Yeah, but you're not in SA in July.
No, they're going to build a highway straight through a thriving middle class Hispanic neighborhood (281) and then they're going to vote to put the universities, medical centers etc in the northside so that 30 years later stupid s like you come along and say "of course they're building roads there".
They did a pretty ing good job, apparently.
Of course 30 years later when the Southside has better representation and actually is getting universities and economic development like Toyota dumb s like Pakidan say they're just being dirty Mexicans.
I guess the moral of the story is dumb s will be dumb s.
Yeah, it's pretty useless.
I'm a 10 minute walk from the Lakeline stop, and have still never used the rail. Particularly since I don't work downtown, and it doesn't run during any of the times that I would prefer to be going (evening/nights).
Would definitely be a nice option as compared to a $40 cab ride, but apparently they don't want to cash in on the drinking crowd.
There's not much information online about the Good Government League but I was fortunate to have a professor who had done a good deal of research on the subject while I attended SAC. Much of what she collected was done via first hand interviews and accounts from those involved in politics through the era they controlled San Antonio. She gave them credit for certain accomplishments that benefit San Antonio such as the Hemisfair but they also funneled infrastructure where they wanted and not where it would benefit the citizens of San Antonio.
I believe at their height before at large voting came to an end they lost a grand total of 2 elections (this spans over decades).
This is the only detailed account I could find online.
http://www.lared-latina.com/cops.htmTo understand the magnitude of COPS accomplishments in the last 30 years,
one has to understand the socio-economic and political situation of the
Mexican American community in San Antonio during the 60s and early 70s.
Since the early 50s the GGL,(Good Government League) comprised of wealthy
Anglo ranchers and businessmen from the North Side had almost full control
of electoral politics in San Antonio. The GGL had the wealth, clout and
influence, to arbitrarily select as well as generate the votes to elect
City Councilmen in San Antonio.
Harry Boyte, of the Humphrey Ins ute of Public Affairs, notes," In the
early seventies, San Antonio still had a "colonial" air where a small
group of businessmen, most of whom belonged to the segregated Texas
Cavalier Country Club, held sway. City council members were elected at
large, which meant that Mexican and African American candidates could
almost never raise funds to compete."
In a 1988 Commonwealth article, Henry Cisneros, who holds masters and
doctoral degrees from Harvard, noted that in the late 60s San Antonio was
"so poor that Peace Corps volunteers were trained in its barrios (West and
South sides) to simulate the conditions they would face in Latin America.
Thousands of Hispanics and black families lived in colonias, with
common-wall, shotgun houses built around public sanitation facilities with
outdoor toilets. The barrios had no sidewalks or paved streets, no
drainage system or flood control. Every spring brought flooding; families
were driven from their homes; children walked to school through mud
sloughs. In the shadow of downtown San Antonio lurked a stateside
third-world 'country'."
At the height of the civil-rights movement," Ernesto Cortes, former Senior
COPS organizer and recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Award wrote, "It was
not unusual to equate the repressive conditions under which the Mexicanos
of South Texas lived to the situation of blacks in the Deep South. Racism
and cultural repression reinforced an economic need to maintain a
reactionary social and political framework for the state."
Fast Forward to 2005, when one sees the level of political diversity, and
ethnic harmony in San Antonio, folks, especially young people, may think
this is the way it has always been. Without COPS intervention back in the
early 70's, it is likely that the GGL or some other similar elitist
organization might still be holding a socio-political, and economic
monopoly in San Antonio. It is also highly likely that the dire economic
and political conditions of the Mexican-American community in San Antonio
might still be the same, or perhaps even worse, today as they were in the
60's.
San Antonio, was virtually turned upside down socially, economically and
politically. COPS indeed revolutionized San Antonio, and did so in a
relatively peaceful, and harmonious fashion. Some of COPS major
accomplishments are the following:
so san antonio is vehicle oriented because of mexicans?
