Although I’ve never tried to hide my real name (Mike Dahmus, appended to the end of some of this category in particular), I’ve never done this part, either, and it’s overdue. (Some folks think this is ‘anonymous blogging’ if I don’t, and the distinction is obviously very important as Transit Crackplogging D-Day Approaches).
From 2000-2005, I served on the city’s Urban Transportation Commission, focusing on bicycle/pedestrian and transit issues; although I was the “both biking and driving” guy in between the “all driving” and “all biking” blocs. On election night in 2000, Eric Anderson (force behind the Lance Armstrong Bikeway) and I waved signs together on the corner of 6th and Congress to try to get people to vote for the light rail proposal – which passed, inside the city of Austin, even though the election was rigged by Mike Krusee (forced early to the polls on a night guaranteed to drag out a transit-hostile voting bloc in the suburbs; which helped it lose, barely, overall – by about 1/2 percent).
In May of 2004, I was one of three commissioners given a preview of Capital Metro’s commuter rail proposal (only 3 to avoid a quorum and public notice requirements). I raised many an objection, as did my 2 colleagues (one of whom now sits on the board of the Alliance for Public Transportation). I told them at the close of that meeting that if they went through with it, I’d “be [their] worst enemy” which was hyperbole at the time, since I figured, surely somebody with more clout than my teaspoonful would take up the cause. Everybody else spoke in private about how Austin was getting screwed, and how it would be nigh-impossible to serve central Austin with rail if this plan was passed; but nobody did anything about it publically, so I had to continue and ramp it up, even though I knew it would likely lead to my removal from the commission.
I ended up having to share the stage with Jim Skaggs, an awful fate for which I still hold central Austin transit advocates responsible.
Five years later, here we are.
The picture above is about 5 years old, and courtesy of this article from the Chronicle (I don’t ride my bike or walk much anymore due to a case of reactive arthritis that got significantly worse a few years ago, to the point where if I overdo even walking, I am often incapacitated shortly thereafter, up to and including having to be in a wheelchair in a couple of airports).
I’m a software developer working for the military industrial complex after years doing the same in the private sector; have no ties whatsoever to anybody working in transportation or real estate (development of buildings); and live in Central Austin just south of Hyde Park with a family of 4 (soon to be 5) in a home I’d very much like to have the option to expand along the lines of what McMansion-ordinance proponent and ‘neighbor’ Karen McGraw already did, except not as large as hers!
Anything else? Go to facebook; a link to which has been in the right-side column of this blog for more than a year now.
Why “M1EK”? Goes back to an old in-joke on rec.sport.football.college; fashioned after the notorious B1FF (yes, I was around on USENET via PSUVM back in the day). Look it up.