KLRU
Press Needs to Hold Politicians Accountable
RECEIVED Tue., Dec. 11, 2007
Dear Editor,
Michael King's "Point Austin" last week [News, Dec. 7] about retiring Round Rock state Rep. Mike Krusee describes him as "a forceful local mass-transit advocate." While the article acknowledges that Krusee is "the legislative face of Texas toll roads," King portrays Krusee as a "convert" to New Urbanism.
Krusee's legacy will be that of the highway builders' lapdog, eagerly fetching new funding schemes to build hundreds of acres of new highway lanes. Krusee orchestrated passage of the biggest boom for highway construction in Texas history (House Bill 3588 in 2003), helped the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization approve billions of tax dollars for local toll road construction, and admitted to King that building more roads subsidizes suburban commuters. Maybe Krusee did push for some additional rail lines – after the big money was secured for wasteful highway expansions that won't deliver on their promise of "reducing congestion" but will line the pockets of road builders and developers.
New and expanded toll roads make mass transit and walkable communities less viable because they encourage sprawling, low-density development outside city limits. Spending literally billions of public dollars on new and expanded highways – tolled or untolled – is fiscally irresponsible in a future without cheap oil and environmentally irresponsible in a present with global warming.
Which brings me to Katherine Gregor's update on Mayor Wynn's Climate Protection Plan [“The Austin Climate Protection Plan,” News, Dec. 7], in which there is no mention of two big areas where Mayor Wynn makes public decisions that affect greenhouse gas emissions that heat our home planet: transportation and land use. The much-heralded Climate Protection Plan is silent on both; the Chronicle should not be.
Mayor Wynn subscribes to the "growth at all costs" dogma. He voted with Krusee's crowd this year to spend $1.45 billion expanding local highways into toll roads. He votes not just for Downtown condos but for every imaginable subdivision that needs city approval to convert farm and ranch land into auto-dependent development on the outskirts of town, new houses in the suburbs whose owners will be stuck driving cars – perhaps on Krusee's toll roads – to get everywhere, increasing our greenhouse gas emissions!
Please stop letting local politicians spin their way out of accountability for their actions. Krusee and Wynn talk "New Urbanist" and "green" but their actions as elected representatives support the growth machine of sprawl that keeps us addicted to cars.
I'm glad Mike Krusee is now supporting mass transit. I'm glad Will Wynn is talking about global warming. But we need the press to hold politicians accountable for their actions that contradict their sound bites.
Michael King's "Point Austin" last week [News, Dec. 7] about retiring Round Rock state Rep. Mike Krusee describes him as "a forceful local mass-transit advocate." While the article acknowledges that Krusee is "the legislative face of Texas toll roads," King portrays Krusee as a "convert" to New Urbanism.
Krusee's legacy will be that of the highway builders' lapdog, eagerly fetching new funding schemes to build hundreds of acres of new highway lanes. Krusee orchestrated passage of the biggest boom for highway construction in Texas history (House Bill 3588 in 2003), helped the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization approve billions of tax dollars for local toll road construction, and admitted to King that building more roads subsidizes suburban commuters. Maybe Krusee did push for some additional rail lines – after the big money was secured for wasteful highway expansions that won't deliver on their promise of "reducing congestion" but will line the pockets of road builders and developers.
New and expanded toll roads make mass transit and walkable communities less viable because they encourage sprawling, low-density development outside city limits. Spending literally billions of public dollars on new and expanded highways – tolled or untolled – is fiscally irresponsible in a future without cheap oil and environmentally irresponsible in a present with global warming.
Which brings me to Katherine Gregor's update on Mayor Wynn's Climate Protection Plan [“The Austin Climate Protection Plan,” News, Dec. 7], in which there is no mention of two big areas where Mayor Wynn makes public decisions that affect greenhouse gas emissions that heat our home planet: transportation and land use. The much-heralded Climate Protection Plan is silent on both; the Chronicle should not be.
Mayor Wynn subscribes to the "growth at all costs" dogma. He voted with Krusee's crowd this year to spend $1.45 billion expanding local highways into toll roads. He votes not just for Downtown condos but for every imaginable subdivision that needs city approval to convert farm and ranch land into auto-dependent development on the outskirts of town, new houses in the suburbs whose owners will be stuck driving cars – perhaps on Krusee's toll roads – to get everywhere, increasing our greenhouse gas emissions!
Please stop letting local politicians spin their way out of accountability for their actions. Krusee and Wynn talk "New Urbanist" and "green" but their actions as elected representatives support the growth machine of sprawl that keeps us addicted to cars.
I'm glad Mike Krusee is now supporting mass transit. I'm glad Will Wynn is talking about global warming. But we need the press to hold politicians accountable for their actions that contradict their sound bites.
Colin Clark
[News Editor Michael King responds: The Chronicle actively and regularly covers issues related to urban density, sustainable land use, and transportation. This is silence? As Katherine Gregor's coverage of Mayor Wynn's recent call for a passenger rail voter referendum in November 2008 reported, that initiative represents a major mayoral transportation-and-land-use effort aligned with the Austin Climate Protection Plan. That said, we're glad that Colin Clark (and by extension Save Our Springs Alliance) is at last ready to declare his forthright opposition "to new and expanded highways – tolled or untolled," and presumably drop the hypocritical alliance of convenience with anti-tollers, who just want a free ride. Next thing you know, he'll admit to adhering privately to the "dogma" of "no growth at all." That would make it impossible to address in common real community solutions and allow fewer outlets for opportunism – but it would restore SOS to its designated island of purity, whence it can condescendingly lecture everyone else in Austin on "accountability."]
