Monday Morning Report
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The Corridor Council Executive Committee met last week (4/16) in San Marcos for status reports on various projects including the Amtrak inter-city rail initiative, ongoing discussions on rail relocation efforts, preparations for the 2009 State Legislative session, the I-35 Corridor Management Plan, and funding requests to CAMPO for inter-city rail. Minutes available later this week from council@thecorridor.org.
Hats off to Senator Jeff Wentworth (again!). We received a confirmation letter last week from the Texas Council on Environmental Quality stating that - because of the Senator's energetic intervention - several proposed rail/road grade separations in San Marcos would be eligible for funding from the Texas Emissions Reduction Fund. This caps a year-long effort by the Council and Senator Wentworth to make rail/road intersections that cause significant traffic congestion and air pollution qualify for State financing to pay for grade separations. Thanks again, Senator.
Infrastructure
Carlos Guerra adds his voice to a chorus of writers speculating recently about the effects of higher fuel prices on housing patterns and a probable shift towards urban infill projects as commuting to-and-from outlying suburbs becomes too expensive for many workers. "Drive until you qualify for a mortgage" may no longer be operative, he writes in the Express-News here.
Lockhart and Caldwell County are beginning to see the impacts of this month's completion of Segment 4 of State Highway 130 and the ramp-up towards construction of Segments 5 & 6, which takes the highway to Seguin. Read a Post-Register report on a wetlands mitigation project related to the highway here.
The US Department of Transportation has issued new rules, effective June 1, mandating that freight trains carrying hazardous materials must travel by the safest and most secure route available. The measure requires comprehensive new studies of alternate routes and requires certain additional safeguards. Details here.
Amazing news from allergy researchers: as much as we all complain about allergy season in the Austin-San Antonio Corridor, it turns out that we don't even make the Top Ten cities for such problems, at least according to researchers at the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Worse than here? Knoxville, Tenn.; Lexington, Ken.; and Jackson, Miss. Here's the list.
Economic Development
According to the most recent Texas Workforce Commission report, the number of jobs in the Austin area held steady in March, while statewide employment gains were slighter than the previous month. For the last year, the area gained 21,800 jobs, or a 2.9% increase in total employment. The area unemployment rate is up just slightly at 3.6%, compared with 3.5% in March 2007.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has cut 215 jobs in Austin as part of a larger cost-cutting effort. The Sunnyvale, Calif. - based chipmaker is reducing its workforce overall by 10%. These cuts affected 420 people companywide. Austin is AMD’s largest non- manufacturing site, employing about 2,500 people.
AT&T Inc. plans to eliminate about 4,600 jobs, or 1.5% of its workforce. The San Antonio-based telecommunications company said most of the jobs being cut are at the management level. The company had about 309,000 employees at the end of 2007 and about 2,800 jobs in Austin. Company officials were not able to say whether any of the layoffs would be in Central Texas.
Spirit Airlines Inc. officially launched new daily nonstop service between San Antonio and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Monday. The Miramar, Fla.-based low-cost airline will begin a second daily flight on May 1, 2008. Spirit Airlines flies more than 200 daily flights to 42 destinations in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean.
Solar cell maker HelioVolt Corp. snagged $1 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund. The Austin company has plans to build a 125,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility to produce thin-film solar cells. The plant could employ almost 160 people. The city was in competition with Pennsylvania, New York and California for the plant.
“Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.”
- Vice President Albert Gore