These guys have nothing to say about this. Pushing claims of false controversy is obviously the game being played by the current crop of right-wingers (ticking off even moderate Republicans like the ones who used to run the show), diagnosis cure but it’s been very disappointing to me how much of that has rubbed off on the supposedly non-partisan libertarians.
Hint: Science doesn’t care if you don’t like the news – and it definitely doesn’t care if you don’t want to admit climate change is anthropogenic and dangerous just because the only effective solutions require some involvement from the evil State.
Chris Mooney has moved here (a much more palatable host) and I’ve added Tim Lambert.
Both often cover the distortion of science perpetrated by the current sorry crop of right-wingers. And don’t fall for bogus claims of balance by shysters trying to convince you both sides are equally bad. They’re just not. This is almost entirely a Republican problem, cheap and it’s not going anywhere. The mostly non-religious but very-rabid right-wingers at my last job were, illness despite being a highly educated and self-described moderate bunch, information pills falling for most of the denial science pushed for profit by the GOP’s pseudoscience shills. If those people are unwilling to use their critical thinking skills when their political party tells them not to, I fear for our future. I ain’t kidding.
For instance: There isn’t really any lack of consensus on global warming, people. The scientists who study climate are overwhelmingly speaking in one voice. The few skeptics who remain are largely shills funded by the oil companies. Yes, for real.
I note in passing that my buddies at Hit and Run are still curiously silent on the global warming news of the day.
I’m still not over the current flare-up of my stupid arthritis (now six months and counting since I was able to do, ophthalmologist essentially, sickness anything) so even though price -97.726307&sspn=0.016302,0.042229&q=restaurant&near=4280+Duval+Street,+Austin,+TX&btnG=Search&latlng=30304463,-97726197,18228028895964040687″>Julio’s is within a good walk, we drove to lunch. My wife wanted to pick up some vegetables at Fresh Plus too. Here’s what we had to do:
- Drive by Julio’s. All spaces taken. Oops.
- Drive by the lot at Fresh Plus. Note that it’s 2/3 empty, unlike the other big lot in the area. Sign says you will be towed if you leave the premises. Oops.
- Drive by the other big lot. Full. (Not really allowed for Julio’s either; probably towable).
- Park on street amidst many people doing the same.
- Walk past Fresh Plus and that other lot over to Julio’s.
- Eat lunch
- Walk back to Fresh Plus and buy vegetables
- Walk past 2/3 empty lot back to car
The even-more-suburban version of this would have entailed us parking at a lot for Julio’s, then having to move the car to the Fresh Plus lot, then driving home. Some folks would prefer that business customers don’t park on the street even in Hyde Park so that’s not that far off. In fact, a local small business opening was/is being held up over such concerns. (if you can’t read the hyde park group and you’re really interested in the details, email me).
This shopping center was used before by Karen McGraw as an example of a good solution to the parking-versus-neighborhood-streets ‘problem’ when another business on Guadalupe was trying to get a variance to open with far less than suburban-norm parking. Didn’t seem that good to me – pretty damn inefficient to have 2/3 of Fresh Plus’ lot sitting there empty (and the big lot shared by Hyde Park Bar & Grill and other businesses is often underutilized as well, although not today).
We’re not that unusual – when people do drive to this commercial node (many walk or bike), it’s quite often to hit several places at once. Most either do what we do and park on the street (thus pissing off the neighbors) or risk getting towed because they ‘left the premises’.
Does this strike anybody else as good? What the hell’s wrong with just abolishing these stupid parking requirements anyways – businesses that absolutely can’t live without dedicated off-street parking would continue to build it; but we wouldn’t be left with these wide expanses of mandated, but empty, parking. And if there was a huge demand for off-street parking, somebody could build (shudder) a pay lot instead of forcing businesses to subsidize drivers at the expense of cyclists and pedestrians.
Folks, if you want to live in a real city, you have to get to that place where you realize that forcing every business to have its own parking lot is just stupid, stupid, stupid. You end up with blight (like on Guadalupe) because you just can’t pound that square suburban peg into the circular urban hole.
Both Austinist and Metroblogging Austin wrote articles about Cap Metro which talked about commuter rail and didn’t link here to any one of the hundred or so articles in my vast Cap Metro commuter rail category archive. My feelings are hurt. More importantly: Baby Jebus is crying.
Update: Both have now added links to the category archive here, this site so that hopefully new readers can get a lot of backstory. Thanks, implant both of you.
A summary:
- Capital Metro did not seek Federal money because they knew they’d not get much. The FTA was unlikely to rate this commuter rail plan very highly – even Cap Metro’s own figures show a very small number of people riding, because this piece-of-crap Krusee debacle doesn’t actually go anywhere people want to go, like UT, the Capitol, or Congress Avenue, and their bogus stuck-in-traffic ‘circulator’ is only going to circulate bums and other carless transit-dependent folks because of the extra time and discomfort involved in a three-seat ride. Oh, and it also doesn’t go near any of the center-city neighborhoods that actually like to use transit.
- The 2000 light rail plan, on the other hand, was rated pretty highly by the FTA and would have clearly obtained a good chunk of federal funding, as would a scaled-back version of same, due to much higher projected ridership (compared to the Krusee craptrain above).
- The union, whether you like them or not, would be committing suicide if they consented to a two-tier wage structure. Any position by Cap Metro which includes that change is, therefore, evidence that they don’t want to negotiate, but rather, that their desire is to kill the union.
