantastic. The buses go where you want, when you want. I can and do travel from my house to work and most places I need to go by bus. And instead of waiting 30 minutes for the bus to come as I did in Austin, I rarely wait more than five minutes for the next bus to pick me up. Having a car in Mexico, and most of the third world, is a luxury that most people cannot afford. So instead, we have a third-world bus system that functions much more efficiently than the first-world system of Austin, TX. It is a real pleasure living and working in a city where I am not forced to drive everywhere while being stuck in traffic or, alternatively, constantly waiting for the bus to arrive. So next time you want to refer to a third-world bus system, it should be as a model for Austin to follow, not something to deride.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stuart Reichler

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Johnny on the Monorail

Editor:

Your October 13, 2000, edition contained a letter from Sara Belknap extolling the virtues of monorail over light rail and she included a Web address for readers to research for further information. I took the time to review the Web address and must admit that Ms. Belknap has a good idea. I believe that the city of Austin should seriously consider monorail before we rush into building a light rail system.

I have heard over the years that monorail is more costly to construct in the beginning. I don't know if that's true or not since I have never been offered any cost comparisons. Consider the benefits of monorail, however: 1) they can be constructed very quickly (most of the construction is done offsite and simply erected into place) as opposed to the eight years that CapMetro proposes for completion of the first link of light rail; 2) they run much quieter than light rail because they run on rubber tires; 3) they are safer and much less obstructive to normal traffic flow than light rail because they do not take up street space (cars are not hindered by them and there is no chance of rail/automobile collisions), and by the nature of their design, they are not subject to derailment; 4) and maybe most importantly, where monorail does already run, they appear to run profitably almost immediately.

I'm afraid that Capital Metro is attempting to implement a system that is obsolete before the first rail has been laid in place.

Sincerely,

Mike Hanley

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Light Rail Long Term

Editor:

I live on a very crowded street in West Campus where nearly all the street parking is taken up by current residents. In my neighborhood, many houses have been torn down to make way for large apartment complexes with minimum parking requirement which only adds to the problem. And what is it going to be like 10 years from now? The only future relief for this neighborhood as I see it is the prospect of light rail. Light rail will give the students and long-term residents like myself an option in transportation. This could reduce our dependency on cars and in the case of my household, we could conceivably reduce our car ownership by half. For students, given the cost and comparison and the hassles that come with car ownership, many would opt out of bringing a car all together. I truly believe if Austin could build an efficient, well-planned light rail system comparable to the one Dallas now has, we would be in a much better position in the future to manage growth. Voting yes for light rail in November for my family and neighborhood is making a responsible long-term choice to solve one of the biggest problems facing the future of Austin.

Thank you,

Liana Tomchesson

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Another Volente Voice

Dear Chronicle:

You have recently printed letters from three of our Volente neighbors regarding your "Village People" article (Sept. 21). These folks are justifiably concerned by the flouting of Austin regulations by the Volente Beach Club. Unfortunately, incorporating a village won't make that problem go away.

Little is known about Volente by your readership except perhaps for the Beach Club. This current push for incorporation is dividing our community, but friction is nothing new to Volente. Years ago, before there was a Beach Club or even the name Volente, the Parker family ran a small hamburger joint at the site of the present club restaurant, where the locals could dance to a jukebox. Not all locals were welcome, however. The Dodd family, who lived across the road and who had gotten the community named Dodd City, were not welcome at the Parker place, and the Parkers were furious at the town name!

While we are not living in the past, there are many of us who are concerned about protecting Volente from an uncertain future of uncontrolled development and possible pollution of Lake Travis.

The "Save Our Volente" committee campaign to incorporate part of the traditional Volente community is Phase II of a developer-driven plan to avoid City of Austin regulations. (Phase I was when the developer, John Shipley, wrote to the city of Austin asking that a portion of Volente be released from Austin's ETJ.) Two supporters of this incorporation have stated publicly that the costs of the incorporation would be paid for by John Shipley. Why is the funding being hidden from public scrutiny? We have located no record of a registered PAC at either the state or county level.

While we can't stop development, we can slow it down to environmentally responsible growth. There has to be a smoother transition from past to future than an incorporation kick started by a developer. We believe that remaining within Austin's ETJ is the best solution.

