Monday Morning Report
|
The Executive Committee meets Wednesday, August 20 at 2:00pm at the Corridor Council offices located at 304 N CM Allen Parkway in San Marcos. Please RSVP to Sarah@thecorridor.org if you plan to attend.
Mark your calendars: The Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council's Transportation Task Force will meet at 1:30 pm Tuesday, September 23, 2008 in San Marcos. Site to be determined. For info: Sarah@thecorridor.org.
We accidentally slighted San Antonio Express-News reporter Pat Driscoll last week by clumsily mixing up some references to other coverage of TxDOT's rail relocation studies. He's a fine journalist and the mistake was ours.
Infrastructure
Gasoline is more affordable now than it was during the early 1960s, an era fondly remembered by many as halcyon days of cheap fuel and gas-guzzling American cars, says an op-ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times. "We're overlooking that context because it's easier to remember 1998, when we saw the lowest inflation-adjusted gasoline prices in recorded history," argue two writers from the Cato Institute here.
Lockhart, after weeks of discussion, will allow motorists to use electric vehicles (golf carts) to move around town on streets with a 35-mile-per-hour or less speed limit. High gas prices sparked the action. Details.
Cesar Chavez Street in downtown Austin, which had been one-way only for the last thirty year, opens to two-way traffic today. Details.
The 11th Annual Transportation Summit in Irving is this week, beginning tomorrow (8/12), with a long list of well-known national speakers. Council staff gives a presentation on railroad relocation funding at 3:00 pm Tuesday, (8/12).
The Utah Transit Authority will break ground today on the FrontRunner South commuter-rail line, launching construction on the third of five rail lines to be built under the agency's FrontLines 2015 program. The project will extend the existing Ogden-to-Salt Lake City Front Runner line 44 miles south to Provo. Scheduled to be complete in 2012, the eight-station line will run along existing Union Pacific Railroad right of way.
Economic Development
The last San Antonio-built Toyota Tundra, vintage 2008, rolled of the line Friday. In an effort to help Toyota sell off the 2008 model Tundras that have amassed on dealer lots, the line will be silent for the next three months, if not longer. Sometime in mid-November, the line in San Antonio, as well as in Princeton, Ind. will start building 2009 models of the pickup.
Texas residents pay a smaller percentage of their incomes for state and local taxes than 42 of the 50 states, according to a study by the Tax Foundation. The state has placed among the 10 lowest-taxed states in every one of the 32 years the Washington-based group has conducted its survey.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $556 million contract to Clark Hunt Construction Inc. to proceed with Base Realignment and Closure-related construction at Fort Sam Houston. Once the project is completed, BAMC will be rebranded as the north campus of the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC), or SAMMC North. The total cost of BRAC and related military construction projects is expected to exceed $2 billion in San Antonio.
An oversight panel approved Capital Metro’s proposed fare hikes in Austin last week. The change increases the local bus fare by 25 cents to 75 cents in fall 2008 and to $1.00 in fall 2010. The proposal also includes establishing fares for the new commuter rail, set to begin service in the fall. Fare will be $1 for one-way travel within one of the 32-mile line’s two zones and $1.50 to transfer between zones. Fares would increase to $1.50 and $2 in fall 2010.
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
-Alfred Hitchcock