A couple things about rail in Austin:
1. What Austin has is NOT light rail. It is commuter rail. Light rail generally runs at least partially in street right of way (like Houston, Portland, etc), and provides a viable alternative to cars because it goes the same places as major roads. Commuter rail runs on existing rail lines that may or may not go anywhere near where people want to go (like UT, The Capital complex, or the airport).
2. Austin very narrowly voted down light rail about 10 years ago. The campaign was poorly planned and run, and the light rail plan, which was excellent and went to places people need to get to daily, was not rolled out until it was too late to build support and the anti-rail meme had already taken hold. Why an election when DFW and HOU didn't have elections to start their light rail systems? Because the state legislature loves to with Austin and passed a special bill specifically targeting Austin's public transit agency forcing an election before any money can be spent on rail.
3. Several year later, as a "compromise" some of the anti-rail pols who were against light rail offered to support a vote retrofitting the existing freight line CapMetro already owned for commuter rail service. In the biggest mistake of it's existence, CapMetro decided to go along with this plan to get rail going in Austin, despite the evidence that it would fail (south Florida's Tri-Rail Commuter line also is a big failure ridership wise for the same reason - it doesn't go anywhere people need to go. Incidentally south Florida also has a successful light raill system.)
4. Despite the fact that Houston has some of the worst sprawl in the country and is a very decentralized city, Houston has one of the most successful light rail lines in the country. Why the success? They started with a small line but built it to connect areas that people actually travel back and forth to daily. Houston took the transit to where the people are, and it's doing great. Austin was forced into using a route nobody really uses and that doesn't connect to major employment / density centers. Of course it's their own damn fault for agreeing to it, but they were pretty much backed into a corner.
5. If light rail is planned with a modi of intelligence and common sense (like Houston, Dallas, even Salt Lake City has a popular light rail system now) it would work in San Antonio. You have to look at WHY some systems succeed and WHY others fail before saying "it didn't work in Austin so it won't work in San Antonio."
depends what kind of infrastructure youre talking about. a simple tactic city planners use to deal with ghettos (ins utionalized) is run major roads and highways right through the commercial sectors of the ghetto, so theres an empty s left over that creates a jobless ghetto. the city can then declare atrophy, purchase the land from the residents (for pennies on the dollar), move them into government housing or run them off, and build hospital complexes, government buildings and giant parks where the ghetto once was. happens all the time.
Even if you did work downtown I doubt you would use it because it lets people out at the convention center. Most of the employment downtown is so far away people have to transfer to busses to get to their buildings / final destinations. The transfer time makes the whole thing time neutral at best compared to driving. It's a system that will never be successful until there is a light rail component that connects (at a minimum) UT, the Capital complex, and the Airport to the system.
By the way, A 10 minute walk is about the maximum time the average person will walk to transit (and really 5-7 minutes is more ideal, especially in Texas heat) - the term used for for this radius around a transit stop is a pedestrian-shed (think watershed but with people instead of water). If you don't have a lot of sources/destinations for riders within that pedestrian shed you are not going to have good ridership.
Last edited by Mark in Austin; 10-19-2010 at 07:29 PM.
The Spurs only motivation was to go with the site that had the best odds of voter approval in an election to get funding. One aspect of the county proposal that hasn't been mentioned yet is that by going on county land, the election could be county-wide, not just in the city limits. Polling showed that including county voters increased the odds of the measure passing.
Or, maybe it's because is just very spread out here and doesn't lend itself to light rail.
, Detroit has the "people mover" system, which is like a ed up Disney ride through a post-apocalyptic world.
Light rail is the silly little train in DFW, with the inane, non-stop announcements "
the doors are closing,
we are starting,
we are leaving the station,
we are arriving as the station,
we are stopping,
the doors are opening
repeat repeat repeat.
Are Americans that stupid?
Public transport in sunbelt surburbia ain't gonna happen for decades, if ever.
Now if gas were taxed to about $8/gallon, indexed to inflation, and the taxes used to pay for public transport, then we'd force people to use cars a lot less, and force a contraction of the suburbs back towards denser city centers. Plus high gas prices would push people away from carbon for fuel. Ain't gonna happen, the carbon energy industries own the political class.
