Austin’s liberal establishment has been trying to trick taxpayers into pouring billions into their light rail boondoggle for decades, finally winning an apparent victory when voters approved a scheme in 2020. But it turns out that the terms of the ballot language may have doomed the project.
Austin’s controversial light rail program, approved by voters in 2020, could be null and void due to an allegedly unconstitutional financing proposal.
According to press reports, during a court hearing, proponents of the transit scheme found themselves unable to defend the project’s ability to borrow money. Absent this authority, it is unlikely to continue.
At issue is the convoluted structure of the measure presented to voters in 2020. Designed to evade state limits on debt and borrowing (which seemed like a money laundering arrangement), the measure created a so-called “governmental corporation” called the Austin Transit Partnership. According to the 2020 proposal, the Austin Transit Partnership was supposed to be funded by a one-time increase to the city’s maintenance and operations property tax.
However, proponents of the project lowballed the cost estimate.
Austin’s liberal establishment, lowball cost to get something passed?
Combined with Biden’s inflation, this has led to a situation where the Austin Transit Partnership now needs to borrow substantial sums.
Unfortunately for proponents, state law prohibits using maintenance and operations property tax dollars to pay debt for so-called ‘governmental corporations.’ While a second component of the property tax—interest and sinking—could be used to pay debt, that’s not what was approved in 2020.
It was obvious to any non-Democrat that the Project Connect light rail project was a boondoggle from the git-go, just as the previous light rail effort was a failure. The fact that more than three years on, Project Connect still doesn’t have a definite plan or path is a handy indication of its dysfunction. Hopefully Texas courts will put it out of Austin taxpayer’s misery.
But I’m sure lots of consultants got paid quite handsomely…
Tags: Adam Cahn, Austin, Democrats, light rail, Texas Scorecard, waste
A LibCong playpen crashed. Doesn’t happen often enough.
Sounds like they were too smart for their own good.
Something like that. It wasn’t smart, but it was something like smart.
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In the mid 90’s I worked in a bar that was frequented by local pols. I got to know one of them and we used to talk about the local issues of the day on slow nights.
I distinctly remember a conversation we had about light rail and how it seemed NOBODY wanted it and thought the whole thing was a boondoggle and a waste of resources. Not to mention that Austin just wasn’t growing in a way that light rail would alleviate the traffic problems (the initial selling point).
My friend then bottom lined it all for me by saying,”The thing that you have to understand is that there will be light rail and that is what matters now. The money (bribes) has been doled out and no one is even talking about trying to stop it.”
So for 30 years light rail was nothing more than a rolling bribe machine that the local pols siphoned from whenever anyone tried to impede or halt the progress.
If you think this will stop them from coming back to the trough with another scheme, you are mistaken. How many times did they try before getting the first phase of the boondoggle approved by the voters? My recollection is three, but it could be more.
Be smart and sponsor a free bus trolley like Scottsdale( not stupid like Phoenix). For far less than the capital cost of the tiny choo choo , not to mention the operating losses it would incur, Austin can provide tourists and residents free and fun public transportation.
Among the consultants, was there a guy named “Perryman?
Funny thing, when Minneapolis was debating the first choo-choo I was told by a sensitive caring liberal that he would ride light rail, but not buses, because buses were beneath him. Nowadays Twin Cities light rail is where you go to shoot up and nod off, or to rob people foolish enough to ride.
A CVS store manager said his shrink tripled when light rail built in front of his store. Somali teens were the main perpetrators. Since no one is checking fares on the train, the teens jump on and off anywhere they like. Go in the store, fill pockets or backpacks, run out and who cares? The police won’t even look at you sternly.
Minneapolis’ Dinkytown, one of those funky college neighborhoods going back to Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street,” has become a hellhole at night with Somalis robbing, beating and shooting. They’d have no reason to be there, except light rail gives them an easy, free in and out.
@Gordon Scott
Dinkytown? Isn’t that the neighborhood that Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist James Lileks is always romanticizing in his nostalgia pieces?
>> I distinctly remember a conversation we had about light rail and how it seemed NOBODY wanted it
I can agree with this. Before any light rail appeared in town, I voted FOR it two to three times, and every single time, it FAILED. Imagine my surprise when we ended up with news that we were getting light rail. I was actually upset – we voted AGAINST it, even though I wanted it, we should not have gotten it. Seemed to me that they kept putting light rail up for vote again and again, hoping for one time it would pass, and eventually gave up and just did it to us anyway.
Of course, the light rail we got out of it was crap. It went from Leander, an even smaller satellite town than now, all the way to… Nowhere useful. Campus? Nope. Downtown? Oh that would have been a good idea but no, not for YEARS. At least it went to the airport right? Nope! What a waste.