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Internal Mark your calendars: On September 19th, 4:00 pm, we'll be hosting our San Antonio General Membership meeting with Austin mayor Will Wynn as guest speaker at the International Center. Our Austin General Membership event will take place on November 28 with new TxDOT Commissioner Ned Holmes as guest speaker in a joint meeting with the Capital Area Transportation Coalition. Details as these events get closer. The Corridor Council Transportation Task Force will meet in San Marcos on Tuesday, July 24th, 1:30 pm at the Aquarena Springs Conference Center. We've decided against doing a press event that day (scooped by the San Antonio Express-News) but will be doing a detailed presentation on the new IH-35 Corridor Management Program between Austin-San Antonio, as well as providing updates on legislative issues and the Task Force's policy recommendations. Accenture group will do a briefing on trends in e-ticketing. Infrastructure TxDOT's most recent analysis of NAFTA truck and rail freight movements through the state have produced some sobering statistics: freight truck Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) will quintuple by 2030; the number of through-trucks on IH-35 in the Austin-San Antonio Corridor will exceed 15,000 per day, and freight rail traffic will increase by nearly 300%. Here's a powerpoint presentation on the results; here is the full report. You may have been hearing ads on the radio about how the freight railroads are helping the economy and contributing to fewer trucks on the highways. The group behind those ads has a new website up that is chock-full of useful information about the role of freight railroads in easing traffic congestion. Check it out here. Go here for an update on San Antonio's proposed 47-mile toll road complex along US 281 and Loop 1604. The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority will be moving the project forward after receiving clearance from TxDOT two weeks ago. Austin Senator Kirk Watson is orchestrating a complete overhaul of the way the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization analyzes potential transportation construction projects by using a new 'decision tree' mechanism and project expense/benefits calculator. His Mobility Task Force - made up of local elected officials and advocacy group leaders - meets this Friday (7/20) 10:00 am, at Texas State Capitol Capitol Extension: Room E1.016. See the related documents here. In 1950, there were 2.2 billion people on the planet, mostly spread across rural areas. Today the United Nations estimates world population at 6.6 billion. If today’s birth rates continue unaltered, UN figures suggest there could be 11.7 billion people by 2050. Neal Peirce has some interesting observations on what this means to the world's 'mega-cities' here. Thomas L. Friedman has an interesting take in Sunday's New York Times on the potentially lucrative market for technology solutions that modern traffic congestion represents. He cites IBM's management of traffic in Stockholm as an example of business opportunities that US companies have an advantage in pursuing. Read more here. The Seguin Conservation Society is over halfway to its goal of $2.5 million to restore the Texas Theatre thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Meadows Foundation of Dallas. The ornate movie palace was built in 1931 with mica lamps, romantic murals, gilded shields and a sky dome ceiling with twinkling stars. New Braunfels Director of Planning and Community Development Frank Robbins resigned last week (7/13) at the request of City Manager Michael Morrison. No replacement has been announced yet. Economic Development TxDOT reports that another $72 million in federal aid for state highway funding has been rescinded out of a total of $871 million in federal aid for highway funding from states. Texas is second only to California, which is losing about $79.2 million, in lost funding. San Antonio has been named a finalist for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility, designed by Homeland Security to research biological threats involving human, zoonotic, and foreign animal diseases. The other sites under consideration are in Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina and Mississippi. The Boeing Co. will hire 400 new employees at its site in San Antonio to perform modifications work on 11 new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft once they roll off the assembly line in Washington. Boeing has 1.4 million sq. ft. of enclosed space at the former Kelly Air Force Base and has a total footprint of 150 acres. Austin Community College District is moving ahead with plans for a Round Rock campus. The board of trustees gave ACC the green light to acquire 60 acres next to Texas State University's Round Rock Higher Education Center. According to US Census Bureau's statistics from July 2000 to July 2006, Hutto ranked first as the state's fastest growing city: a population increase from 1,250 in 2000 to 17,227 in 2006 - a growth rate of 666%.
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