Hey, the People Mover isn't all bad. I'd rather take the People Mover from Greektown to the Joe Louis Arena than walk at 10pm any day. Downtown parking in Detroit sucks ass.
Yes, but when you fight for projects in your district to the detriment of the rest of the city wouldn't you call that counter productive? 281? Are you serious? Would the 281 project better have served the southside? Is that what you are telling me? The 'give me' at ude makes me sick.
You are so wise. Go cash your foodstamps and have a good dinner on me.
Excellent post.
Its not that the 281 project would have better served the south side, its about people with ty representation having the route go though their neighborhood because it is what was good for others.
What ing give me at ude are you talking about? People are en led to fight using their representation and somehow that is pissing you off. There is nothing "give me" about that.
Your overall ignorance makes me sick. Somehow when people try to work the system its the worst thing in the world to you but nevermind that system is consistently worked by everyone else. Sure, the fact that a small group of white business owners ran the out of the city up until 1980 and ran it to their benefit doesn't piss you off even though that same infrastructure that they built is still what everyone has to work with today.
You have a perception that as far as I know is backed up with no facts. You cited the ATT center as an example but of course you're wrong about why that is where it is. Until you provide some examples of what you're talking about then I can only surmise you're full of .
HA. Sorry to disappoint you but the only money I get from the government is via student loans. I doubt your tax money is even covering what you take out of the system much less paying for others food stamps unless you're making far more than I give you credit for.
In any event, you've either equated wanting people to have equal representation to government assistance or you're equating being Mexican with government assistance. Judging by your comments in the first post I'm pretty sure I know which it is.
Must suck to hate yourself so much, Daniel. Must make you sick to look in the mirror and see that brown skin.
it was also easy to get voter approval by sticking the costs of the ATT Center on hotel taxes instead of raising city taxes to pay for an alamodome extension.
I was equating it with liberalism... but I could see how you could infer that given my tone. Touche my friend.
I think City Council representation cuts both ways. Austin has no single member districts but there is a gentlemen's agreement that keeps several of the seats for minority council members. At first I thought this was a good thing - every council member should vote for what is best for the city as a whole. What has wound up happening though is that this has strengthened the power of central Austin neighborhood groups. As examples, they have successfully fought off every reasonable densification effort on a policy level as well as individual projects, and made it more difficult for venues to play live music (ironic for a city that claims to be the live music capital of the world).
I like the idea of a mix of at-large and single member districts to provide some balance between the two. It is something that is occasionally discussed here but I think it has lost steam recently.
It's happening all over the sunbelt. Dallas. Houston. Phoenix. Salt Lake City. Atlanta. Charlotte.
Or you could design competent, convenient systems like Houstons that people naturally gravitate to right now.
Or you could let simple demographics do the heavy lifting. People are already moving into denser city centers, and the two biggest demographic groups are leading the charge: 1. Boomers and empty nesters looking to downsize and wanting the convenience of being able to walk to get a coffee or take care of other daily errands and, 2. Millennials, who in a larger proportion (and much larger total numbers) are not moving to the suburbs in the first place - the most common reason why: they hated growing up in the burbs themselves and have no interest in going back.
City center populations are increasing, gentrifying, and becoming wealthier. And virtually every city in America is or will be encouraging this trend for the simple fact that denser city centers are more efficient to provide services to, and with budgets stretched to the breaking point or already broken these efficiencies are too vital to the economic health of cities to ignore.
All this isn't to say that the suburbs will be no more. They will still exist. But they won't be as heavily subsidized, and the near exclusive monopoly the suburbs had on where people want to live is changing as quickly as the Boomers age and the Millenials start moving up the economic ladder.
and they say chivalry is dead...
I would use it occasionally if you could use it to get to east 6th occasionally on weekend nights, but it's not for that purpose, which I can't understand. Pay someone to clean out the puke early in the morning and you instantly double the amount of people riding it weekly, and maybe even convince some restaurants and food carts to move into those stations.
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