Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Jim Bowie & Davy Crockett Would Ride

San Antonio leaders are very optimistic in saying they will have streetcars in three years. And that would put Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio ahead of Austin in the Transit Space Race.
Henry Muñoz, VIA Metropolitan Transit’s board chairman, said he expects the agency to break ground in two or three years and will announce in the next month a citizens advisory committee to help guide the creation of a starter streetcar system.

5 comments:

kenf said...

Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, aren't they somewhat conservative? And isn't Austin considered somewhat lefty? Couple this with nimbyism in Berkley. I think that many liberals will not let their ideology interfere with their lifestyle.

Matthew said...

Does it even surprise you at at all? Austinites only fancy themselves "liberal" when it doesn't get in the way of their car-centric lifestyle. I think some of them think that rail will turn us into Dallas or Houston, whereas the truth is that we'll be closer to turning into them w/out rail.

AJ said...

San Antonio isn't conservative, there are just a lot of military families swapping in and out from time to time that push the vote. SA voted for Obama and the mayor was in the gay pride parade there.

Austin on the other hand is having growing pains, fearful that what made them attractive and "weird" in the first place may be stomped out and flattened. Couple that with terribly incompetent and marginally irrational transit advocacy and a lack of spinal fortitude in city government and you get, well, Austin being Austin.

Jon said...

streetcars would be a nice complement to downtown san antonio which has a fairly healthy downtown, lots of tourists and the beautiful human-scaled riverwalk. i get the sense once you leave the downtown area things change quite rapidly into your typical texan sprawl.

Matt Fisher said...

Remember the Alamo? (Ha ha.) Sounds like this is going to make "far left" Austin look bad. :)