One of my favorite sports in Texas Legislative season is spotting the looniest pieces of legislation that are introduced at the biennial law making extravaganza. This year, as always, there are the usual attacks on science and education and women. However, my favorite so far is a satirical bill that would make masturbation illegal.
But then there are the bills that aren’t jokes, and if they become law, they could really harm Texas and Texans.
Streetsblog.org has put together a shortlist of such legislation. The list includes a bill that would take away municipalities’ ability to use red light enforcement cameras, even though studies have shown that the cameras do make streets safer. There is a bill that would require all board members of Municipal Planning Organizations (which in North Texas is the NCTCOG) to be elected officials, which Streetsblog argues would dilute the diversity of representation on such boards. There are even bills that would make it illegal to stand in roadways, and one that would block TxDOT from creating dedicated toll lanes, which the Streetsblog author says would perpetuate an implicit highway subsidy:
According to my work on the Texas Transportation Equity Assessment, TXDOT redistributed about $5 billion of wealth from the Houston region to rural roads. And in general, driving is already heavily subsidized in Texas, with tolls and other user fees covering a small fraction of the costs of all roads.
Perhaps the scariest bill is one the Dallas Morning News reported on over the weekend. It would require communities to stage a public referendum before accepting federal funding for public transit. At first, some of you transit wonks who have been following the bickering over DART’s proposed Cotton Belt line, the D2 downtown expansion, and the transit agencies long legacy of laying miles of track to no where while failing in its commitment to provide adequate inner-city public transit might think this bill could be a good thing — a safety catch to reign in DART. After all, if it passes, there’s no way the Cotton Belt would be approved by voters.
But that is to miss the forest for the trees. The reality is public transit is one of the most important investments this city and region can make in the future. No, it doesn’t work very well today. But Dallas and North Texas have to figure out how to make it work if the region wants to figure out how to remain competitive and foster long-term sustainable growth. Effectively cutting off federal funds for public transit would be suicide, and the bill, like many others on this list, is shortsighted and stupid.
