Cars Won't Cut It

Dear Editor,
    I keep hearing about traffic impact analyses going on in different parts of town. At the same time, I keep seeing people who live Downtown and work Downtown not taking the bus. To the citizens who think that any TIA is going to solve traffic problems, think again. Austinites are making a choice. If you live Downtown and drive to work and home again, with no kids to pick up and no business to conduct, you are making a choice. Even worse, you are making a choice for me, a citizen who chooses to take the bus. The bus can't go through the cars, so you keep the rest of the citizens behind unless they, too, get cars and join the traffic problem. Traffic gets worse with more cars on the road. Period. There's no reason to think that if we build more roads and keep making it easy for cars to drive, people will stop driving and start taking the bus. That's irresponsible, and no matter how many TIAs are done, if people keep driving, traffic will get worse. Austin is getting bigger, and those of you who live in quaint, quiet neighborhoods are naive not to expect growth. Cars are simply not going to cut it all the time anymore.