Regards,

Sue Spicer, Jean Ringer, Mattie Landrum,

Roger & Jean Shull, Lou & Lois Fryler,

Bob & Ginger Gerstenberg, Eileen Gover

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Medical Field Stretched Thin

Editor:

In regard to Kevin Fullerton's article "Road to Recovery," dated Sept. 15:

I have worked in the clinics for over 20 years. For the past 10 years almost, I have been working as a pediatric nurse practitioner, mostly at the East Austin Pediatric Clinic. I am one of that class of persons (providers, i.e. doctors & nurse practitioners) so despised by JKM Consultants (also known as "The Goggio's") as layabouts and slackers. It might be of interest to you to know that the report to Council you quoted from (dated Aug. 24) did not become available to Primary Care management until Sept 12, three days before your article came out. So either you were really on the ball ferreting it out or the Goggio's decided it was more important for you to see it than clinic management, who would actually be called upon to respond to Council. In any case it was grossly unprofessional, unethical and just plain distortion of reality (i.e. slanderous) on their part. But not really surprising after all, since that has been the whole tenor of their management style from day one.

Another two egregious distortions of the truth by The Goggio's were (1) their statement that we are functioning at 75% capacity (I think your article brought out that others did not share that perception). We are stretched to the limit, sort of in the position of the frog in the pot of water gradually being brought to the boil. We have numerous support staff vacancies and are unable to compete in the present hot labor market. The Goggio's cut a bunch of positions and used the money to fund new top management positions. So much for efficiency! "Clinics are now expanding the scope of their care into prevention and social service." Who gave you that piece of big news? We've been doing that for years! Plus, the Goggio's cut social work positions. That's a great way to expand social services. The second distortion is their so-called "market assessments" that poor residents won't comprise a greater percentage of the Travis County population in the near future." Who [the hell] is talking about percentages anyway? Austin isn't growing??!! Absolute numbers are what count, and those of us who are doing the real work of the clinics can see on a day-to-day basis that those numbers are indeed increasing, whatever about percentages. More and more of them are Spanish-speaking only. Close to 90% of my patients are. Qualified bilingual workers are proving very hard to find.

We are close to the breaking point in some areas (like pharmacy, and clinical care is not far behind in some areas). So we in the clinics are not at all impressed by certain people's rosy scenarios. We are in a real wait-and-see situation. Meanwhile the Goggio's scored $2 million of your money and mine for their handiwork and still couldn't resist some cheap parting shots as they rode out of town. If Council and Jesús have any grasp of what has been happening, they should be embarrassed.

Best regards,

Brendan McDaid

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Thanks for Caring

Editor:

Thank you for highlighting the Austin/Travis County Community Health Centers and the primary health care services they provide to low-income residents of Austin and Travis County ("Road to Recovery," Sept. 15). The mission of the Community Health Centers is to provide medical and dental services for Medicaid, Medicare, and Medical Assistance Program recipients and the uninsured, so they can access health care that is customer-oriented, quality-driven, and cost-efficient. I am proud to help lead a team of dedicated doctors, nurse practitioners, and support staff that day in and day out demonstrates its commitment to that mission.

Sincerely,

Neli Cavazos

Chief Operating Officer

Austin/Travis County Community Health Centers

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Snot-Nosed Reviewers in the House

Editor:

I can't help but wonder that when all the editors of a newspaper will only rate the artsy and tragic as decent pictures ... maybe it's time to get some new reviewers.

I can predict exactly what you people will rate a movie, all I need to know is the subject matter ... that's pretty sad. A paper that rates The Virgin Suicides and The Perfect Storm (chalk up one more star there cause they all died right?) at four stars, and hates The Matrix is about as confused as you can get.

After reading so many backward reviews (whatever you guys hate is what a lot of the folks here at work know to go see), I felt compelled to send this e-mail. I'm sure you are all great people, but you definitely need more variety in the reviewer department. Every week it gets more and more predictable, and I think that's a shame.

Brian Hull,

disgruntled reader

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Schedule Sucks

Editor:

A Tuesday Proposal

I know that the Chronicle's publication schedule has been every Thursday for too many years to count now, but I can't count either how many times now I've read about "not to be missed" events a day or two after they've occurred. Couldn't you bump it up a day or two? In a city with so much going on I can't be the only reader who needs a few days to read the listings and figure out where to go. I think that you would be far more widely read and relied upon if you published on Tuesdays, when everyone was just starting to look ahead to the weekend plans. Most Tuesdays lack a face anyway.

Hey thanks,

Jason Daniels