Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Transit Chickens Have Come Home to Roost
RECEIVED Fri., Aug. 1, 2008
Dear Editor,
Katherine Gregor's article "Who'll Take a Streetcar? 32,000 Riders a Day." [“Developing Stories,” News, Aug. 1] really intrigued me. Since I am handicapped and cannot drive, I have always been a mass-transit advocate.
But this pie-in-the-sky proposal is dead on arrival for lots of reasons. The days of large federal payouts for mass transit are long gone. For the city of Austin and Capital Metro to waste their time even "planning" something on this grand scale is ludicrous. And to top it off, they propose streetcars in the very same week that they discontinue most of the Downtown 'Dillo routes for lack of riders.
Unfortunately, the chickens have come home to roost on the efforts to bring every California and New York business to Austin. When we finally run out of room and reach total gridlock on the roads, will our leaders simply scratch their heads and say, "Aw, gosh, how did this happen?"
Katherine Gregor's article "Who'll Take a Streetcar? 32,000 Riders a Day." [“Developing Stories,” News, Aug. 1] really intrigued me. Since I am handicapped and cannot drive, I have always been a mass-transit advocate.
But this pie-in-the-sky proposal is dead on arrival for lots of reasons. The days of large federal payouts for mass transit are long gone. For the city of Austin and Capital Metro to waste their time even "planning" something on this grand scale is ludicrous. And to top it off, they propose streetcars in the very same week that they discontinue most of the Downtown 'Dillo routes for lack of riders.
Unfortunately, the chickens have come home to roost on the efforts to bring every California and New York business to Austin. When we finally run out of room and reach total gridlock on the roads, will our leaders simply scratch their heads and say, "Aw, gosh, how did this happen?"
Bill Oakey
