Monday, June 20, 2005
Same Old Socialism
Save Our Springs Alliance Slipstreams Road Rage to Enact Utopia
As a denizen of Southwest Austin, I am a faithful reader of the Oak Hill Gazette. The June 17 edition featured a story about Save Our Springs (SOS) Alliance's latest obstruction of human progress. Says the story, SOS
The likelier motive is perpetuate their parade of petty torments that prevent timely development, thus operationalizing their collectivist impulse. Later on, the story says:
It sounds like a square deal at first, until you take into account an annoying little factoid: the population of the Hays/Travis/Williamson county area is projected to increase from 1.16M in 2000 to 2.75M by 2030, according to CAMPO. Housing and road capacity is already scarce as it is. Making large tracts of land off limits to development is going to make it hard to house and transport all these new people, unless they were forced to live in some type of urbanized, public trans-ified, high density latte-topia.
Which is, of course, precisely what environmentalists want. As I blogged about here, the city fathers recently signed onto the socialist, UN Urban Environmental Accords, which require cities to "adopt urban planning principles and practices that advance higher density." Therefore, this "preserve" chicanery by SOS is really a land grab that would put huge tracts off limits to development, thus aligning regional growth towards the collectivist Shangri La.
I understand and sympathize with Oak Hill residents' on-going contretemps with TxDOT, CAMPO, CTRMA, and other mobility acronyms. And I can see why they seek out allies like SOS that seem willing to help. But I urge them to be careful about getting into bed with radical environmentalists. SOS seems to be furtively slipstreaming the angst over toll roads and elevated highways to enact their utopian vision.
In other words, while SOS claims to be working to save the Barton Spring Salamander, the real endangered species could be suburban dwelling families.
As a denizen of Southwest Austin, I am a faithful reader of the Oak Hill Gazette. The June 17 edition featured a story about Save Our Springs (SOS) Alliance's latest obstruction of human progress. Says the story, SOS
"...filed a notice of its intent to file a lawsuit in Federal Court concerning the U.S. Highway 290 West expansion through Oak hill. It will challenge alleged "glaring inadequacies...in the biological assessment" for the construction of additional lanes from Joe Tanner Lane to Scenic Brook Drive.Thus, our friendly neighborhood environmentalists are making good on the threat they made last month to unleash their lawyers on anyone daring to develop over the Barton Creek watershed. I'm not sure how far SOS is going to get suing TxDOT and two federal agencies, but I suspect that victory is not the point. (The Austin Business Journal has further coverage of this story).
The Federal Court case challenges the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Federal Highway Administration, and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and will question the biological assessment of impacts to the Barton Springs Salamander. "
(BTW: The OHG story features a mug shot of the Barton Springs Salamander. It looks like a translucent bratwurst with skinny legs.)
The likelier motive is perpetuate their parade of petty torments that prevent timely development, thus operationalizing their collectivist impulse. Later on, the story says:
"As mitigation, SOS wants the defendants to see about acquiring preserve land as compensation for impacts of the expanded highway system in Oak Hill that will go over the Barton Springs watershed."There they go again with their infernal "preserve" ruse. Ostensibly, SOS will finally allow much needed roads to be built in return for "preserve" land that would be off-limits to future development.
It sounds like a square deal at first, until you take into account an annoying little factoid: the population of the Hays/Travis/Williamson county area is projected to increase from 1.16M in 2000 to 2.75M by 2030, according to CAMPO. Housing and road capacity is already scarce as it is. Making large tracts of land off limits to development is going to make it hard to house and transport all these new people, unless they were forced to live in some type of urbanized, public trans-ified, high density latte-topia.
Which is, of course, precisely what environmentalists want. As I blogged about here, the city fathers recently signed onto the socialist, UN Urban Environmental Accords, which require cities to "adopt urban planning principles and practices that advance higher density." Therefore, this "preserve" chicanery by SOS is really a land grab that would put huge tracts off limits to development, thus aligning regional growth towards the collectivist Shangri La.
I understand and sympathize with Oak Hill residents' on-going contretemps with TxDOT, CAMPO, CTRMA, and other mobility acronyms. And I can see why they seek out allies like SOS that seem willing to help. But I urge them to be careful about getting into bed with radical environmentalists. SOS seems to be furtively slipstreaming the angst over toll roads and elevated highways to enact their utopian vision.
In other words, while SOS claims to be working to save the Barton Spring Salamander, the real endangered species could be suburban dwelling families.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
AusBlogFlog
There are some new additions to the VitW blogroll and the Austin blogosphere that are worth your time today....
- News of the Day: Rapid fire, tongue-in-cheek Texas Capitol commentary from the right. The picture of the Austin press corps currently on the front page is hilarious.
- Schliefkevision: Painter and social critic Mike Schliefke works and ruminations on life in Austin. His AusTHIN post, a send-up of the Austin smoking ban website, is a veritable laugh riot.
- Mattsapundit: While technically not in Austin, Lone Star Times co-blogger Matt Bramanti's solo effort features a post lambasting Houston's radical enviros that all Weird City denizens should read.
- Austin Review: There's hope for Austin after all! "The Voice of Reason for Central Texas" has returned, this time in an all-digital format. The in-depth, investigative writings of Marc Levin, Ken Bell et al is a much needed counterweight to the local legacy media and should help bring sanity and accountability to local government. But they need to add a PayPal "Donate" link!
Check out Marc Levin's cheeky recap of Jennifer Kim's win in the recent Austin City Council run off: conservative voters are continuing to make their presence felt in local elections.
