Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Rail, Like Vampires Never Die!

Like a vampire, commuter rail is still alive and gestating in the bowels of Cap Metro, the regional transportation organization that was created to facilitate transportation projects across central Texas. Wilco Sun

"Eric Bustos, government relations coordinator for Cap Metro, said rail is still on the table, but it would take longer, possibly more than five years, to be put in place."

Unfortunately, Cap Metro is not accountable to a single voting constituency as its board members consist of county and municipal government officials in the region. Therefore, a given electorate can only impact the board member that represents their voting area, and, in the case of Georgetown, the City Council gets to decide who serves on the Cap Metro board and represent the citizens of Georgetown. so at best, the voters would have to change the mayor and a majority of the council to cause a change to the Cap Metro representative.

There is a massive data base in the U.S. compiled over the last 50+ years that show rail is very expensive and never pays for itself. It requires continuous taxpayer subsidies to cover on-going operations costs. Capital costs and upgrades and replacement costs are NEVER paid for by fares.

Let the Mayor, who is your Cap Metro representative, know that he needs to drive a stake through the heart of any commuter rail proposal that impacts Georgetown taxpayers.


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